Beyond the Cognitive Map

Beyond the Cognitive Map
Author: A. David Redish
Publisher: MIT Press
Total Pages: 452
Release: 1999
Genre: Animal navigation
ISBN: 9780262181945

There are currently two major theories about the role of the hippocampus, a distinctive structure in the back of the temporal lobe. One says that it stores a cognitive map, the other that it is a key locus for the temporary storage of episodic memories. A. David Redish takes the approach that understanding the role of the hippocampus in space will make it possible to address its role in less easily quantifiable areas such as memory. Basing his investigation on the study of rodent navigation--one of the primary domains for understanding information processing in the brain--he places the hippocampus in its anatomical context as part of a greater functional system. Redish draws on the extensive experimental and theoretical work of the last 100 years to paint a coherent picture of rodent navigation. His presentation encompasses multiple levels of analysis, from single-unit recording results to behavioral tasks to computational modeling. From this foundation, he proposes a novel understanding of the role of the hippocampus in rodents that can shed light on the role of the hippocampus in primates, explaining data from primate studies and human neurology. The book will be of interest not only to neuroscientists and psychologists, but also to researchers in computer science, robotics, artificial intelligence, and artificial life.

Wayfinding Behavior

Wayfinding Behavior
Author: Reginald G. Golledge
Publisher: JHU Press
Total Pages: 460
Release: 1999
Genre: Psychology
ISBN: 9780801859939

The metaphor of a "cognitive map" has attracted interest since the 1940s. Researchers from many fields have explored how humans process and use spatial information, why they make errors or not. This text brings together contributors from diverse fields to explore the

The Cambridge Handbook of the Imagination

The Cambridge Handbook of the Imagination
Author: Anna Abraham
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 865
Release: 2020-06-18
Genre: Psychology
ISBN: 1108429246

The human imagination manifests in countless different forms. We imagine the possible and the impossible. How do we do this so effortlessly? Why did the capacity for imagination evolve and manifest with undeniably manifold complexity uniquely in human beings? This handbook reflects on such questions by collecting perspectives on imagination from leading experts. It showcases a rich and detailed analysis on how the imagination is understood across several disciplines of study, including anthropology, archaeology, medicine, neuroscience, psychology, philosophy, and the arts. An integrated theoretical-empirical-applied picture of the field is presented, which stands to inform researchers, students, and practitioners about the issues of relevance across the board when considering the imagination. With each chapter, the nature of human imagination is examined - what it entails, how it evolved, and why it singularly defines us as a species.

Space,Time and Memory in the Hippocampal Formation

Space,Time and Memory in the Hippocampal Formation
Author: Dori Derdikman
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 567
Release: 2014-07-08
Genre: Medical
ISBN: 3709112923

The discovery of new cell types, such as grid and time cells, in the hippocampus has been accompanied by major anatomical and theoretical insights in the recent years. This book provides comprehensive, up-to-date information about the hippocampal formation and especially the neural basis of episodic memory, spatial location (the formation of the cognitive map) and temporal representation. The first part of the book describes the information flow from pre-hippocampal areas into the hippocampus, the second part discusses the different types of hippocampal processing and finally, the third part depicts the influence that the hippocampal processing has on other brain structures that are perhaps more closely tied to explicit cognitive or behavioral output. This book is intended for neuroscientists, especially for those who are involved in research on the hippocampus, as well as for behavioral scientists and neurologists.

Why People Get Lost

Why People Get Lost
Author: Paul A. Dudchenko
Publisher:
Total Pages: 313
Release: 2010
Genre: Psychology
ISBN: 0199210861

At some point in our lives, most of us have been lost. How does this happen? What are the limits of our ability to find our way? Do we have an innate sense of direction? 'How people get lost' reviews the psychology and neuroscience of navigation. It starts with a history of studies looking at how organisms solve mazes. It then reviews contemporary studies of spatial cognition, and the wayfinding abilities of adults and children. It then considers how specific parts of the brain provide a cognitive map and a neural compass. This book also considers the neurology of spatial disorientation, and the tendency of patients with Alzheimer's disease to lose their way. Within the book, the author considers that, perhaps we get lost simply because our brain's compass becomes misoriented. This book is written for anyone with an interest in navigation and the brain. It assumes no specialised knowledge of neuroscience, but covers recent advances in our understanding of how the brain represents space.

Micro-, Meso- and Macro-Dynamics of the Brain

Micro-, Meso- and Macro-Dynamics of the Brain
Author: György Buzsáki
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 181
Release: 2016-05-02
Genre: Medical
ISBN: 3319288024

This book brings together leading investigators who represent various aspects of brain dynamics with the goal of presenting state-of-the-art current progress and address future developments. The individual chapters cover several fascinating facets of contemporary neuroscience from elementary computation of neurons, mesoscopic network oscillations, internally generated assembly sequences in the service of cognition, large-scale neuronal interactions within and across systems, the impact of sleep on cognition, memory, motor-sensory integration, spatial navigation, large-scale computation and consciousness. Each of these topics require appropriate levels of analyses with sufficiently high temporal and spatial resolution of neuronal activity in both local and global networks, supplemented by models and theories to explain how different levels of brain dynamics interact with each other and how the failure of such interactions results in neurologic and mental disease. While such complex questions cannot be answered exhaustively by a dozen or so chapters, this volume offers a nice synthesis of current thinking and work-in-progress on micro-, meso- and macro- dynamics of the brain.

The Construction of Cognitive Maps

The Construction of Cognitive Maps
Author: Juval Portugali
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Total Pages: 365
Release: 2007-08-23
Genre: Computers
ISBN: 0585334854

and processes which are exclusive to humans in their encoding, storing, decoding and retrieving spatial knowledge for various tasks. The authors present and discuss connectionist models of cognitive maps which are based on local representation, versus models which are based on distributed representation, as well as connectionist models concerning language and spatial relations. As is well known, Gibson's (1979) ecological approach suggests a view on cognition which is diametrically different from the classical main stream view: perception (and thus cognition) is direct, immediate and needs no internal information processing, and is thus essentially an external process of interaction between an organism and its external environment. The chapter by Harry Heft introduces J. J. Gibson's ecological approach and its implication to the construction of cognitive maps in general and to the issue of wayfinding in particular. According to Heft, main stream cognitive sciences are essentially Cartesian in nature and have not as yet internalized the implications of Darwin's theory of evolution. Gibson, in his ecological approach, has tried to do exactly this. The author introduces the basic terminology of the ecological approach and relates its various notions, in particular optic flow, nested hierarchy and affordances, to navigation and the way routes and places in the environment are learned.