Chan Edgar, Baumann Oliver, Bellgrove Mark A, Mattingley Jason B
Queensland Brain Institute, The University of Queensland St Lucia, QLD, Australia.
Front Psychol. 2012 Aug 27;3:304. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2012.00304. eCollection 2012.
Landmarks play an important role in guiding navigational behavior. A host of studies in the last 15 years has demonstrated that environmental objects can act as landmarks for navigation in different ways. In this review, we propose a parsimonious four-part taxonomy for conceptualizing object location information during navigation. We begin by outlining object properties that appear to be important for a landmark to attain salience. We then systematically examine the different functions of objects as navigational landmarks based on previous behavioral and neuroanatomical findings in rodents and humans. Evidence is presented showing that single environmental objects can function as navigational beacons, or act as associative or orientation cues. In addition, we argue that extended surfaces or boundaries can act as landmarks by providing a frame of reference for encoding spatial information. The present review provides a concise taxonomy of the use of visual objects as landmarks in navigation and should serve as a useful reference for future research into landmark-based spatial navigation.
地标在引导导航行为中起着重要作用。过去15年的大量研究表明，环境物体可以通过不同方式充当导航地标。在本综述中，我们提出了一个简洁的四部分分类法，用于在导航过程中概念化物体位置信息。我们首先概述对于地标获得显著性似乎很重要的物体属性。然后，我们根据先前在啮齿动物和人类中的行为和神经解剖学发现，系统地研究物体作为导航地标的不同功能。有证据表明，单个环境物体可以充当导航信标，或作为关联或定向线索。此外，我们认为扩展表面或边界可以通过为编码空间信息提供参考框架来充当地标。本综述提供了视觉物体在导航中作为地标的使用的简明分类法，应为未来基于地标的空间导航研究提供有用的参考。
