The cognitive map in humans: Spatial navigation and beyond

worth noting that it is possible to navigate without using landmarks. Many navigation episodes start from a familiar “home” or “base”. In such cases, self-motion cues (e.g., vestibular and proprioceptive signals, motor efference copies, optic flow) can be used to keep track of displacement from the starting point. This strategy, known as path integ... See more

Recently, fMRI researchers have taken these results a step further, by showing that the hippocampus in humans supports map-like spatial codes. A key feature of a map is that it preserves distance relationships: entities that are closer together (vs. farther apart) in the real world are closer together (vs. farther apart) on the map.

The ‘cognitive map’ hypothesis proposes that brain builds a unified representation of the spatial environment to support memory and guide future action.