Cognitive Maps & Navigation

What is the border-bias heuristic?

The error of judging locations on opposite sides of a border as farther apart than they really are.

What is the same-category heuristic?

The assumption that things from the same category (e.g., two cities in one state) are closer together than those from different categories.

What is the landmark effect?

People estimate landmarks as being closer to other points than non-landmarks.

What is the 90-degree-angle heuristic?

The tendency to remember angles on maps as being closer to 90° than they actually are.

What is the rotation heuristic?

Mentally rotating objects, countries, or regions to appear more vertical or horizontal than in reality.

What is the alignment heuristic?

Assuming geographic features (like continents or cities) are more neatly aligned than they actually are.

What is a cognitive map?

A mental representation of spatial relationships among objects, locations, and events in an environment.

Which experiment first introduced the concept of a cognitive map?

Tolman (1948) rat maze study—rats explored a maze, then when the main route was blocked, they chose a new shortcut path, showing they formed an internal map rather than just learning movements.

What did Tolman’s rat maze study demonstrate?

Rats form cognitive maps—internal spatial representations that allow flexible navigation.

How do heuristics distort cognitive maps?

People apply simplifications like border-bias, alignment, and rotation heuristics, leading to systematic spatial errors.

What is the spatial framework model?

A theory explaining how people represent spatial information using three reference axes: vertical (above–below), front–back, and right–left.

Who developed the spatial framework model, and what did their experiment show?

Franklin & Tversky (1990) asked participants to imagine spatial layouts and answer where objects were (e.g., “Is the lamp above you?”). People answered “above–below” faster than “right–left,” showing prioritized spatial dimensions.

What order of dimensions does the spatial framework model predict?

Above–below first, front–back second, right–left last.

What is the hippocampus’s role in spatial memory?

It forms and retrieves cognitive maps and spatial layouts.

What are place cells, and who discovered them?

O’Keefe & Dostrovsky (1971) discovered neurons in the rat hippocampus that fired when the rat was in specific locations—evidence for internal spatial mapping.

What are grid cells, and who discovered them?

Hafting et al. (2005) found neurons in the entorhinal cortex that fire in a grid-like spatial pattern as rats move, creating a coordinate system for navigation.

What does the Morris water maze experiment test?

Rats are placed in cloudy water and must find a hidden platform using visual cues; they use spatial memory to navigate to it faster over trials.

What does hippocampal damage do in the Morris water maze?

Rats with hippocampal lesions cannot learn or remember the platform’s location, showing the hippocampus is essential for spatial learning.

What did the London taxi driver study (Maguire et al., 2000) investigate?

MRI scans compared London taxi drivers to controls—drivers had enlarged posterior hippocampi, correlating with years of navigation experience.

What did the Maguire et al. (2000) study conclude?

Intense spatial navigation experience can physically enlarge the posterior hippocampus.

What did H.M.’s case study reveal about the hippocampus?

After removal of his hippocampi, H.M. could not form new long-term or spatial memories, proving the hippocampus is critical for encoding new declarative and spatial memories.

What do neuroimaging studies suggest about the posterior hippocampus?

It plays a key role in spatial memory and navigation, and grows with intensive spatial learning (e.g., taxi driver training).