Navigating the Sensory Landscape: How Our Senses Shape Spatial Memories.

Understanding the mechanisms that underlie our cognitive abilities is a key issue in psychology.

Researchers often generalize findings from visual cognitive research to other senses but there are reasons to question this practice. Our sense of smell shows a unique integration between primary sensory areas and higher cognitive centers. In contrast, hearing shows separation of perceptual and cognitive processes.

Different organization of these two senses could lead to different engagement in cognitive tasks.

The purpose of this project is to investigate the role of olfaction and hearing in spatial memory and navigation systems in the human brain, using cutting-edge Virtual Veality technology and neural decoding methods.

In three years I plan to complete three studies and aim to (1) Provide evidence for unique encoding of spatial memory for smells versus sounds. (2) Provide evidence for unique encoding of visual environments with distinct sensory background contexts (e.g., smell vs. sound); (3) Explore how sensory-specific primary brain areas are engaged to support spatial memory and navigation.

Through comprehensive testing in younger and older adults, my project will address two questions: Is encoding of spatial memories sensory general or sensory specific? Do primary sensory areas and higher cognitive areas use similar mechanisms to support spatial problems? Results will facilitate a better understanding of spatial cognition - a fundamental feature of the human mind.