MODELLING SPATIAL RECALL, MENTAL IMAGERY AND NEGLECT
to appear in Advances in Neural Processing Systems 13, MIT Press, 2001.

Suzanna Becker and Neil Burgess


We present a computational model of the neural mechanisms in the parietal and temporal lobes that support spatial navigation, imagery, and episodic recall. Long term representations are stored in the hippocampus, and are associated with local spatial and object-related features in the parahippocampal region. Viewer-centered representations are dynamically generated from long term memory in the parietal part of the model. The model thereby simulates recall and imagery of locations and objects in complex environments. After parietal damage, the model exhibits hemispatial neglect in mental imagery that rotates with the imagined perspective of the observer, as in the famous Milan Square experiment reported by Bisiach and Luzatti \cite{bisiach-luzatti-78}. Our model makes novel predictions for the neural representations in the parahippocampal and parietal regions and for behavior in healthy volunteers and neuropsychological patients.


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