Spatial orientation: A relationship with inferential memory

Abstract

Two branches of the scientific literature have dominated our understanding of hippocampal function. One focuses on the support this structure offers to declarative memory, while the other views the hippocampus as a part of a system dedicated to spatial navigation. These two different visions can be reconciled in relational theory, which suggests that the hippocampus processes all kinds of associations and sequences of events. According to this, processing would be similar to a route calculation based on associations of spatial information acquired during navigation and the associative relationship established between memories without spatial content. In this paper, we present a behavioral study of healthy individuals to explore the performance of inferential memory tasks and spatial orientation tasks in a virtual environment. Inferential memory and spatial orientation task performances were positively correlated. However, after controlling for a non-inferential memory task, only the correlation between allocentric spatial orientation and inferential memory remained significant. These results provide support for the similarity between the two cognitive functions, lending credence to the relational theory of the hippocampus. Additionally, our behavioral findings are in line with the cognitive map theory, which suggests a potential association between the hippocampus and allocentric spatial representations.

Keywords: Associative inference; Cognitive map theory; Hippocampus; Inferential memory; Relational theory; Spatial navigation; Spatial orientation.