干旱区生态环境知识资源中心

Path integration (dead reckoning) is the process by which animals use self-generated movement information to continuously update a representation of their position relative to some starting point. This allows them to return to this point, even in the absence of exteroceptive positional information. Path integration is a bicoordinate process: Both distance and direction to (or from) the starting point have to be maintained in the representation. Recent theoretical work based on neurobiological observations seems to lead to the conclusion that, in rodents at least, path integration is map based, implying a geocentered (earthbound) coordinate system. The present paper discusses, as a word of caution, the opposite notion that path integration in an impoverished, single-coordinate egocentered (animal-bound) polar coordinate system could account for some rather puzzling behavioral data previously recorded on hamsters. This admittedly strange position hinges on observations made on connectionist models of path integration that were developed to simulate the homing behavior of hamsters.