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Abstract

Spatial cognition is a cognitive ability that arose relatively early in animal
evolution. It is therefore very well suited for studying the evolution from
stereotyped to cognitive behavior and the general mechanisms underlying
cognitive abilities. In this paper, I will present a definition of cognition
in terms of the complexity of behavior it subserves. This approach allows to
ask for the mechanisms of cognition, just as the mechanisms of simpler
behavior have been addressed in neuroethology. As an example for this
mechanistic view of cognitive abilities, I will discuss the view-graph theory
of cognitive maps. I will argue that spatial cognitive abilities can be
explained by scaling up simple, stereotyped mechanisms of spatial
behavior. This evolutionary view of cognition is supported by two types of
empirical evidence: Robot experiments show that the simple mechanisms are in
fact sufficient to produce cognitive behavior while behavioral experiments
with subjects exploring a computer graphics environment indicate that
stereotyped and cognitive mechanisms co-exist in human spatial behavior.