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Preexposure effects in spatial learning: from gestaltic to associative and attentional cognitive maps

In this paper a series of studies and theoretical proposals about how preexposure to environmental cues affects subsequent spatial learning are reviewed. Traditionally, spatial learning had been thought to depend on gestaltic non-associative processes, and well established phenomena such as latent learning or instantaneous transfer have been taken to provide evidence for this sort of cognitive mapping. However, reviewing the literature examining these effects reveals that there is no need to advocate for gestaltic processes since standard associative learning theory provides an adequate framework for accounting for navigation skills. Recent studies reveal that attentional processes play a role in spatial learning. The need for an integrated attentional and associative approach to explain spatial learning is discussed. Animals such as rats, mice, cats, chimpanzees and even human beings, readily learn to locate an invisible goal by reference to landmarks that lie at varying distances from it by using a cognitive map encoding information about the relationship between the goal and the landmarks. Learning about cognitive maps had been thought to depend on non-associative processes. Traditional cognitive map theories assume that spatial learning involves the building of a complete representation of the environment in an all-or-none manner, in response to novelty and independently of reinforcement. According to that view, the cognitive map is thought to be a highly flexible representation of space that automatically updates whenever novel information appears in a known environment. Organisms capable of building up and using such cognitive maps may acquire information about their environment by mere exposure to it independent of reinforcement. Once a map of the spatial relationships between cues within the environment has been established it may be possible for organisms to make novel short-cuts between two points even