Spatial Cognition and Navigation

A map of the cortical functional network mediating naturalistic navigation

The paper maps a cortical network of 11 functionally distinct regions involved in naturalistic navigation using fMRI and banded ridge regression.

Embodied Navigation: whole-body movement drives path integration in large-scale free-walking virtual reality

This study investigates how body and visual cues contribute to path integration during large-scale free-walking virtual reality navigation, finding that body cues dominate over visual cues.

A scene with an invisible wall - navigational experience shapes visual scene representation

This study shows that navigational experience influences how visual scenes are perceived and represented in the brain, beyond their visual properties.

Human performance in the Traveling Salesman Problem is influenced by spatial scale

This study shows human performance in solving the Traveling Salesman Problem varies with spatial scale, peaking at intermediate scales where global strategies are used.

Spatial learning in multi-scale environments: Roles of hippocampus, orbitofrontal cortex, and retrosplenial cortex

This study investigates how spatial learning influences cognitive map formation in multi-scale environments by analyzing brain activity patterns in the hippocampus, orbitofrontal cortex, and retrosplenial cortex.

Altered coding of environmental boundaries in human aging: an fMRI study

This study investigates how aging affects the use and neural representation of environmental boundary information during spatial memory tasks using fMRI.

Human Action Planning and Mental Rotation in a Tetris-Like-Game

This study investigates human strategies for assessing object fit in a Tetris-like game, finding three gaze-based strategies related to object configuration complexity.

Theta activity supports landmark-based correction of naturalistic human path integration

This study investigates how humans use landmarks to correct spatial errors during navigation, finding that theta-band activity in the RSC supports this process.

Ant visual route navigation: How the fine details of behaviour promote successful route performance and convergence

This paper investigates how ant navigation strategies, including cast and surge behaviors and oscillatory learning, improve route convergence and performance.

Path integration impairments reveal early cognitive changes in Subjective Cognitive Decline

This study identifies path integration impairments in individuals with subjective cognitive decline, suggesting memory leak as an early marker of neurodegeneration related to Alzheimer's disease.

The Omniroute maze: a novel rodent navigation apparatus that integrates dynamically configurable routes, sensory cues and automated reward delivery

The paper introduces the Omniroute maze, a high-throughput rodent navigation system that automates route configuration, sensory cues, and reward delivery for behavioral experiments.

Cognitive maps for hierarchical spaces in the human brain

This study investigates how the human brain represents hierarchical spatial environments using fMRI and behavioral tasks, finding that integration across subspaces involves specific brain regions and cognitive processes.

Separable cognitive and motor decline tracked across adult life-span for goal-directed navigation

This study tracks cognitive and motor decline in spatial navigation across the adult lifespan using data from a video game, showing age-related declines in both domains without a shift to alternative strategies.

A neural compass in the human brain during naturalistic virtual navigation

This study identifies brain regions in humans that maintain a consistent directional representation during naturalistic virtual navigation.

Age-related differences in electrophysiological correlates of visuospatial reorientation

This study examines age-related differences in EEG activity during visuospatial reorientation tasks, identifying three key electrophysiological changes in older adults.

Running the distance: embodied distance measurement is robust to social interference in fiddler crabs

This study shows that fiddler crabs use leg movement feedback for accurate distance measurement during navigation, which is robust to social interference.

Behavioral investigation of allocentric and egocentric cognitive maps in human spatial memory

This study investigates how humans use allocentric and egocentric cognitive maps for spatial memory through a behavioral task involving virtual environments and coordinate systems.

Object-Centered Spatial Learning in Dynamic Contexts: History-Driven Distractor Suppression and Target Enhancement

The paper investigates how attentional biases are formed in static and dynamic environments, finding that object-based learning allows for object-centered attention while egocentric learning remains viewpoint-dependent.

Clover-like object vector representations support human spatial cognition

The paper demonstrates vector-based spatial coding in humans using a novel spatial updating task, revealing clover-shaped allocentric representations aligned with visual features.

The impact of human agents on spatial navigation and knowledge acquisition in a Virtual Environment

This study examines how human agents affect spatial navigation and knowledge acquisition in a virtual environment, finding that agents influence local attention and navigation accuracy.

Structured navigation emerges from self-guided spatial learning in freely moving common marmosets

This study shows that common marmosets develop structured, memory-guided navigation through self-guided experience in a foraging task, forming flexible yet predictable movement patterns.

Neural and sensory basis of homing behavior in the invasive cane toad, Rhinella marina

This study investigates the neural and sensory mechanisms of homing in invasive cane toads, finding that navigation is multimodal and involves conserved neural structures across vertebrates.

Predicting real-world navigation performance from a virtual navigation task in older adults

This study finds that virtual navigation performance predicts real-world navigation in older adults for medium difficulty tasks but not easy or difficult ones.

Distinct mechanisms for panoramic and landmark-based view integration in human scene-selective cortex

The paper investigates two neural mechanisms for integrating spatial views in the human brain using fMRI and multivoxel pattern analysis, showing distinct roles for the retrosplenial complex and parahippocampal place area.

Expert Navigators Deploy Rational Complexity-Based Decision Precaching for Large-Scale Real-World Planning

This study examines how expert London taxi drivers plan routes by precaching decisions at key junctions, using complexity metrics to prioritize mental sampling during route planning.

Exploring the specific predictive ability of multiple domains of spatial ability on STEM educational outcomes

This study examines how different domains of spatial ability predict STEM educational outcomes and finds that object manipulation tests are most predictive, with genetic factors explaining most of the associations.

London taxi drivers exploit neighbourhood boundaries for hierarchical route planning

This study shows that London taxi drivers use hierarchical planning by organizing city regions into clusters, leading to faster route recall compared to distance-based planning.

London taxi drivers leverage regional boundaries to optimise route choices and improve their navigation skill across three decades

This study shows that London taxi drivers improve their navigation skills over decades by using regional boundaries to optimize route choices.

Mental Rotation is a weak measure of the propensity to visualise.

The paper examines the relationship between mental rotation task performance and imagery vividness, finding that mental rotation is a weak measure of visualisation propensity.

Latent learning without map-like representation of space in navigating ants

This study shows desert ants use latent learning to memorize routes without forming map-like spatial representations, relying instead on egocentric visual memories.