Location: University of Applied Sciences Potsdam, Kiepenheuerallee 5, 14469 Potsdam – main building, theater room (room 124)

Time: 6:00 pm – 7:30 pm (CET)

Prof. Dr. Roberto Bottini (Department of Psychology and Cognitive Science, University of Trento – Italy)

Knowledge Across Reference Frames: Adding Perspective to Cognitive Maps

Cognitive maps were first characterized as allocentric spatial representations in the hippocampal–entorhinal system that support navigation. Recent work in cognitive and computational neuroscience shows that this mapping function generalizes beyond space, organizing declarative memory across multiple dimensions of experience. I argue that allocentric maps are only half the story. Just as spatial behavior integrates allocentric and egocentric frames of reference, conceptual navigation in semantic and episodic memory likewise depends on their interaction. I will present behavioral, neuroimaging, and modeling results indicating that knowledge is structured by complementary allocentric and egocentric codes distributed across a broader network (including hippocampus/entorhinal cortex with retrosplenial, posterior parietal, and prefrontal regions) that supports the storage, retrieval, and flexible manipulation of declarative memories. This perspective advances an extended model of cognitive mapping in which reference-frame integration is a general principle for constructing and transforming knowledge, with testable predictions for how these codes coordinate across tasks, timescales, and domains.