Centre for Cognitive and Neural Systems, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, EH8 9JZ, UK.
Trends Cogn Sci. 2010 Mar;14(3):138-46. doi: 10.1016/j.tics.2010.01.001. Epub 2010 Feb 6.
The ability to find one's way in our complex environments represents one of the most fundamental cognitive functions. Although involving basic perceptual and memory related processes, spatial navigation is particularly complex because it is a multisensory process in which information needs to be integrated and manipulated over time and space. Not surprisingly, humans differ widely in this ability, and recent animal and human work has begun to unveil the underlying mechanisms. Here, we consider three interdependent domains that have been related to navigational abilities: cognitive and perceptual factors, neural information processing and variability in brain microstructure. Together, the findings converge into an emerging model of how different factors interact to produce individual patterns of navigational performance.
在我们复杂的环境中找到方向的能力是最基本的认知功能之一。尽管涉及基本的感知和记忆相关过程，但空间导航特别复杂，因为它是一个多感官的过程，需要随着时间和空间的推移进行信息的整合和操作。毫不奇怪，人类在这种能力上存在很大差异，最近的动物和人类研究已经开始揭示潜在的机制。在这里，我们考虑了与导航能力相关的三个相互依赖的领域：认知和感知因素、神经信息处理以及大脑微观结构的变异性。总的来说，这些发现汇聚成一个关于不同因素如何相互作用产生个体导航表现模式的新兴模型。
