PSYC Call for Book Reviewers: Cognitive Mapping/Golledge
Stevan Harnad
harnad at coglit.ecs.soton.ac.uk
Sun Oct 17 09:12:56 EDT 1999
PSYCOLOQUY CALL FOR BOOK REVIEWERS
Below is the Precis of "Wayfinding Behavior: Cognitive mapping and
other spatial processes" (685 lines). This book has been selected
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psyc.99.10.036.cognitive-mapping.1.golledge Sun Oct 17 1999
ISSN 1055-0143 (32 paragraphs, 14 references, 685 lines)
PSYCOLOQUY is sponsored by the American Psychological Association (APA)
Copyright 1999 Reginald Golledge
WAYFINDING BEHAVIOR: COGNITIVE MAPPING AND OTHER SPATIAL PROCESSES.
[John Hopkins University Press, 1999 xviii, 428pp, ISBN: 0-8018-5993-X]
Precis of Golledge on Cognitive-Mapping
Reginald G. Golledge
Department of Geography
University of California Santa Barbara
Santa Barbara CA 93106-4060
U.S.A.
golledge at geog.ucsb.edu
ABSTRACT: This is an edited volume of essays by psychologists,
biologists, cognitive scientists, computer scientists, and
geographers on wayfinding by humans and other species. It addresses
the extent to which cognitive maps may be universal, and produces
evidence that humans, apes, some birds and some small mammals
appear to behave as if they have internal representations that
guide wayfinding processes in a map-like manner. Evidence also
shows that insects, some mammals, and perhaps some birds may not
evince such guided behavior, but rely more on spatial updating by
dead-reckoning or pilotage. The multiple disciplinary views of
wayfinding and navigation by humans and other animals gives the
volume a distinctly different content from other available books.
KEYWORDS: cognitive map; internal representation; navigation;
navigation; path integration; place cells; wayfinding.
I. INTRODUCTION
1. The use of maps in forms ranging from dirt drawings to stone
carvings, from rice paper scrolls to Automobile Association trip-tiks,
from topographic map sheets to disposable tactile strip maps appears to
be a cultural universal (Uttal 1997). Maps both record what is known
and remembered about an environment and act as wayfinding aids. In the
absence of these artifacts, humans and other animals rely on internal
representations or stored memories of experienced environments. It is
frequently assumed that these stored memories, now commonly referred to
as cognitive maps or internal spatial representations, are used to
guide travel. Cognitive maps are always there: they cannot be left at
home, torn to pieces by fractious children, rendered apart and pieced
together incorrectly, so that map reading errors result in a traveler
becoming lost. But they do have their problems.
2. The idea that animals also possess internal spatial representations
resulted in Tolman's first identification of the term cognitive map.
Rather than state that animals, particularly the rats that took short
cuts through his mazes stored spatial information as a map, Tolman used
the term metaphorically. In other words, he suggested that the animals
used in his studies appeared to be able to use spatial information as
though the places they remembered were recorded in a maplike manner.
For decades, controversy has raged over whether animals do have
cognitive maps or if they have other forms of internal spatial
representations that allow them to behave as if they were being guided
by a map-reading operation. After decades of research in zoology, other
biological sciences, and experimental psychology, in particular,
various alternatives have been posed to account for successful animal
travel behavior. Many have argued that the practice of returning
directly to home after a meandering search for food by many nonhuman
species indicates that the species did continuous spatial updating,
then returned home by a procedure well known to ocean shipping or
aircraft pilots the process of dead reckoning. Called path integration,
this process enables a traveler to constantly update their current
position with respect to an origin without recording details of the
path already followed. Because there is no need for a memory trace of
the path, route retrace may be difficult or impossible. The need of
many foragers who are partly responsible for feeding other members of
their species to return home with food, appears to make the short cut
(or 'beeline' or 'crow-fly') return trip the more reasonable option. If
food is consumed at the spot on which it is found, safety
considerations might dictate an immediate shortest-distance return.
3. Flying insects and avian species appear to use landmarks, sun
compasses, magnetic compasses, or other celestial guides to help them
with migratory and shorter-distance travel. Naturally enough, questions
have arisen as to whether the landmarks used are captured as a
perspectively viewed retinal image, or whether their configuration or
layout is either stored and recalled in sequence as a route is
followed, or represented as layouts or configurations similar to a
survey (or overview-based) representation of a large-scale and complex
space.
4. Despite the existence of these two vigorous research areas, focused
on nonhuman and human travel respectively, until recently there have
been few deliberate attempts to combine the two literatures. This lack
of attention provided the rationale for a small seminar funded by the
Borchard Foundation at the Chateau de la Bretesche in July 1996. The
purpose of the meeting was to bring together researchers from both the
human and nonhuman research domains who had specialized in navigation
or wayfinding behavior and who were familiar with the idea of cognitive
mapping and the potential role that cognitive maps might play in
wayfinding behaviors. As the guests of the foundation's director,
William F. Behling and his wife, Betty, at the Chateau de la Bretesche,
nine contributors to this volume first presented position statements on
the relationships between cognitive maps and wayfinding in humans and
other species. To supplement this group's expertise, other scientists
were invited to add chapters to the book.
5. The term 'cognitive maps' is used throughout this book to refer to
the internal spatial representation of environmental information. Its
use varies, from the metaphorical ('as if' the information was stored
in maplike format), to a hypothetical construct.
6. The term 'spatial representation' is also used throughout the book.
This might be regarded as a shorthand notation for the organization of
components of spatial knowledge or other partly investigative processes
(e.g., neurophysiological structures and place cells, cell assemblies,
phase sequences). The term also can be used metaphorically, involving
an 'as if' quality, particularly when referring to purported maplike
properties of representations. It has also been used as an intervening
variable in which it is interpreted as a 'note' attached to an
economical grouping of measured variables in a statement of functional
relations between other measured variable.
7. Structurally, this book is divided into four sections, ranging from
wayfinding and cognitive mapping in humans operating in different
scenarios, to examinations of special human navigation processes (e.g.
without sight), to studies of wayfinding by various non-human species,
and the neurobiological bases of environmental knowledge acquisition
and use. Each section is now summarized in turn.
II. SECTION I: HUMAN COGNITIVE MAPS AND WAYFINDING
8. This first section explores the strong theoretical and empirical
links between cognitive maps (or the internal representation of
environmental information); the cognitive mapping process itself; the
internal manipulation of information in the form of spatial choice and
decision making, and the directed acts of human wayfinding through
simple or complex environments. The evidence is clear and overwhelming
that human wayfinding is directed and motivated, and follows sets of
procedural rules whose content and structure are the focus of much
ongoing research. The consensus is clear: humans acquire, code, store,
decode, and use cognitive information as part of their navigation and
wayfinding activities. Although over the centuries they have developed
numerous ways of supplementing personally stored environmental
information (e.g., maps, written descriptions, and various forms of
image representations), it appears that humans rely on personal
cognitions to make many spatial decisions, and to guide their movement
behavior. There is evidence that internal representations and their
externalizations (spatial products) do not necessarily match well, and
that the existence of fragmented, incomplete, or distorted cognitive
maps appears to account for many behaviors that might otherwise be
labeled as spatially irrational.
9. The purpose of this part of the book is to examine sets of concepts
deemed relevant to both human wayfinding and cognitive mapping. There
are two chapters by geographers (Golledge, and Stern and Portugali),
and two by psychologists (Allen and Grling). Although some disciplinary
perspectives are evident, there is much overlap and common concern. The
first two chapters, by Golledge and Allen (respectively), provide
overviews and summaries of theories and concepts relevant throughout
the entire book. The following chapters by Grling, and Stern and
Portugali have a tighter focus: Grling emphasizes the sequential
spatial choice processes so important to human wayfinding, and Stern
and Portugali emphasize decision making in urban environments, the
complex scenarios in which most humans live and interact. All four
chapters contain examples of relevant research.
10. In the first chapter, Golledge reviews critical definitions
relating to cognitive maps and wayfinding. He provides an overview of
the role of cognitive mapping in human wayfinding and describes the
processes of acquiring and storing spatial information about
large-scale complex environments. Further, he discusses how humans
record and represent environmental knowledge. The role played by
landmarks and routes in anchoring knowledge and in wayfinding is
examined, and the differences between path following and route-based
environmental learning are explored. Errors commonly related to
encoding, decoding and internally manipulating cognized spatial data
are highlighted. Wayfinding by humans in contexts other than with
landmark usage is also examined, and an elaboration of errors commonly
found in human wayfinding follows. Throughout, ties are made to
treatments of similar problems in later chapters that focus on the
nonhuman domains of internal spatial representations and wayfinding.
11. In the second chapter, Allen provides insights into the nature of
spatial abilities and the role they play in cognitive mapping and
wayfinding procedures. He places emphasis on the concept of individual
differences in spatial cognition and in behavior. Allen argues that the
scientific literature in psychology and geography contains a vast
number of studies concerned with spatial abilities and a growing body
of research on wayfinding, although little has been done to establish
the relevance of the former for the latter. Thus the question of why
some individuals are better than others at wayfinding has been
difficult to address. Allen suggests that a potentially informative way
to think of wayfinding is to differentiate between wayfinding tasks and
wayfinding means. Tasks include traveling to a previously known
destination, exploration with the purpose of returning home, and
traveling to a novel destination. Means include oriented search,
following a continuously marked trail, piloting (between landmarks),
habitual locomotion, path integration, and reference to a cognitive
map. Spatial abilities in the past have been examined from
psychometric, information processing, developmental, and
neuropsychological perspectives. Allen suggests that broad fami1ies of
abilities involved in the identification of manipulable objects, those
involved in anticipating the trajectory and speed of moving objects,
and those involved in supporting oriented travel within large-scale
environments summarize the dominant research themes. He implies there
is considerable utility associated with the concept of interactive
common resources for cognitive and perceptual-motor tasks. The result
of the use of spatial abilities is support-oriented travel, but they
also serve as a resource for acquiring additional environmental
knowledge. Cognitive maps are considered as knowledge of places and
cognitive mapping includes rules for establishing spatial relations
among such places.
12. Next, Grling discusses human information processing in sequential
spatial choice, which summarizes the essential acts involved in
wayfinding. He begins with the premise that human locomotion in space
is goal-directed. Spatial orientation and navigation are, therefore,
primarily means of monitoring travel plans. Travel plans are developed
prior to initiating movement. The chapter focuses on the formation of
travel plans and their consequent execution. Such planning entails
spatial choices that are multiattribute, sequential, and stated. He
summarizes research on how people process information when solving the
traveling salesman problem (i.e., finding the shortest distance between
an origin and a set of destinations that might be sequentially
visited). He details research on how time and priority are traded off
against spatial attributes in sequential spatial choices.
13. Stern and Portugali next examine the relationship between
environmental cognition and decision making in urban navigation. They
define urban navigation as a sequential process of decision making
concerning route choice. They claim that traditionally many choice
situations are described by a 'black-box approach', which does not
specify choice rules but rather deals only with the relationship
between input and output variables. In most of these models a cognitive
explanatory mechanism of the choice process is missing. Their chapter
presents two complementary conceptual frameworks as possible ways to
solve this problem. The first is the inter-representational network
(IRN), and the second is decision field theory (DFT). It is suggested
that both frameworks can explain the dynamics and high variability in
the choices of persons navigating in urban environments.
14. In the exploration of human wayfinding and its various components
as illustrated in this first section, the importance of individual
differences, those between males and females, and variations according
to one's spatial abilities are reviewed.
III. SECTION II: PERCEPTUAL AND COGNITIVE PROCESSING OF ENVIRONMENTAL
INFORMATION
15. In this part, three chapters explore cognitive processes and human
navigation in a variety of contexts, including an extensive
investigation of path integration by humans covering wayfinding without
vision; updating an object's orientation and location during nonvisual
navigation; exploring the geometrical constraints and calibration of
action-representation couplings, and relating perceptual processes to
various navigation requirements. Focusing primarily on aspects of human
perception and cognition with respect to wayfinding, these authors
explore nontraditional domains to show the versatility of relevant
theories and concepts. Although vision is accepted as the most
important spatial sense, there is no doubt that blind or
vision-impaired humans can become competent independent travelers using
simple cognitive processes and aids such as the white cane, guide dog,
or a variety of recently developed auditory navigational aids.
16. In the first of these chapters (chapter 5) Loomis, Golledge,
Klatzky, and Philbeck discuss the process of human navigation by path
integration, a process that until recently was recognized more in the
nonhuman domain. They begin by clearly defining two types of processes
influential in wayfinding piloting and path integration. The recent
literature is replete with misconceptions of the nature of these
processes, but little is left in doubt following their clear and
comprehensive discussion. Navigation by humans, animals, and machines
is accomplished using two distinct methods. Piloting is the
determination of current position and orientation using landmark
information in conjunction with a map, either external or internal.
Path integration is the updating of position and orientation on the
basis of velocity and acceleration information about self-movement. The
chapter begins with a consideration of a number of models of path
integration. Following is a review of the empirical research on human
path integration, with a focus on controlled experimental
investigations. Such investigations have been carried out using two
distinct tasks: return-to-origin after the passively guided traverse of
an outbound path, and perceptually directed action, whereby the person
sees or hears a target and then, with the target extinguished, attempts
to indicate its position by actively locomoting toward it or by
pointing in its direction during locomotion that passes by the target.
17. In Chapter 6, Amorim discusses a neurocognitive approach to human
navigation. He suggests that human navigation is viewed as a result of
the interplay of neurocognitive functions. Spatial updating and frames
of reference constitute the two concepts of maximum interest in this
work. He provides experimental evidence on the role of reference frames
in computing locations in space, as well as on the effect of two
processing modes for the updating of an object's location and
orientation. Amorim uses an information-processing approach (commonly
used in cognitive psychology) in an effort to understand human
processes of updating an object's location and orienting it with
respect to a bounding frame of reference. To localize a person in the
environment as well as localize an object the environment contains,
Amorim suggests that the acquisition, coding, and integration of
sensory information (both perceptual and representational) are
necessary. Building on the model of visuo-spatial cognition proposed by
Kosslyn (1991), Amorim offers two studies; one investigates the role of
reference frames in computing locations in space, whereas the other
compares two processing modes for the updating of an object's location
and orientation in space. In interpreting the results of these
experiments he evaluates the neurocognitive approach to the study of
the pathological causes of topographical disorientation.
18. In chapter 7, Rieser examines action-representation couplings,
focusing in particular on the geometrical constraints on such
calibrations. He argues that perception and action are coupled, so that
motoric actions result in dependable changes in the actor's
perspective. For example, during locomotion the structure of an actor's
perspective visibly rotates and translates in directions and at rates
that fit with the geometry and rate of locomotion. This coupling
provides a chance for perceptual-motor learning. While walking with
vision, people learn the covariation of optical (and possibly
nonoptical) flow and afferent-efferent input associated with the
biomechanical activities of walking. This learning, in turn, provides
the basis for the coupling of representation and action. Representation
is coupled with action in working memory in analogous ways. When acting
without vision, people are knowledgeable about the resulting changes in
their perspective. So for example, after viewing their surroundings and
then walking without vision, people are able to keep up to date on the
changing self-to-object distances and directions relative to their
remembered surroundings.
IV. SECTION III: WAYFINDING AND COGNITIVE MAPS IN NONHUMAN SPECIES
19. In previous sections we focused on humans, in whom cognitive
processing is well established, but the tie to navigation and
wayfinding is not strongly defined. In this section the authors focus
on navigation and wayfinding by nonhuman species, in which the presence
of cognitive maps is being strongly debated. In these chapters,
biological and ecological scientists examine wayfinding and discuss the
possibility that different species have and use cognitive maps.
20. Etienne, Maurer, Georgakopoulos, and Griffin begin (in chapter 8)
with a review of the significance of dead reckoning or path integration
and landmark use in the representation of space. In many ways this
provides a view that complements chapter 5 by Loomis et al., which
presents a human navigator's view of the same process. In particular
they examine suggestions that dead reckoning (which does not involve
learning an environment) seems more dominant in nonhumans, whereas
landmark-guided movement may be more dominant in humans. The problem of
how different species combine the systems in wayfinding is examined in
great detail. Drawing on examples from their group's work with small
mammals, Etienne et al. suggest that animals may well have a simple
cognitive map that helps their memory for routes and places (such as
sources of food or food storage areas).
21. But not all animals may have such cognitive maps. In this chapter,
Etienne et al. begin from the viewpoint that spatial representation as
defined originally by Tolman (1948) and more recently by O'Keefe and
Nadel (1978) refers to a high level of spatial information processing.
They use the term cognitive map to imply that a subject organizes the
familiar environment as a system of interconnected places and that it
applies a set of transformation rules to this system, which may consist
of a limited number of complementary operations (such as those
hypothesized by Piaget 1937), or that optimize goal-directed movements.
Thus whether human or nonhuman, a subject must be able to pilot and
perform new route selection before being credited with possessing a
cognitive map.
22. The authors define piloting in terms of planning and performing a
goal-directed path by deducing an itinerary from the memorized spatial
relations between a goal and a traveler's current position, while new
route performance implies an ability to select the most economical
alternative path (including shortest path and shortcuts) in both
familiar and unfamiliar settings. If a cognitive map alone is used,
then piloting and path following must take place without either the use
of beacons or reference to external landmarks. Etienne et al. argue
that the general literature has yet to yield convincing evidence that
spatial knowledge reaches this degree of coherence in species other
than primates. They suggest using the term spatial representation, or
more precisely, the representation of locomotive space, for their work
with nonprimate animal species. Thus their chapter directly addresses
the question of the universality of cognitive maps by suggesting that
whereas spatial representation may be universal, cognitive maps may
develop only in a limited number of species. They then point out that
the attribution of specific systems of representation to different
species poses severe problems. They argue that if one ascribes to an
animal or a young child particular forms of spatial representation,
inevitably one begins by analyzing subjects' behavior in specific
functional contexts to see how observed behaviors fit certain aspects
of the environment.
23. The authors make a strong statement that all sedentary species
adapt their locomotor behavior to relevant features in the spatial
environment in order to reach their goals without getting lost. Thus
the observed correspondence between behavior and functionally
meaningful aspects of the environment gives insights into what the
traveler knows about the environment and thus how the external world is
represented or modeled. The authors then examine the process of dead
reckoning, with and without the possible use of ancillary landmarks.
They report that many theories of navigation emphasize that dead
reckoning (path integration) plays a significant role in spatial
representation and wayfinding across the entire animal kingdom from
insects and other invertebrates to mammals (Gallistel 1990). Then,
building on this fascinating introduction, the authors examine the role
of dead reckoning in the representation of space in a comparative
perspective, including hymenopterans and rodents. They describe how
insects and mammals use dead reckoning as current route-based
information and how they use landmark-place associations as long-term
location-based references. They then consider how the species
previously mentioned represents space on the basis of route-based and
location-based information, and on the interaction between these two
categories of references.
24. In chapter 9, Judd, Dale, and Collett examine the fine structure of
view-based navigation in insects. They begin by asserting that insects
learn landmarks as two-dimensional views. These views are highly
dependent on vantage points, so that even over a relatively short
section of a foraging trip, the insect's view of a nearby landmark will
change appreciably. Insects simplify the problems of using such
retinotopic views for navigation in a number of ways. For example, bees
and wasps restrict the range of directions in which they approach a
familiar place so that they capture roughly the same sequence of
retinal images from visit to visit (i.e.. approach from the same
perspective view). They are guided into the vicinity of the goal by
aiming at a nearby beacon landmark. Because of changes in image size
and shape, a single stored view of the beacon is unlikely to allow the
insect to recognize it over the whole range of possible approaches. In
addition, the authors claim that wood ants are shown to take several
'snapshots' of a beacon at different distances in the early stages of
learning a new environment. Once close to a beacon, the insect
relinquishes fixation either to approach another beacon or to approach
the goal. This transition is achieved by linking a stereotyped action
to a frontally stored view of the beacon. By this means the insect can
acquire a standard view of the next beacon or arrive at a point close
enough to the goal to allow image matching of the goal itself or the
nearest landmark. The goal is then pinpointed by moving so that the
image on the retina matches the view of nearby landmarks. The authors
go on to suggest that there is surprising similarity in the motor
constraints and landmark strategies of real insects and those of simple
simulated 'creatures' they have 'evolved' artificially. Again, the
parallel between human and non-human species stands out.
25. Moving from ground-based animals and low-flying insects to birds,
the internationally acclaimed team of Wolfgang and Roswitha Wiltschko
(chapter 10) discuss compass orientation and basic elements in avian
orientation and navigation. Birds face orientation tasks in two
behavioral contexts: homing and migration. Because of the long
distances involved in migration, birds must establish contact to their
goal indirectly via an external reference. Three such mechanisms have
been described: a magnetic compass based on the field lines of the
geomagnetic field and two compass mechanisms based on celestial cues,
namely a sun compass and a star compass. To use a compass, birds must
first determine the compass course leading to their destination. For
homing, experimental evidence indicates that experienced pigeons can
derive the home course from site-specific information obtained at the
starting point of the return flight. Their ability to do this even at
distant, unfamiliar sites has led to the concept of the navigational
'map', which is a directionally oriented representation of the
distribution of environmental gradients within the home region. It can
be extrapolated beyond the range of direct experience. Birds determine
their home course by comparing local values of these gradients with the
home values. The 'map' is based on individual experience.
26. During an early phase in life, young pigeons derive their home
course from directional information collected during the outward
journey. On spontaneous flights, they record prominent landmarks and
changes in navigational factors and combine this information with the
direction flown to form the navigational map. Once the map is
established, it is preferentially used, because it permits the
correction of errors. The navigational map is a cognitive map because
it allows novel routes; it differs from cognitive maps discussed for
other animals by the size of the area covered and by including
continuous factors like gradients. In migration, birds must reach a
distant region of the world. The course leading to this goal area is
constant; the birds possess genetically coded information on their
migratory direction. The conversion of this information into an actual
compass course requires external references, which are provided by
celestial rotation and by the geomagnetic field. Celestial rotation
indicates a reference direction away from the celestial pole, whereas
the magnetic field defines a specific deviation from this course,
resulting in the population-specific migration course. Both types of
cue continue to interact during migratory flights. Depending on the
nature of the orientation tasks, birds make use of innate information
or of individual learning processes. In both strategies, however,
external references provided by compass mechanisms are essential
components.
27. Thinus-Blanc and Gaunet (chapter 11) discuss the cognitive map as
an internal representation of an environment where places and their
spatial relationships (such as angles and distances) are charted. This
notion has been extensively criticized in the past by Thinus-Blanc
because the expression is antinomic and can easily lead to
misunderstanding. The authors point out that 'cognitive' refers to
dynamic processes and 'map' refers to a static picture of the real
world. To this extent, the term cognitive mapping is functionally more
correct. Internal spatial representations are said to be useful for
orienting in a given environment just as they contribute to the
organization of new spatial information as it is accrued. Thus
Thinus-Blanc and Gaunet argue that spatial representation may be viewed
as maps of the environment but more appropriately should be viewed as
cognitive or active information seeking structures. They draw on data
from animal and human studies and related theoretical work to support
this hypothesis.
V. SECTION IV: THE NEURAL AND COMPUTATIONAL BASES OF WAYFINDING AND
COGNITIVE MAPS
28. In this part cognitive neuroscientists Nadel (University of
Arizona) and Berthoz (Laboratoire de Physiologie de la Perception et de
l'Action, College de France) respectively examine the neural bases of
wayfinding and cognitive maps, and computer scientist Chown (Bowdoin
College) discusses their implications for computation and artificial
intelligence-based travel.
29. In chapter 12, Nadel provides an overview of the neural mechanisms
of spatial orientation and wayfinding. He suggests that work on the
neural bases of wayfinding in mammals has intensified in recent years,
building on the discovery of place neurons in the hippocampus. The
cognitive map theory of hippocampal functioning, first put forward by
O'Keefe and Nadel in 1978, suggests that this brain structure is the
core of an extensive neural system subserving the representation and
use of information about the spatial environment. Nadel argues that
evidence supporting this theory comes primarily from brain lesion and
neurophysiological recording studies. The former showed that damage in
the hippocampus system invariably impairs the ability of animals and
humans to learn about, remember, and navigate through environments,
while the latter show that neurons in this system code for location,
direction, and distance, thereby providing the elements needed for a
mapping system. Current work in this area focuses on which stimuli
control the activity of these neural elements, and how the system is
used in behavior. He cites the fact that the roles of external and
internal sources of information are under active investigation.
30. In the next chapter, Berthoz and his associates examine the neural
bias of spatial memory during locomotion. This chapter addresses the
question of the mechanisms that underlie the capacity to memorize
routes and to use this spatial memory for guiding and steering of
locomotion. A review is presented of several paradigms used in their
laboratory to study this question. First, some previous studies, which
have shown that vestibular information about head rotation and
translation can be used by the brain to estimate distances are
reviewed. Berthoz et al. claim that such use has been shown by the
vestibular memory contingent 'saccade task', both in normal subjects
and in neurological patients. Second, some recent experiments that use
the task of walking along a triangular path with or without vision are
described. During this task, head position and velocity are measured by
video-computerized techniques. Two main results have been obtained: (1)
They have discovered that the head anticipates the body movement during
walks around a corner: this anticipation also exists in darkness,
suggesting that the orienting system is driven by an internal
representation of the trajectory and that the brain uses a strategy of
guiding locomotion by gaze (go where you look) even in darkness. (2)
When vestibular-deficient patients perform the task, they seem to
control the total distance but not the direction, suggesting a
dissociation between the control of distance and direction in this
locomotor pointing task. They also describe a second paradigm of
circular locomotion, during which subjects were asked to walk around a
circular path with or without vision. Here again, the measure of the
kinematics parameters of head movement indicates both an anticipation
of head direction and a dissociation between the control of distance
and direction, and provides clarification of the frequently
misinterpreted concepts of course and heading. Finally, they review a
number of recent results which may lead to an understanding of the
neural basis of both anticipation and the role of vestibular cues in
the steering of locomotion.
31. In the final chapter, Chown discusses error tolerance and
generalization in cognitive maps. He asserts that human cognitive maps
are not precise, complete, nor necessarily accurate. Because navigation
is so important in everyday life, it is not easy to understand why
humans have evolved an internal representation of space that appears to
have such basic flaws. The theme of this chapter is that it is exactly
the sketchy nature of human cognitive maps that make them such a
powerful tool for navigation. There is growing evidence from artificial
intelligence and robotics that in real environments, useful
representations cannot be achieved without sacrificing completeness and
precision. Further, it can be shown that the sketchy nature of
cognitive maps more naturally lends itself to error tolerance and
generalization than would be the case with alternative structures.
Cognitive maps may be sketchy but the information they do store is
usually sufficient for human needs. The relationship between human
needs and how cognitive maps encode information is discussed in a
proposed model called PLAN.
VI. FINAL COMMENT:
32. The more we know about how humans or other species can navigate,
wayfind, sense, and record and use spatial information, the more
effective will be the building of future guidance systems, and the more
natural it will be for humans to understand and control those systems.
The question of which of the many cognitive mapping, navigational, or
wayfinding procedures and behaviors should be taken as the role model
for future systems remains unanswered at this stage. Knowing the
advantages and disadvantages, the strengths and the shortcomings, the
idiosyncrasies and the universals of spatial knowledge acquisition and
storage and wayfinding behavior can only lead to the development of
systems that are as endemic as path integration, as powerful as
cognitive mapping, and as anchored as landmark usage, and that possess
the versatility to handle both view-centered and object-centered modes
of recording or experiencing new environments.
REFERENCES:
Gallistel, C. R. (1990). The organization of learning. Cambridge, MA:
MIT Press.
Kosslyn, S. M. (1991). 'A cognitive neuroscience of visual cognition:
Further developments.' In R. H. Logie & M. Denis (Eds.) Mental Images
in Human Cognition (pp.351-381). Amsterdam: Elsevier Science
Publishers.
O'Keefe, J., & Nadel, L. (1978). The hippocampus as a cognitive map.
Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Piaget, J. (1937). La construction du reel chez l'enfant. Paris:
Delachaux et Niestl, Neuchtel.
Tolman, E. C. (1948). 'Cognitive maps in rats and men.' Psychological
Review, 55, 189-208.
Uttal, D.H. (1997, April) 'Seeing the big picture: Children's mental
representation of spatial information acquired from maps.' Paper
presented at the 93rd annual meeting of The Association of American
Geographers, Ft. Worth, TX.
List of author names with chapter titles and page numbers:
1: Human Wayfinding and Cognitive Maps, 5-46. Reginald G. Golledge
<golledge at geog.ucsb.edu>
2: Spatial Abilities, Cognitive Maps, and Wayfinding: Bases for
Individual Differences in Spatial Cognition and Behavior, 46-81.
Gary L. Allen <allen at garnet.cla.sc.edu>
3: Human Information Processing in Sequential Spatial Choice, 81-99.
Tommy Grling <tommy.garling at psy.gu.se>
4: Environmental Cognition Decision Makaing in Urban Navigation,
99-121. Eliahu Stern <eli at river.bgu.ac.il> Juval Portugali
<juval at ccsg.tau.ac.il>
PART II PERCEPTUAL AND COGNITIVE PROCESSING OF ENVIRONMENTAL
INFORMATION
5: Human Navigation by Path Integration, 125-152. Jack M. Loomis
<loomis at psych.ucsb.edu> Roberta L. Klatzky <klatzky at cmu.edu> Reginald
G. Golledge <golledge at geog.ucsb.edu> John W. Philbeck
<philbeck at andrew.cmu.edu>
6: A Neurocognitive Approach to Human Navigation, 152-168. Michel-Ange
Amorim <amorim at ccr.jussieu.fr>
7: Dynamic Spatial Orientationa and the Coupling of Representation and
Action, 168-191. John J. Rieser <rieserjj at ctrvax.vanderbilt.edu>
PART III WAYFINDING AND COGNITIVE MAPS IN NONHUMAN SPECIES
8: Dead Reckoning (Path Integration), Landmarks, and
Representation of Space in a Comparative Perspective, 197-229. Ariane
S. Etienne <etienne at uni2a.unige.ch> Roland Maurer
<Maurerr at uni2a.unige.ch> Josephine Georgakopoulos
<georgako at uni2a.unige.ch> Andrea Griffin
9: On the Fine Structure of View-Based Navigation in Insects, 229-259.
Simon P. D. Judd <s.p.d.judd at sussex.ac.uk> Kyran Dale
<kyrand at cogs.sussex.ac.uk> Thomas S. Collett <t.s.collett at sussex.ac.uk>
10: Compass Orientation as a Basic Element in Avian Orientation and
Navigation, 259-294. Roswitha Wiltschko, Wolfgang Wiltschko
<wiltschko at zoology.uni-frankfurt.d400.de>
11: Spatial Processing in Animals and Humans: The Organizing
Function of Representations for Information Gathering, 294-309.
Catherine Thinus-Blanc <thinus at lnf.cnrs-mrs.fr> Florence Gaunet
<gaunet at cdf-lppa.in2p3.fr>
PART IV THE NEURAL AND COMPUTATIONAL BASES OF WAYFINDING AND
COGNITIVE MAPS
12: Neural Mechanisms of Spatial Orientation and Wayfinding: An
Overview, 313-328. Lynn Nadel <nadel at u.arizona.edu>
13: Dissociation between Distance and Direction during Locomotor
Navigation, 328-349. Alain Berthz <aber at ccr.jussieu.fr>
Michel-Ange Amorim <amorim at ccr.jussieu.fr>
14: Error Tolerance and Generalization in Cognitive Maps:
Performance without Precision 349. Eric Chown <echown at bowdoin.edu>
REFERENCES 371 CONTRIBUTORS 415 INDEX 419
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