Editing Cognitive map (section)

== Acquisition of the cognitive maps ==
The cognitive map is generated from a number of sources, both from the [[visual system]] and elsewhere. Much of the cognitive map is created through self-generated movement [[Sensory cue|cues]]. Inputs from senses like vision, [[proprioception]], olfaction, and hearing are all used to deduce a person's location within their environment as they move through it. This allows for path integration, the creation of a vector that represents one's position and direction within one's environment, specifically in comparison to an earlier reference point. This resulting vector can be passed along to the hippocampal place cells where it is interpreted to provide more information about the environment and one's location within the context of the cognitive map.<ref name="Jacobs">{{cite journal |last1=Jacobs |first1=Lucia F. |last2=Schenk |first2=Françoise |date=April 2003 |title=Unpacking the cognitive map: the parallel map theory of hippocampal function |journal=[[Psychological Review]] |volume=110 |issue=2 |pages=285–315 |doi=10.1037/0033-295X.110.2.285 |pmid=12747525}}</ref>

Directional cues and positional landmarks are also used to create the cognitive map. Within directional cues, both explicit cues, like markings on a compass, as well as gradients, like shading or magnetic fields, are used as inputs to create the cognitive map. Directional cues can be used both statically, when a person does not move within his environment while interpreting it, and dynamically, when movement through a gradient is used to provide information about the nature of the surrounding environment. Positional landmarks provide information about the environment by comparing the relative position of specific objects, whereas directional cues give information about the shape of the environment itself. These landmarks are processed by the hippocampus together to provide a graph of the environment through relative locations.<ref name="Jacobs" /><ref name=":5" />

Alex Siegel and Sheldon White (1975) proposed a model of acquisition of spatial knowledge based on different levels. The first stage of the process is said to be limited to the landmarks available in a new environment. Then, as a second stage, information about the routes that connect landmarks will be encoded, at the beginning in a non-metric representation form and consequently they will be expanded with metric properties, such as distances, durations and angular deviations. In the third and final step, the observer will be able to use a survey representation of the surroundings, using an allocentric point of view.<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Siegel |first1=Alexander W. |last2=Allik |first2=Judith P. |last3=Herman |first3=James F. |date=March 1976 |title=The Primacy Effect in Young Children: Verbal Fact or Spatial Artifact? |url=http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/1128306 |journal=Child Development |volume=47 |issue=1 |pages=242 |doi=10.2307/1128306 |jstor=1128306 |issn=0009-3920|url-access=subscription }}</ref>

All in all, the acquisition of cognitive maps is a gradual construction. This kind of knowledge is multimodal in nature and it is built up by different pieces of information coming from different sources that are integrated step by step. {{cn|date=March 2025}}