From natural geometry to spatial cognition

A review of selected works on spatial memory in animals and humans is presented, and some ideas about the encoding of geometry and its role in evolution are presented, based on recently accumulated evidence from psychology, ethology and the neurosciences. It is argued that comparative analyses at the level of both spatial navigation behaviors and their underlying neural mechanisms may provide a solid foundation for the biological origins of organisms’ spontaneous ability in dealing with geometric concepts. To this aim, the representations of space underlying memory tasks involving discrete (i.e., landmark arrays) or continuous elements (i.e., enclosed environments) are evaluated and compared as regards the impact of their geometric arrangement.