Getting Lost during Navigation: The Unconscious Processes

Navigation is the cognitive activity shown by most animals to remember and go to a specific location. It is common belief that there are two main schemes to accomplish navigation. The “lower” species such as insects use a primitive method called path integration, while the “higher” animals develop an advanced, fundamentally different system called cognitive map. 

However, an alternative view is that the cognitive map evolved directly from the path integration system and is basically the same thing. In this talk I will discuss how path integration works, how a collection of them can produce a mental map, the properties of such a navigation system that lead to people easily getting lost in certain environments, and how to overcome those difficulties.