Evidence for flexible navigation strategies during spatial learning involving path choices

Doner, Stephanie; Zheng, Jingyi; McAvan, Andrew S.; Starrett, Michael J.; Campbell, Hannah; Sanders, Delaney; Ekstrom, Arne D.

doi:10.1080/13875868.2022.2158090

Cited by 5 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 34 publications

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“…Although place-based learning provided more flexible navigation opportunities, some rats perseverated with the response-based strategy suggesting variability in mammalian navigation. In rodents and in people, variations in the spatial representations used in navigation are possible without sacrificing changes in navigation outcome (Doner et al, 2022;Igloi et al, 2015;Rondi-Reig et al, 2006;Voermans et al, 2004;Zhang et al, 2021).…”

Section: Constructing Spatial Representationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Individual differences in spatial navigation

Perez

Weisberg

2025

Encyclopedia of the Human Brain

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Section: Constructing Spatial Representationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Individual differences in spatial navigation

Perez

Weisberg

2025

Encyclopedia of the Human Brain

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“…Another line of evidence comes from human cognitive studies. People navigating in large open environments exhibit behaviors and neural patterns that are consistent with the use of Euclidean cognitive maps (Chadwick et al, 2015;Doeller et al, 2010;Jacobs et al, 2013;Maidenbaum et al, 2018;Shine et al, 2019), whereas people navigating in maze-like environments exhibit behaviors and neural patterns that are consistent with the use of spatial representations that do not obey Euclidean rules (Chrastil & Warren, 2014;Doner et al, 2022;Ericson & Warren, 2020;He & Brown, 2019;Moeser, 1988;Muryy & Glennerster, 2018;Zetzsche et al, 2009). Taken as a whole, these literatures suggest that the structure of the environment may matter: whereas some environments might be more easily encoded using a Euclidean reference frame, others might be more easily encoded using a cognitive graph consisting of place nodes and their connections .…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The format of the cognitive map depends on the structure of the environment.

Peer,

Nadar,

Epstein

2024

Journal of Experimental Psychology: General

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Humans and animals form cognitive maps that allow them to navigate through large-scale environments.Here we address a central unresolved question about these maps: whether they exhibit similar characteristics across all environments, or-alternatively-whether different environments yield different types of maps. To investigate this question, we examined spatial learning in three virtual environments: an open courtyard with patios connected by paths (open maze), a set of rooms connected by corridors (closed maze), and a set of isolated rooms connected only by teleporters (teleport maze). All three environments shared the same underlying topological graph structure. Postlearning tests showed that participants formed representations of the three environments that varied in accuracy, format, and individual variability. The open maze was most accurately remembered, followed by the closed maze, and then the teleport maze. In the open maze, most participants developed representations that reflected the Euclidean structure of the space, whereas in the teleport maze, most participants constructed representations that aligned more closely with a mental model of an interconnected graph. In the closed maze, substantial individual variability emerged, with some participants forming Euclidean representations and others forming graph-like representations. These results indicate that an environment's features shape the quality and nature of the spatial representations formed within it, determining whether spatial knowledge takes a Euclidean or graph-like format. Consequently, experimental findings obtained in any single environment may not generalize to others with different features. Public Significance StatementThis study shows that people form different types of mental maps of different types of spaces. If the space being learned is open, people are likely to form a mental map that has information about the straight-line distances and directions between different locations. In contrast, if the space has limited visibility between its parts (e.g., a maze), people are likely to form a mental map that has information about the routes that connect different places ("cognitive graph"), and less about their exact locations. These findings illuminate how people create mental representations of different physical spaces and may have implications about how they learn abstract spaces.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The format of the cognitive map depends on the structure of the environment

Peer¹,

Nadar²,

Epstein³

2023

Preprint

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Humans and animals form cognitive maps that allow them to navigate through large-scale environments. Despite decades of research on these maps, a central question remains unclear: are these maps similar in nature across all environments, or are different kinds of maps formed in different kinds of environments? To investigate this, we examined spatial learning within three virtual environments: an open courtyard with patios connected by paths (open maze), a set of rooms connected by corridors (closed maze), and a set of isolated rooms connected only by teleporters (teleport maze). Importantly, all three environments shared the same topological graph structure. Post-learning tests showed that the environmental structure affected the accuracy, format, and variability of participants’ spatial representations. The open maze was the most accurately remembered, followed by the closed maze, and then the teleport maze. Both Euclidean and graph-like spatial codes were formed in the open and closed mazes, but participants’ navigational trajectories were more biased by graph knowledge (connectivity between rooms) in the closed maze compared to the open maze. Finally, performance in the open maze and teleport maze were relatively homogenous across participants, whereas performance in the closed maze exhibited greater individual variability. These results indicate that the structure of the environment strongly shapes the nature of the spatial representations that are formed within that environment, and that experimental findings obtained in any single environment may not generalize to others with different structure.

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Evidence for flexible navigation strategies during spatial learning involving path choices

Cited by 5 publications

References 34 publications

Individual differences in spatial navigation

Individual differences in spatial navigation

The format of the cognitive map depends on the structure of the environment.

The format of the cognitive map depends on the structure of the environment

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