Montreal cognitive assessment (MoCA) is a test providing a brief screening for people with cognitive impairment due to aging or neurodegenerative syndromes. In Italy, as in the rest of the world, several validation studies of MoCA have been carried out. This study compared, for the first time in Italy, a sample of people with probable Alzheimer's Disease (AD) with healthy counterparts. The study also compared two community-dwelling groups of aged participants with and without probable cognitive impairment, as discriminated by two cut-off points of adjusted MMSE score. All the comparisons were carried out according to ROC statistics. Optimal cutoff for a diagnosis of probable AD was a MoCA score ≤14. Optimal cutoff for the discrimination of probable cognitive impairment was a MoCA score ≤17 (associated to MMSE cutoff of 23.8). Results confirm the substantial discrepancy in cut-off points existing between Italian and other international validation studies, showing that Italian performance on MoCA seems to be globally lower than that in other Countries. Characteristics of population might explain these results.

Interpersonal space (IPS) is the area surrounding our own bodies in which we interact comfortably with other individuals. During the COVID-19 pandemic, keeping larger IPS than usual, along with wearing a face mask, is one of the most effective measures to slow down the COVID-19 outbreak. Here, we explore the contribution of actual and perceived risk of contagion and anxiety levels in regulating our preferred social distance from other people during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic in Italy. In this study, 1293 individuals from six Italian regions with different levels of actual risk of infection participated in an online survey assessing their perceived risk to be infected, level of anxiety and IPS. Two tasks were adopted as measures of interpersonal distance: the Interpersonal Visual Analogue Scale and a questionnaire evaluating interpersonal distance with and without face mask. The results showed that the IPS regulation was affected by how people subjectively perceived COVID-19 risk and the related level of anxiety, not by actual objective risk. This clarifies that the role of threat in prompting avoidant behaviors expressed in increased IPS does not merely reflect environmental events but rather how they are subjectively experienced and represented.

Topographical disorientation (TD) refers to navigational impairment as an effect of aging or brain damage. Decreases in navigational performance with aging are more due to deficits in the ability to mentally represent space in an object-centered (allocentric) than in a self-centered (egocentric) format. Familiarity/remoteness of spatial memory traces can represent a protective factor for TD in aging. Conversely, using newly learned information for assessment may lead to overestimating TD severity as it combines two contributing factors: heading (allocentric) disorientation and anterograde agnosia. A supplementary evaluation of TD with aging according to ecological spatial tasks is recommended. The core tasks should focus on landmark positioning, both on a blind map (allocentric) and along a route (egocentric) of the hometown so as to disentangle spatial memory for familiar/remote information from decline due to recent encoding of information.

No abstract

Driving behaviors and fitness to drive have been assessed over time using different tools: standardized neuropsychological, on-road and driving simulation testing. Nowadays, the great variability of topics related to driving simulation has elicited a high number of reviews. The present work aims to perform a scientometric analysis on driving simulation reviews and to propose a selective review of reviews focusing on relevant aspects related to validity and fidelity. A scientometric analysis of driving simulation reviews published from 1988 to 2019 was conducted. Bibliographic data from 298 reviews were extracted from Scopus and WoS. Performance analysis was conducted to investigate most prolific Countries, Journals, Institutes and Authors. A cluster analysis on authors' keywords was performed to identify relevant associations between different research topics. Based on the reviews extracted from cluster analysis, a selective review of reviews was conducted to answer questions regarding validity, fidelity and critical issues. United States and Germany are the first two Countries for number of driving simulation reviews. United States is the leading Country with 5 Institutes in the topten. Top Authors wrote from 3 to 7 reviews each and belong to Institutes located in North America and Europe. Cluster analysis identified three clusters and eight keywords. The selective review of reviews showed a substantial agreement for supporting validity of driving simulation with respect to neuropsychological and on-road testing, while for fidelity with respect to real-world driving experience a blurred representation emerged. The most relevant critical issues were the a) lack of a common set of standards, b) phenomenon of simulation sickness, c) need for psychometric properties, lack of studies investigating d) predictive validity with respect to collision rates and e) ecological validity. Driving simulation represents a cross-cutting topic in scientific literature on driving, and there are several evidences for considering it as a valid alternative to neuropsychological and on-road testing. Further research efforts could be aimed at establishing a consensus statement for protocols assessing fitness to drive, in order to (a) use standardized systems, (b) compare systematically driving simulators with regard to their validity and fidelity, and (c) employ shared criteria for conducting studies in a given sub-topic.

Prolonged periods of restrictions on people's freedom of movement during the first massive wave of the COVID-19 pandemic meant that most people engaged in all their daily activities at home. This suggested the need for the spatial features of the home and its occupants' perception of them to be investigated in terms of people's wellbeing. The present study was conducted on a large sample (N = 1354) drawn from different Italian regions. It examined the relationship between the “objective” and “subjective” dimensions of the home, measured in terms of objective home crowding and satisfaction with the space at home, in relation to perceived stress and the perceived risk of COVID-19 infection during the lockdown. The results showed that perceived stress is influenced by objective home crowding through the mediation of satisfaction with the space at home. These associations were more pronounced in younger generations. The negative association between satisfaction with the space at home and perceived stress was higher, the lower the perceived COVID-19 risk.

Literature on driving research suggests a relationship between cognition and driving performance in older and younger drivers. There is little research on adults and driving, despite them being the largest age cohort behind the wheel. Among the cognitive domains, visuospatial abilities are expected to be highly predictive of driving skills and driving fitness. The relationship between specific spatial mental transformation skills (i.e., object and self-based ones) and driving performance has not yet been examined. The present study aimed to investigate the relationship between overall cognitive functioning, self and object-based spatial mental transformation skills, and driving performance in a sample of younger and older adult drivers. Participants were comprised of one hundred younger and 83 older adult Italian drivers. Participants completed a computerized driving test assessing traffic stress resilience, visual and motor reaction time, and the ability to obtain an overview of the traffic scenario (DT, vRT, mRT, and ATAV respectively in the Shufried®-Vienna Test System–DRIVESC). The Mental Rotation Test (MRT) and the Object Perspective Taking Test (OPT) were administered in order to assess object-based and self-based spatial mental transformation skills. The Montreal Cognitive Assessment Test (MoCA) was administered control for global cognitive functioning. The effects of education and gender were also controlled in the analysis. The results of the present study suggested that: (1) The effect of age, favoring younger participants, was found in DT, vRT, mRT, and ATAVT tests. (2) The effect of global cognitive functioning was found in DT and ATAV tests. (3) The effect of the spatial mental transformation tests was found in DT, vRT (MRT only), and ATAVT (OPT only) tests. Taken together, these results suggest the specific contribution of spatial mental transformation skills in the execution of complex behaviors connected to the fitness to drive. Prospectively, the results of the present study relating spatial mental transformation skills and driving processes may be a valuable source of knowledge for researchers dealing with the relationship between cognitive resources and navigation aids.

No abstract