Cognitive Maps for a Non-Euclidean Environment: Path Integration and Spatial Memory on a Sphere
通过沉浸式虚拟现实实验，研究了年轻人在球面（非欧几里得）和平面环境中的路径整合与空间记忆能力，发现即使了解非欧几何，被试仍表现出强烈的欧几里得偏好，但能通过构建局部欧几里得地图灵活组合来导航。
Humans build mental models of the world and utilize them for various cognitive tasks. The exact form of cognitive maps is not fully understood, especially for novel and complex environments beyond the flat Euclidean environment. To address this gap, we investigated path integration—a critical process underlying cognitive mapping—and spatial-memory capacity on the spherical (non-Euclidean) and planar (Euclidean) environments in young healthy adults ( N = 20) using immersive virtual reality. We observed a strong Euclidean bias during the path-integration task on the spherical surface, even among participants who possessed knowledge of non-Euclidean geometry. Notably, despite this bias, participants demonstrated reasonable navigation ability on the sphere. This observation and simulation suggest that humans navigate nonflat surfaces by constructing locally confined Euclidean maps and flexibly combining them. This insight sheds light on potential neural mechanisms and behavioral strategies for solving complex cognitive tasks.