This study explored spatial navigation alongside several other cognitive abilities that are thought to share common underlying neurocognitive mechanisms (e.g., the capacity for self-projection, scene construction, or mental simulation), and which we hypothesised may be impaired in autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Twenty intellectually high-functioning children with ASD (with a mean age of ~8 years) were compared to 20 sex, age, IQ, and language ability matched typically developing children on a series of tasks to assess spatial navigation, (...) episodic memory, episodic future thinking (also known as episodic foresight or prospection), theory of mind, relational memory, and central coherence. This is the first study to explore these abilities concurrently within the same sample. Spatial navigation was assessed using the “memory island” task, which involves finding objects within a realistic, computer simulated, three-dimensional environment. Episodic memory and episodic future thinking were assessed using a past and future event description task. Theory of mind was assessed using the “animations” task, in which children were asked to describe the interactions between two animated triangles. Relational memory was assessed using a recognition task involving memory for items (line drawings), patterned backgrounds, or combinations of items and backgrounds. Central coherence was assessed by exploring differences in performance across segmented and unsegmented versions of block design. Children with ASD were found to show impairments in spatial navigation, episodic memory, episodic future thinking, and central coherence, but not theory of mind or relational memory. Among children with ASD, spatial navigation was found to be significantly negatively related to number of repetitive behaviours. In other words, children who showed more repetitive behaviours showed poorer spatial navigation. The theoretical and practical implications of the results are discussed. (shrink)

On the basis of relative strengths that have been attributed to the autistic cognitive profile, it has been suggested by a number of theorists that people with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) excel at spatial navigational tasks. However, many of these claims have been made in the absence of a close inspection of extant data in the scientific literature, let alone anecdotal reports of daily navigational experiences. The present review gathers together published studies that have attempted to explicitly address functional (...) components of navigation in ASD populations, including assays of wayfinding, large-scale search, and path integration. This inspection reveals a pattern of apparent strengths and weaknesses in navigational abilities, thus illustrating the necessity for a more measured and comprehensive approach to the understanding of spatial behavior in ASD. (shrink)

Altered attachment characteristics may disturb the HPA and can even cause changes in the hippocampus. However, it is unknown if that will influence spatial navigation performance, learning and recalling. In this study we pretend to verify if there are differences in spatial navigation learning and was associated with attachment style dimensions of anxiety and close-depend. Sixty-five female participants were recruited and were evaluated using the Adult Attachment Scale-R and tested on a virtual maze navigation task (...) (VMT) at one moment (exploratory trial + 3 trials) and 24h later (3 trials). There was a significant Moment x Trial x Close-Depend interaction for the outcome time, F (2, 126) = 3.807, p = 0.025, with post-hoc analysis indicating that the High Close-Depend group displayed significant improvements between Trial 1 and Trial 3 in the post-test assessment. Conversely, the Low Close-Depend group displayed significant improvements between Trial 1and Trial 3 but on the pre-test assessment. Furthermore, the Low Close-Depend group presented significant better performance in pre-test Trial 3 in comparison to the High Close-Depend group. Thereby, it seems that low comfort with proximity and trust in others is associated with reduced spatial navigation recall, although spatial learning performance was actually superior in these participants. It is possible that reduced exposure to social interaction and meaning relationship may be reduced in the Low Close-Depend group, leading to modifications in hippocampal function and, ultimately, reduced spatial recall. Conversely, participants with high comfort with proximity and trust in others may not display typical spatial learning in the proposed task as they are more willing to freely explore the presented environment. (shrink)

This issue assesses how human spatial navigation differs: within individuals across short‐term variations in mood or stress, and between individuals across variations in age, gender, education, culture, and physical environment.

Over many centuries, the homing pigeon has been selectively bred for returning home from a distant location. As a result of this strong selective pressure, homing pigeons have developed an excellent spatial navigation system. This system passes through the hippocampal formation, which shares many striking similarities to the mammalian hippocampus; there are a host of shared neuropeptides, interconnections, and its role in the storage and manipulation of spatial maps. There are some notable differences as well: there are (...) unique connectivity patterns and spatial encoding strategies. This review summarizes the comparisons between the avian and mammalian hippocampal systems, and the responses of single neurons in several general categories: location and place cells responding in specific areas, path and goal cells responding between goal locations, context-dependent cells that respond before or during a task, and pattern, grid, and boundary cells that increase firing at stable intervals. Head-direction cells, responding to a specific compass direction, are found in mammals and other birds but not to date in pigeons. By studying an animal that evolved under significant adaptive pressure to quickly develop a complex and efficient spatial memory system, we may better understand the comparative neurology of neurospatial systems, and plot new and potentially fruitful avenues of comparative research in the future. (shrink)

Spelke convincingly argues that we should posit six innate modular systems beyond the periphery (i.e., beyond low-level perception and motor control). I focus on the case of spatial navigation (Ch. 3) to claim that there remain powerful considerations in favor of positing additional innate, nonperipheral modules. This opens the door to stronger forms of nativism and nonperipheral modularism than Spelke's.

Prior knowledge structures (or schemas) confer multiple behavioral benefits. First, when we encounter information that fits with prior knowledge structures, this information is generally better learned and remembered. Second, prior knowledge can support prospective planning. In humans, memory enhancements related to prior knowledge have been suggested to be supported, in part, by computations in prefrontal and medial temporal lobe cortex. Moreover, animal studies further implicate a role for the hippocampus in schema-based facilitation and in the emergence of prospective planning signals (...) following new learning. To date, convergence across the schema-enhanced learning and memory literature may be constrained by the predominant use of hippocampally dependent spatial navigation paradigms in rodents, and non-spatial list-based learning paradigms in humans. Here, we targeted this missing link by examining the effects of prior knowledge on human navigational learning in a hippocampally dependent virtual navigation paradigm that closely relates to foundational studies in rodents. Outside the scanner, participants overlearned Old Paired Associates (OPA – item-location associations) in multiple spatial environments, and they subsequently learned New Paired Associates (NPA – new item-location associations) in the environments while undergoing fMRI. We hypothesized that greater OPA knowledge precision would positively affect NPA learning, and that the hippocampus would be instrumental in translating this new learning into prospective planning of navigational paths to NPA locations. Behavioral results revealed that OPA knowledge predicted one-shot learning of NPA locations, and neural results indicated that one-shot learning was predicted by the rapid emergence of performance-predictive prospective planning signals in hippocampus. Prospective memory relationships were not significant in parahippocampal cortex and were marginally dissociable from the primary hippocampal effect. Collectively, these results extend understanding of how schemas impact learning and performance, showing that the precision of prior spatial knowledge is important for future learning in humans, and that the hippocampus is involved in translating this knowledge into new goal-directed behaviors. (shrink)

Thach's target article presents a remarkable overview and integration of animal and human studies on the functions of the cerebellum and makes clear theoretical predictions for both the normal operation of the cerebellum and for the effects of cerebellar lesions in the mature human. Commentary is provided on three areas, namely, spatial navigation, implicit learning, and cerebellar agenesis to elicit further development of the themes already present in Thach's paper, [THACH].

IntroductionSpatial navigation is a complex cognitive function that declines in older age. Finding one’s way around in familiar and new environments is crucial to live and function independently. However, the current literature illustrates the efficacy of spatial navigation interventions in rehabilitative contexts such as pathological aging and traumatic injury, but an overview of existing training studies for healthy older adults is missing. This scoping review aims to identify current evidence on existing spatial navigation interventions in (...) healthy older adults and analyze their efficacy.MethodsTo identify spatial navigation interventions and assessments and investigate their effectiveness, four electronic databases were searched. Two independent reviewers conducted a screening of title, abstract and full-texts and performed a quality assessment. Studies were eligible if published in English, the full text was accessible, at least one group of healthy older adults was included with mean age of 65 years or older, three or more spatial navigation-related training sessions were conducted and at least one spatial ability outcome was reported.ResultsTen studies were included, only healthy older adults were assessed further. Studies differed in sample size, type of training, total intervention duration, and intervention period.ConclusionThe spatial navigation abilities addressed and the measures applied to elicit intervention effects varied in quantity and methodology. Significant improvements were found for at least one spatial ability-related outcome in six of 10 interventions. Two interventions achieved a non-significant positive trend, another revealed no measurable post-training improvement, and one study did not report pre-post-differences. The results indicate that different types of spatial navigation interventions improve components of spatial abilities in healthy older adults. The existing body of research does not allow conclusions on transferability of the trained components on everyday life spatial navigation performance. Future research should focus on reproducing and extending the promising approaches of available evidence. From this, valuable insights on healthy aging could emerge.Trial RegistrationThis scoping review was preregistered at Open Science Framework. (shrink)

Navigational performance responds to navigational challenges, and both decline with age in Western populations as older people become less mobile. But mobility does not decline everywhere; Tsimané forager-farmers in Bolivia remain highly mobile throughout adulthood, traveling frequently by foot and dugout canoe for subsistence and social visitation. We, therefore, measured both natural mobility and navigational performance in 305 Tsimané adults, to assess differences with age and to test whether greater mobility was related to better navigational performance across the lifespan. Daily (...) mobility was measured by GPS tracking, regional mobility through interview, navigational performance through pointing accuracy and perspective taking in environmental space, and mental rotation by a computerized task. Although mental rotation and spatial perspective taking declined with age, mobility and pointing accuracy remained high from mid-life through old age. Greater regional mobility was associated with greater accuracy at pointing and perspective taking, suggesting that spatial experience at environmental scales may help maintain navigational performance in later adulthood. (shrink)

Navigational performance responds to navigational challenges, and both decline with age in Western populations as older people become less mobile. But mobility does not decline everywhere; Tsimané forager-farmers in Bolivia remain highly mobile throughout adulthood, traveling frequently by foot and dugout canoe for subsistence and social visitation. We, therefore, measured both natural mobility and navigational performance in 305 Tsimané adults, to assess differences with age and to test whether greater mobility was related to better navigational performance across the lifespan. Daily (...) mobility was measured by GPS tracking, regional mobility through interview, navigational performance through pointing accuracy and perspective taking in environmental space, and mental rotation by a computerized task. Although mental rotation and spatial perspective taking declined with age, mobility and pointing accuracy remained high from mid-life through old age. Greater regional mobility was associated with greater accuracy at pointing and perspective taking, suggesting that spatial experience at environmental scales may help maintain navigational performance in later adulthood. (shrink)

The Morris water maze has been put forward in the philosophy of neuroscience as an example of an experimental arrangement that may be used to delineate the cognitive faculty of spatial memory (e.g., Craver and Darden, Theory and method in the neurosciences, University of Pittsburgh Press, Pittsburgh, 2001; Craver, Explaining the brain: Mechanisms and the mosaic unity of neuroscience, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2007). However, in the experimental and review literature on the water maze throughout the history of its (...) use, we encounter numerous responses to the question of “what” phenomenon it circumscribes ranging from cognitive functions (e.g., “spatial learning”, “spatial navigation”), to representational changes (e.g., “cognitive map formation”) to terms that appear to refer exclusively to observable changes in behavior (e.g., “water maze performance”). To date philosophical analyses of the water maze have not been directed at sorting out what phenomenon the device delineates nor the sources of the different answers to the question of what. I undertake both of these tasks in this paper. I begin with an analysis of Morris’s first published research study using the water maze and demonstrate that he emerged from it with an experimental learning paradigm that at best circumscribed a discrete set of observable changes in behavior. However, it delineated neither a discrete set of representational changes nor a discrete cognitive function. I cite this in combination with a reductionist-oriented research agenda in cellular and molecular neurobiology dating back to the 1980s as two sources of the lack of consistency across the history of the experimental and review literature as to what is under study in the water maze. (shrink)

Participants maneuvered a rat image through a circular region on the computer screen to find a hidden target platform, blending aspects of two well-known spatial tasks. Like the Morris water maze task, participants first experienced a series of learning trials before having to navigate to the hidden target platform from different locations and orientations. Like the dot-location task, they determined the location of a position within a two-dimensional circular region. This procedure provided a way to examine how the number (...) of surrounding cues (1, 2, or 3) affects the memory for spatial location in navigation. Memory performance was better when there were more cues and when targets were close to cues, consistent with the idea that cues bolster fine-grain memory, especially in proximal regions. Early and late measures of bias in memory reflected biases in a direction toward the nearest cue, implicating a cue-based category structure of the navigational space. Collectively, results suggest cue-based spatial memory representations that have been inferred from the dot-location task generalize to a navigation task within a simple, computer-based environment, as demonstrated by the good fits of the spatial model developed for the dot-location task (Fitting, Wedell, & Allen, 2005, 2007). (shrink)

A central question in neuroscience and psychology is how the mammalian brain represents the outside world and enables interaction with it. Significant progress on this question has been made in the domain of spatial cognition, where a consistent network of brain regions that represent external space has been identified in both humans and rodents. In rodents, much of the work to date has been done in situations where the animal is free to move about naturally. By contrast, the majority (...) of work carried out to date in humans is static, due to limitations imposed by traditional laboratory based imaging techniques. In recent years, significant progress has been made in bridging the gap between animal and human work by employing Virtual Reality (VR) technology to simulate aspects of real-world navigation. Despite this progress, the VR studies often fail to fully simulate important aspects of real-world navigation, where information derived from self-motion is integrated with representations of environmental features and task goals. In the current review, we provide a brief overview of animal and human imaging work to date, focusing on commonalties and differences in findings across species. Following on from this we discuss VR studies of spatial cognition, outlining limitations and developments, before introducing mobile brain imaging techniques and describe technical challenges and solutions for real-world recording. Finally, we discuss how these advances in mobile brain imaging technology, provide an unprecedented opportunity to illuminate how the brain represents complex multifaceted information during naturalistic navigation. (shrink)

While old age is typically associated with a decline in spatial memory and navigational abilities,a subset of older adults demonstrates superior, sometimes even youth‐like performance. Here, we review cognitive and neural factors contributing to such superior spatial abilities, and we discuss potential links with preserved episodic memory in SuperAgers.

The study of spatial cognition has provided considerable insight into how animals (including humans) navigate on the horizontal plane. However, the real world is three-dimensional, having a complex topography including both horizontal and vertical features, which presents additional challenges for representation and navigation. The present article reviews the emerging behavioral and neurobiological literature on spatial cognition in non-horizontal environments. We suggest that three-dimensional spaces are represented in a quasi-planar fashion, with space in the plane of locomotion being (...) computed separately and represented differently from space in the orthogonal axis bicoded.” We argue that the mammalian spatial representation in surface-travelling animals comprises a mosaic of these locally planar fragments, rather than a fully integrated volumetric map. More generally, this may be true even for species that can move freely in all three dimensions, such as birds and fish. We outline the evidence supporting this view, together with the adaptive advantages of such a scheme. (shrink)

It remains controversial whether touch is a truly spatial sense or not. Many philosophers suggest that, if touch is indeed spatial, it is only through its alliances with exploratory movement, and with proprioception. Here we develop the notion that a minimal yet important form of spatial perception may occur in purely passive touch. We do this by showing that the array of tactile receptive fields in the skin, and appropriately relayed to the cortex, may contain the same (...) basic informational building blocks that a creature navigating around its environment uses to build up a perception of space. We illustrate this point with preliminary evidence that perception of spatiotemporal patterns on the human skin shows some of the same features as spatial navigation in animals. We argue (a) that the receptor array defines a ‘tactile field’, (b) that this field exists in a minimal form in ‘skin space’, logically prior to any transformation into bodily or external spatial coordinates, and (c) that this field supports tactile perception without integration of concurrent proprioceptive or motor information. The basic cognitive elements of space perception may begin at lower levels of neural and perceptual organisation than previously thought. (shrink)

Spatial Representation presents original, specially written essays by leading psychologists and philosophers on a fascinating set of topics at the intersection of these two disciplines. They address such questions as these: Do the extraordinary navigational abilities of birds mean that these birds have the same kind of grip on the idea of a spatial world as we do? Is there a difference between the way sighted and blind subjects represent the world 'out there'? Does the study of brain-injured (...) subjects, such as 'blind seers', tell us anything about the working of normal spatial consciousness? -/- The essays are arranged into five sections, each of which reflects a central area of research into spatial cognition, and opens with a short introduction by the editors, designed to facilitate cross-disciplinary reading. The volume as a whole offers a rich and compelling expression of the view that to advance our understanding of the way we represent the external world it is necessary to draw on both philosophical and psychological approaches. (shrink)

In this review, we discuss the functional equivalence of the avian and mammalian hippocampus, based mostly on our own research in domestic chicks, which provide an important developmental model. In birds, like in mammals, the hippocampus plays a central role in processing spatial information. However, the structure of this homolog area shows remarkable differences between birds and mammals. To understand the evolutionary origin of the neural mechanisms for spatial navigation, it is important to test how far theories (...) developed for the mammalian hippocampus can also be applied to the avian hippocampal formation. To address this issue, we present a brief overview of studies carried out in domestic chicks, investigating the direct involvement of chicks’ hippocampus homolog in spatial navigation. (shrink)

In the selection of job candidates who have the mental ability to become professional ATCOs, psychometric testing has been a ubiquitous activity in the ATM domain. To contribute to psychometric research in the ATM domain, we investigated the extent to which spatial orientation ability (SOA), as conceptualized in the spatial cognition and navigation literature, predicted air traffic conflict detection performance in a simulated free route airspace (FRA) environment. The implementation of free route airspace (FRA) over the past (...) few years, notably in Europe, have facilitated air traffic services by giving greater flexibility to aviation operators in planning and choosing preferred air routes that can lead to quicker arrivals. FRA offers enhanced system safety and efficiency, but these benefits can be outweighed by the introduction of air traffic conflicts that are geometrically more complex. Such conflicts can arise from increased number and distribution of conflict points, as well as from elevated uncertainty in aircraft maneuvering (for instance, during heading changes). Overall, these issues will make conflict detection more challenging for air traffic controllers (ATCOs). Consequently, there is a need to select ATCOs with suitably high levels of spatial orientation ability (SOA) to ensure flight safety under FRA implementation. In this study, we tested 20 participants who are eligible for ATCO job application, and found that response time-based performance on a newly developed, open access, computerized spatial orientation test (SOT) predicted time to loss of minimum separation (tLMS) performance on an air traffic conflict detection task (AT-CDT) we designed. We found this predictive relationship to be significant to a moderately large extent under scenarios with high air traffic density (raw regression coefficient = 0.58). Moreover, we demonstrated our AT-CDT as a valid test in terms of eliciting well-known mental workload and spatial learning effects. We explained these findings in light of similar or overlapping mental processes that were most likely activated optimally under task conditions featuring approximately equal numbers of outcome-relevant stimuli. We conclude by discussing the further application of the SOT to the selection of prospective ATCOs who can demonstrate high levels of conflict detection performance in FRA during training simulations. (shrink)

Normal aging is typically associated with declines in navigation and spatial memory abilities. However, increased interindividual variability in performance across various navigation/spatial memory tasks is also evident with advancing age. In this review paper, we shed the spotlight on those older individuals who exhibit exceptional, sometimes even youth-like navigational/spatial memory abilities. Importantly, we (1) showcase observations from existing studies that demonstrate superior navigation/spatial memory performance in late adulthood, (2) explore possible cognitive correlates and (...) neurophysiological mechanisms underlying these preserved spatial abilities, and (3) discuss the potential link between the superior navigators in late adulthood and SuperAgers (older adults with superior episodic memory). In the closing section, given the lack of studies that directly focus on this subpopulation, we highlight several important directions that future studies could look into to better understand the cognitive characteristics of older superior navigators and the factors enabling such successful cognitive aging. (shrink)

Animals navigate through three-dimensional environments, but we argue that the way they encode three-dimensional spatial information is shaped by how they use the vertical component of space. We agree with Jeffery et al. that the representation of three-dimensional space in vertebrates is probably bicoded (with separation of the plane of locomotion and its orthogonal axis), but we believe that their suggestion that the vertical axis is stored (that is, not containing distance or direction metrics usable for novel computations) is (...) unlikely, and as yet unsupported. We describe potential experimental protocols that could clarify these differences in opinion empirically. (shrink)

Research on spatial thinking requires reliable and valid measures of individual differences in various component skills. Spatial perspective taking (PT)—the ability to represent viewpoints different from one's own—is one kind of spatial skill that is especially relevant to navigation. This study had two goals. First, the psychometric properties of four PT tests were examined: Four Mountains Task (FMT), Spatial Orientation Task (SOT), Perspective-Taking Task for Adults (PTT-A), and Photographic Perspective-Taking Task (PPTT). Using item response theory (...) (IRT), item difficulty, discriminability, and efficiency of item information functions were evaluated. Second, the relation of PT scores to general intelligence, working memory, and mental rotation (MR) was assessed. All tasks showed good construct validity except for FMT. PPTT tapped a wide range of PT ability, with maximum measurement precision at average ability. PTT-A captured a lower range of ability. Although SOT contributed less measurement information than other tasks, it did well across a wide range of PT ability. After controlling for general intelligence and working memory, original and IRT-refined versions of PT tasks were each related to MR. PTT-A and PPTT showed relatively more divergent validity from MR than SOT. Tests of dimensionality indicated that PT tasks share one common PT dimension, with secondary task-specific factors also impacting the measurement of individual differences in performance. Advantages and disadvantages of a hybrid PT test that includes a combination of items across tasks are discussed. (shrink)

Research on spatial thinking requires reliable and valid measures of individual differences in various component skills. Spatial perspective taking (PT)—the ability to represent viewpoints different from one's own—is one kind of spatial skill that is especially relevant to navigation. This study had two goals. First, the psychometric properties of four PT tests were examined: Four Mountains Task (FMT), Spatial Orientation Task (SOT), Perspective-Taking Task for Adults (PTT-A), and Photographic Perspective-Taking Task (PPTT). Using item response theory (...) (IRT), item difficulty, discriminability, and efficiency of item information functions were evaluated. Second, the relation of PT scores to general intelligence, working memory, and mental rotation (MR) was assessed. All tasks showed good construct validity except for FMT. PPTT tapped a wide range of PT ability, with maximum measurement precision at average ability. PTT-A captured a lower range of ability. Although SOT contributed less measurement information than other tasks, it did well across a wide range of PT ability. After controlling for general intelligence and working memory, original and IRT-refined versions of PT tasks were each related to MR. PTT-A and PPTT showed relatively more divergent validity from MR than SOT. Tests of dimensionality indicated that PT tasks share one common PT dimension, with secondary task-specific factors also impacting the measurement of individual differences in performance. Advantages and disadvantages of a hybrid PT test that includes a combination of items across tasks are discussed. (shrink)

Fundamental to spatial knowledge in all species are the representations underlying object recognition, object search, and navigation through space. But what sets humans apart from other species is our ability to express spatial experience through language. This target article explores the language ofobjectsandplaces, asking what geometric properties are preserved in the representations underlying object nouns and spatial prepositions in English. Evidence from these two aspects of language suggests there are significant differences in the geometric richness with (...) which objects and places are encoded. When an object is named (i.e., with count nouns), detailed geometric properties – principally the object's shape (axes, solid and hollow volumes, surfaces, and parts) – are represented. In contrast, when an object plays the role of either “figure” (located object) or “ground” (reference object) in a locational expression, only very coarse geometric object properties are represented, primarily the main axes. In addition, the spatial functions encoded by spatial prepositions tend to be nonmetric and relatively coarse, for example, “containment,” “contact,” “relative distance,” and “relative direction.” These properties are representative of other languages as well. The striking differences in the way language encodes objects versus places lead us to suggest two explanations: First, there is a tendency for languages to level out geometric detail from both object and place representations. Second, a nonlinguistic disparity between the representations of “what” and “where” underlies how language represents objects and places. The language of objects and places converges with and enriches our understanding of corresponding spatial representations. (shrink)

Highly mobile computing devices promise to improve quality of life, productivity, and performance. Increased situation awareness and reduced mental workload are two potential means by which this can be accomplished. However, it is difficult to measure these concepts in the ‘wild’. We employed an ultra-portable battery operated and wireless functional near infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) to non-invasively measure hemodynamic changes in the brain’s prefrontal cortex. Measurements were taken during navigation of a college campus with either a hand-held display, or an (...) augmented reality wearable display. Hemodynamic measures were also paired with secondary tasks of visual perception and auditory working memory to provide behavioral assessment of situation awareness and mental workload. Navigating with an augmented reality wearable display produced the least workload during both secondary tasks. The hemodynamics associated with errors were also different between the two devices. Errors with an augmented reality wearable display were associated with increased prefrontal activity and the opposite was observed for the hand-held display. This suggests that the cognitive mechanisms underlying errors between the two devices differ. These findings show fNIRS is a valuable tool for assessing new technology in ecologically valid settings and that head-mounted displays offer benefits with regards to mental workload while navigating, and potentially superior situation awareness with improved display design. (shrink)

Within psychology, at least two research communities study spatial cognition. One community studies systematic errors in spatial memory and judgement, accounting for them as a consequence of and clue to normal perceptual and cognitive processing. The other community studies navigation in real space, isolating the contributions of various sensory cues and sensori- motor systems to successful navigation. The former group emphasizes error, the latter, selective mechanisms, environmental or evolutionary, that produce fine-tuned correct responses. How can these (...) approaches be reconciled and integrated? First, by showing why errors are impervious to selective pressures. The schematization that leads to errors is a natural consequence of normal perceptual and cognitive processes; it is inherent to the construction of mental spaces and to using them to make judgments in limited capacity working memory. Selection can act on particular instances of errors, yet it is not clear that selection can act on the general mechanisms that produce them. Next, in the wild, there are a variety of correctives. Finally, closer examination of navigation in the wild shows systematic errors, for example, over-shooting in dead reckoning across species. Here, too, environments may provide correctives, specifically, landmarks. General cognitive mechanisms generate general solutions. The errors inevitably produced may be reduced by local specific sensori-motor couplings as well as local environmental cues. Navigation, and other behaviors as well, are a consequence of both. (shrink)

The notion of conceptuality is still unclear and vague. I will present a definition of conceptual and nonconceptual representations that is grounded in different aspects of the representations’ structures. This definition is then used to interpret empirical results from human and animal navigation. It will be shown, that the distinction between egocentric and allocentric spatial representations can be matched onto the conceptual vs. nonconceptual distinction. The phenomena discussed in spatial navigation are thereby put into a wider (...) context of cognitive abilities, which allows for new explanations of certain features of spatial representations and how they are linked to other capacities, like perception and reasoning. (shrink)

Recent research investigating the language–thought interface in the spatial domain points to representations of the horizontal and vertical dimensions that closely resemble those posited by Jeffery et al. However, the findings suggest that such representations, rather than being tied to navigation, may instead reflect more general properties of the perception of space.