Spatial representation

de Naomi Eilan, Rosaleen A. McCarthy, Bill Brewer, Rosaleen McCarthy

Do the extraordinary navigational abilities of birds mean that these birds have the same kind of grip on the idea of a spatial world as we do? Is there a difference between the way sighted and blind subjects represent the world 'out there'? Does the study of brain-injured subjects, such as 'blind seers', tell us anything about the workings of normal spatial consciousness? This volume brings together, for the first time, original papers by leading psychologists and philosophers working on questions in spatial representation. A central unifying theme is that progress with understanding the way we represent the external world requires drawing on the resources of both philosophical and psychological approaches to these issues. The papers are arranged by topics into five sections, each of which reflects a central area of research into spatial cognition. The five sections are: 'Frames of reference'; 'Intuitive physics'; 'Spatial representation in the sensory modalities'; 'Action'; 'What and where'. There is also a general introduction and five short introductory essays by the editors, designed to facilitate cross-disciplinary reading of the papers.