Reflection: SPACE FOR THOUGHT
This Reflection concerns how the brain represents space and how such spatial representations may relate to our cognitive abilities. Space is central to how the brain encodes information, whether it concerns what we see, hear, or feel or how we move through our environment. Two different kinds of spatial signals have been observed in the brain: maps, in which different neurons are responsive to different locations of external stimuli, and meters, in which neurons are sensitive to a broad range of locations but can signal the position of a stimulus via an overall level of activity. These spatial codes may be recruited in the brain not only for processing the immediate spatial environment but also for thought and language. Evidence for this view comes from patterns of spatial sensory and motor metaphors in language and from brain-imaging studies suggesting a relationship between the neural substrates for language and those deployed for sensory and motor processing. Such parallels in functionality may have emerged in an evolutionary process of duplicating the brain’s primary sensory and motor areas and repurposing them for new tasks, i.e. our cognitive abilities.
