Reduced vision impairs spatial cognition in fall-prone older adults

The ability to spatially navigate relies on the efficient updating of multisensory spatial information with observer motion. Here we tested the role of visual information in spatial navigation in older adults by measuring distance error-to-target and gait parameters in a triangular walk task. In each trial, either participants could view their surroundings or vision was reduced using blurring goggles. Our results suggest that reduced visual information incurred a cost on efficient updating in younger and older adults relative to when visual information was fully available. However, this cost was particularly profound in older persons with a recent history of falling. Moreover, reduced vision was associated with a compensatory change in gait velocity for all participant groups except for fall-prone older adults. Our results suggest that the mechanism for updating spatial information with observer motion is particularly compromised in older adults who fall, in that they not only show an overreliance on visuo-spatial information for spatial cognition but also fail to adjust their behavior adequately when this spatial information is unreliable.