Locale and taxon systems: no place for neophrenology?
Cognitive mapping theory has had success in directing attention toward the role that the hippocampus plays in spatial navigation. Nevertheless, this critique argues that (1) the hippocampus does play a relatively direct role in movement control; (2) an associationistic explanation more parsimoniously accounts for spatial navigation performance of rats than cognitive mapping theory; and (3) cognitive mapping theory is an unnecessary psychological construct. Speculatively, it might be worthwhile considering that the explicit feature of human memory and voluntary movements in animals are homologous. Such a notion would lead to more emphasis on the analysis of the role that the hippocampus plays in the control of movement and less on its putative role in housing psychological constructs.
Whishaw
I Q
IQ
Department of Psychology, University of Lethbridge, Alberta, Canada.
D000818:Animals; D006624:Hippocampus / Q000033:anatomy & histology / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans; D008568:Memory / Q000502:physiology; D013028:Space Perception / Q000502:physiology