Relative preservation of egocentric but not allocentric spatial memory in aging

There is indirect evidence for the dissociation of egocentric and allocentric spatial memory in aging. We directly examined performance of subjects on tasks of both kinds. Twenty young (18-30 years) and 20 older adults (64-76 years) were asked to recall the location of object pairs presented in two of six positions on a board. At recall, half of the subjects were given only one of the items in the pair to relocate (egocentric), and the other half relocated items paired at study (allocentric). The results supported the hypothesis that allocentric, but not egocentric, spatial memory declines with age.