ABSTRACT
Any creature that travels through space needs some ability to navigate. The psychologist Edward Tolman (1948) proposed that rats navigate using cognitive maps. His proposal flouted the behaviorist consensus of his day, which sought to explain all mental and behavioral phenomena in terms of stimulus-response associations, without recourse to mental representations. Numerous scientists have subsequently pursued the cognitive map hypothesis as applied to diverse species, with especially notable contributions by O’Keefe and Nadel (1978) and Gallistel (1990). What could it possibly mean to say that an animal has a map inside of its head? And why should we believe any such thing? The present entry will pursue these questions.
