Distinct aging-related profiles of allocentric knowledge recall following navigation in an immersive, naturalistic, city-like environment

Aging-related declines in spatial navigation pose significant challenges for older adults' independence and quality of life. Among navigational deficits, older adults have been shown to demonstrate deficits in utilizing allocentric (i.e., world-centered) information and rely on egocentric (i.e., body-centered) cues during navigation, resulting in reference frame bias. We investigated naturalistic navigation performance and allocentric knowledge formation in younger adults (N = 30) and older adults (N = 30) using a city-like virtual reality wayfinding task (NavCity) across multiple within-session exposures, paired with a NavCity Allocentric Representation Assessment (NARA). Older adults demonstrated significantly lower navigation performance compared to younger adults including traveling greater distances, taking longer navigation times, moving at slower speeds, and exhibiting longer dwell times while navigating. Despite aging-related differences, both age groups showed similar rates of performance improvement across exposure blocks. Following repeated NavCity exposures, older adults demonstrated lower allocentric knowledge formation, but both age groups demonstrated significant associations with navigation performance. Notably, substantial heterogeneity was observed within the older adult group, with a bimodal distribution in NARA scores that split older adults into higher- and lower-performing subgroups, which corresponded to differences in navigation performance independent of chronological age. Higher-performing older adults exhibited navigation performance and allocentric knowledge formation comparable to younger adults, while lower-performing older adults showed persistent deficits in both navigation performance and allocentric knowledge formation despite repeated exposures. These findings suggest that aging-related navigation decline is not uniform and highlight the possibility of combined virtual navigation and allocentric assessment tasks as potential sensitive, early indicators of aging-related declines in spatial navigation ability.