Jeffery et al. suggest that three-dimensional environments are not represented according to their volumetric properties, but in a quasi-planar fashion. Here we take into consideration the role of visual experience and the use of technology for spatial learning to better understand the nature of the preference of horizontal over vertical spatial representation.

In experimental psychology and neuroscience, technological advances and multisensory research have contributed to gradually dismiss a version of reductionism. Empirical results no longer support a brain model in which distinct “modules” perform discrete functions, but rather, a brain of partially overlapping networks. A similarly changed brain model is extending to psychopathology and clinical psychology, and partly accounts for the problems of reductionism.