Two systems of spatial representation underlying navigation

Abstract

We review evidence for two distinct cognitive processes by which humans and animals represent the navigable environment. One process uses the shape of the extended 3D surface layout to specify the navigator's position and orientation. A second process uses objects and patterns as beacons to specify the locations of significant objects. Although much of the evidence for these processes comes from neurophysiological studies of navigating animals and neuroimaging studies of human adults, behavioral studies of navigating children shed light both on the nature of these systems and on their interactions.

Figure 1

Schematic, overhead depiction of two testing environments with and without a featural cue (a distinctively colored wall). After an object is hidden at C and participants are disoriented in (a), humans and non-humans animals alike use the geometric shape of the rectangular room to search the correct (C) and rotationally symmetric (R) corners more often than the near (N) and far (F) geometrically incorrect corners. Under some conditions, moreover, children and non-human animals fail to use the potential landmark in (b) to break the room’s symmetry, and therefore search at R as often as at C.