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Think local, act global: How do fragmented representations of space allow seamless navigation?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 October 2013

Paul A. Dudchenko ,
Emma R. Wood  and
Roderick M. Grieves
Paul A. Dudchenko
Affiliation:
School of Natural Sciences, University of Stirling, Stirling, FK9 4LAUnited Kingdom. p.a.dudchenko@stir.ac.ukrmg3@stir.ac.uk Centre for Cognitive and Neural Systems, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh EH8 9JZ, United Kingdom. emma.wood@ed.ac.ukwww.memoryspace.mvm.ed.ac.uk
Emma R. Wood
Affiliation:
Centre for Cognitive and Neural Systems, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh EH8 9JZ, United Kingdom. emma.wood@ed.ac.ukwww.memoryspace.mvm.ed.ac.uk
Roderick M. Grieves
Affiliation:
School of Natural Sciences, University of Stirling, Stirling, FK9 4LAUnited Kingdom. p.a.dudchenko@stir.ac.ukrmg3@stir.ac.uk Centre for Cognitive and Neural Systems, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh EH8 9JZ, United Kingdom. emma.wood@ed.ac.ukwww.memoryspace.mvm.ed.ac.uk
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Abstract

In this commentary, we highlight a difficulty for metric navigation arising from recent data with grid and place cells: the integration of piecemeal representations of space in environments with repeated boundaries. Put simply, it is unclear how place and grid cells might provide a global representation of distance when their fields appear to represent repeated boundaries within an environment. One implication of this is that the capacity for spatial inferences may be limited.

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Information
Behavioral and Brain Sciences , Volume 36 , Issue 5 , October 2013 , pp. 548 - 549
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2013 

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