(Re)Framing the Problem: Flexible Spatial Cognition in Naturalistic Contexts

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The ability to actively represent the layout of complex environments and subsequently navigate those environments is essential to mobile organisms, including humans. Doing so requires structuring low-level multisensory information into both observer-centered (egocentric) and viewpoint-independent (allocentric) reference frames, dynamically deploying shared information across these reference frames depending on the context, and interfacing with other high-level cognitive processes. Presently, the cognitive and neural mechanisms that support the representation of and coordination between egocentric and allocentric frames remain poorly understood, even in typical healthy young adult samples. In this talk, Starrett Ambrose will highlight experiments that have contributed to our understanding of flexible spatial cognition across egocentric and allocentric reference frames, paved the way for interventions to optimize and augment human cognition, and connected spatial processing to other cognitive domains. Future work in this research program will address changes in healthy aging and disease, harmonize functional definitions for critical brain regions, and elucidate interactions between spatial cognition and other cognitive processes such as working memory and attention.

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