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. 2016 Mar 23;11(3):e0151593.
doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0151593. eCollection 2016.

Aging and Sensory Substitution in a Virtual Navigation Task

S Levy-Tzedek  1   2 , S Maidenbaum  3 , A Amedi  3   4   5 , J Lackner  6
Affiliations

Aging and Sensory Substitution in a Virtual Navigation Task

S Levy-Tzedek et al. PLoS One. .

Abstract

Virtual environments are becoming ubiquitous, and used in a variety of contexts-from entertainment to training and rehabilitation. Recently, technology for making them more accessible to blind or visually impaired users has been developed, by using sound to represent visual information. The ability of older individuals to interpret these cues has not yet been studied. In this experiment, we studied the effects of age and sensory modality (visual or auditory) on navigation through a virtual maze. We added a layer of complexity by conducting the experiment in a rotating room, in order to test the effect of the spatial bias induced by the rotation on performance. Results from 29 participants showed that with the auditory cues, it took participants a longer time to complete the mazes, they took a longer path length through the maze, they paused more, and had more collisions with the walls, compared to navigation with the visual cues. The older group took a longer time to complete the mazes, they paused more, and had more collisions with the walls, compared to the younger group. There was no effect of room rotation on the performance, nor were there any significant interactions among age, feedback modality and room rotation. We conclude that there is a decline in performance with age, and that while navigation with auditory cues is possible even at an old age, it presents more challenges than visual navigation.

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Conflict of interest statement

Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Figures

Fig 1
Fig 1. Experimental setup.
The participant is seated in the periphery of the Rotating Room, with comfortable head support. She is controlling the movement of the avatar through a virtual maze using the arrow keys of a laptop placed on a flat support located on her lap.
Fig 2
Fig 2. The virtual mazes.
A sketch of the eight virtual mazes that participants were asked to traverse (marked as mazes A-H). A circle (◦) denotes the starting point of the maze, and a square (□) denoted the end point (exit).
Fig 3
Fig 3. The protocol.
A schematic representation of the experimental protocol. Participants started with either a “stationary room” or “rotating room” block of trials, within which they performed the first half of the trials. The block was further divided into auditory and visual blocks, within each one, the participants performed five consecutive repetitions of each of two mazes.
Fig 4
Fig 4. Time to completion of the mazes.
Top row: main effects; bottom row: interaction effects (ns). Significant effects marked with an asterisk.
Fig 5
Fig 5. An example of actual paths traversed by the virtual avatar.
Shown here are sample paths from a senior participant, completing maze G in the visual, stationary condition. Showing trials 1–5 for this maze, from left to right. A light blue circle denotes the starting point, and a dark blue square denotes the end point.
Fig 6
Fig 6. Path length.
Top row: main effects; bottom row: interaction effects (ns). Significant effects marked with an asterisk.
Fig 7
Fig 7. Number of pauses.
Top row: main effects; bottom row: interaction effects (ns). Significant effects marked with an asterisk.
Fig 8
Fig 8. Number of collisions.
Top row: main effects; bottom row: interaction effects (ns). Significant effects marked with an asterisk.
Fig 9
Fig 9. Sample drawings.
Sample drawings from a senior participant, who completed maze B in the auditory, stationary condition. Showing trials 1–5 for this maze, from left to right. A circle denotes the starting point, and a square denotes the end point. Inset: a sketch of the actual maze. This example demonstrates rotation (in all 5 trials) and mirroring (in the first 3 trials, on the left) of the drawings with respect to the actual maze.
Fig 10
Fig 10. Example of a "false-corridor" drawing.
On the left is a drawing made by a young participant, who completed maze D in the auditory, stationary condition. A circle denotes the starting point, and a square denotes the end point. On the right is a sketch of the actual maze. This example demonstrates what we termed a "false corridor", where a dead-end corridor was drawn at 90° to its actual direction.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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References

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Publication types

Grants and funding

The Brandeis-Leir foundation (SL, AA, JL) and the Brandeis-Bronfman foundation (SL, JL) provided funding for this experiment. The research was partially supported by the Helmsley Charitable Trust through the Agricultural, Biological and Cognitive Robotics Center of the Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (SL). The support of the Promobilia Foundation is gratefully acknowledged (SL). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.
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