PMID- 34439647
OWN - NLM
STAT- PubMed-not-MEDLINE
LR  - 20240403
IS  - 2076-3425 (Print)
IS  - 2076-3425 (Electronic)
IS  - 2076-3425 (Linking)
VI  - 11
IP  - 8
DP  - 2021 Aug 1
TI  - Cognitive Efficiency and Fitness-to-Drive along the Lifespan: The Mediation 
      Effect of Visuospatial Transformations.
LID - 10.3390/brainsci11081028 [doi]
LID - 1028
AB  - The way people represent and transform visuospatial information affects everyday 
      activities including driving behavior. Mental rotation and perspective taking 
      have recently been found to predict cognitive prerequisites for fitness-to-drive 
      (FtD). We argue that the relationship between general cognitive status and FtD is 
      mediated by spatial transformation skills. Here, we investigated the performance 
      in the Mental Rotation Test (MRT) and the Perspective-Taking Test (PT) of 175 
      male active drivers (aged from 18 to 91 years), by administering the Montreal 
      Cognitive Assessment (MoCA) to measure their global cognitive functioning. All 
      participants were submitted to a computerized driving assessment measuring 
      resilience of attention (DT), reaction speed (RS), motor speed (MS), and 
      perceptual speed (ATAVT). Significant results were found for the effect of global 
      cognitive functioning on perceptual speed through the full mediation of both 
      mental rotation and perspective-taking skills. The indirect effect of global 
      cognitive functioning through mental rotation was only found to significantly 
      predict resilience of attention whereas the indirect effect mediated by 
      perspective taking only was found to significantly predict perceptual speed. 
      Finally, the negative effect of age was found on each driving measure. Results 
      presented here, which are limited to male drivers, suggest that general cognitive 
      efficiency is linked to spatial mental transformation skills and, in turn, to 
      driving-related cognitive tasks, contributing to fitness-to-drive in the 
      lifespan.
FAU - Tinella, Luigi
AU  - Tinella L
AUID- ORCID: 0000-0003-4296-5233
AD  - Department of Educational Sciences, Psychology, Communication, University of 
      Bari, 70121 Bari, Italy.
FAU - Lopez, Antonella
AU  - Lopez A
AUID- ORCID: 0000-0002-3717-1677
AD  - Department of Educational Sciences, Psychology, Communication, University of 
      Bari, 70121 Bari, Italy.
FAU - Caffo, Alessandro Oronzo
AU  - Caffo AO
AUID- ORCID: 0000-0003-3973-8152
AD  - Department of Educational Sciences, Psychology, Communication, University of 
      Bari, 70121 Bari, Italy.
FAU - Nardulli, Francesco
AU  - Nardulli F
AD  - Commissione Medica Locale Patenti Speciali, Azienda Sanitaria Locale-Bari, 70121 
      Bari, Italy.
FAU - Grattagliano, Ignazio
AU  - Grattagliano I
AD  - Department of Educational Sciences, Psychology, Communication, University of 
      Bari, 70121 Bari, Italy.
FAU - Bosco, Andrea
AU  - Bosco A
AUID- ORCID: 0000-0002-9458-3993
AD  - Department of Educational Sciences, Psychology, Communication, University of 
      Bari, 70121 Bari, Italy.
LA  - eng
PT  - Journal Article
DEP - 20210801
PL  - Switzerland
TA  - Brain Sci
JT  - Brain sciences
JID - 101598646
PMC - PMC8392112
OTO - NOTNLM
OT  - aging
OT  - driving behavior
OT  - fitness-to-drive
OT  - mental rotation
OT  - perspective taking
COIS- The authors have no conflict of interest to declare.
EDAT- 2021/08/28 06:00
MHDA- 2021/08/28 06:01
PMCR- 2021/08/01
CRDT- 2021/08/27 01:04
PHST- 2021/04/22 00:00 [received]
PHST- 2021/07/19 00:00 [revised]
PHST- 2021/07/28 00:00 [accepted]
PHST- 2021/08/27 01:04 [entrez]
PHST- 2021/08/28 06:00 [pubmed]
PHST- 2021/08/28 06:01 [medline]
PHST- 2021/08/01 00:00 [pmc-release]
AID - brainsci11081028 [pii]
AID - brainsci-11-01028 [pii]
AID - 10.3390/brainsci11081028 [doi]
PST - epublish
SO  - Brain Sci. 2021 Aug 1;11(8):1028. doi: 10.3390/brainsci11081028.