A Critical Review of Spatial Abilities in Down and Williams Syndromes: Not All Space Is Created Equal
- Banta Lavenex, Pamela ORCID UniDistance Suisse
- Lavenex, Pierre (Contributor) ORCID
- 2021
Published in:
- Frontiers in Psychiatry. - 2021, vol. 12, no. 669320, p. 1-17
egocentric
homing behavior
allocentric
cognitive map
spatial memory
navigation
neurodevelopmental disorders
Open Access
English
Down syndrome (DS, Trisomy 21) and Williams syndrome (WS) are two
neurodevelopmental disorders of genetic origin that are accompanied by mild to
moderate intellectual disability but exhibit distinct cognitive profiles. In this review we
discuss our recent work characterizing the real-world spatial learning and memory
abilities of adult individuals with DS and WS. We used several different paradigms
in which participants locomote freely and have access to coherent input from all
sensory modalities to investigate their fundamental egocentric (body-centered or
viewpoint-dependent) and allocentric (world-centered or viewpoint-independent)
spatial abilities. We found unequivocal evidence that most individuals with DS exhibit
low-resolution egocentric and allocentric spatial learning and memory abilities similar
to typically developing (TD) children in the same mental age range. In contrast, most
individuals with DS exhibit impaired high-resolution allocentric spatial learning and
facilitated response learning as compared to TD children. In comparison, whereas
most individuals with WS also exhibit facilitated response learning, their low-resolution
allocentric spatial learning and memory abilities are severely impaired as compared to
both TD children and individuals with DS. Together with work from other laboratories
using real-world or virtual reality paradigms, these findings indicate that in order to
navigate in their environment most individuals with DS may use either egocentric route
learning that does not integrate individual landmarks, or a low-resolution allocentric
spatial representation that encodes the relationships between different locations (i.e.,
cognitive mapping). In contrast, since most individuals with WS are unable to build
or use a low-resolution allocentric or configural representation of the environment
they may use visually and verbally encoded landmarks as beacons to learn routes.
Finally, we discuss the main neural structures implicated in these different spatial
processes and explain how the relative preservation or impairment of specific brain
functions may engender the unique cognitive profiles observed in individuals with these
neurodevelopmental disorders.
neurodevelopmental disorders of genetic origin that are accompanied by mild to
moderate intellectual disability but exhibit distinct cognitive profiles. In this review we
discuss our recent work characterizing the real-world spatial learning and memory
abilities of adult individuals with DS and WS. We used several different paradigms
in which participants locomote freely and have access to coherent input from all
sensory modalities to investigate their fundamental egocentric (body-centered or
viewpoint-dependent) and allocentric (world-centered or viewpoint-independent)
spatial abilities. We found unequivocal evidence that most individuals with DS exhibit
low-resolution egocentric and allocentric spatial learning and memory abilities similar
to typically developing (TD) children in the same mental age range. In contrast, most
individuals with DS exhibit impaired high-resolution allocentric spatial learning and
facilitated response learning as compared to TD children. In comparison, whereas
most individuals with WS also exhibit facilitated response learning, their low-resolution
allocentric spatial learning and memory abilities are severely impaired as compared to
both TD children and individuals with DS. Together with work from other laboratories
using real-world or virtual reality paradigms, these findings indicate that in order to
navigate in their environment most individuals with DS may use either egocentric route
learning that does not integrate individual landmarks, or a low-resolution allocentric
spatial representation that encodes the relationships between different locations (i.e.,
cognitive mapping). In contrast, since most individuals with WS are unable to build
or use a low-resolution allocentric or configural representation of the environment
they may use visually and verbally encoded landmarks as beacons to learn routes.
Finally, we discuss the main neural structures implicated in these different spatial
processes and explain how the relative preservation or impairment of specific brain
functions may engender the unique cognitive profiles observed in individuals with these
neurodevelopmental disorders.
- Language
-
- English
- Classification
- Memory and learning
- License
-
CC BY
- Open access status
- gold
- Identifiers
-
- DOI 10.3389/fpsyt.2021.669320
- ARK ark:/51647/srd1323166
- Persistent URL
- https://n2t.net/ark:/51647/srd1323166
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