Emergence of Maps in the Memories of Blind Navigation Agents
Erik Wijmans, Manolis Savva, Irfan Essa, Stefan Lee, Ari S. Morcos, Dhruv Batra
Abstract
Decades of research into intelligent animal navigation posits that organisms build and maintain internal spatial representations (or maps) 1 of their environment, that enables the organism to determine and follow task-appropriate paths (Epstein, Patai, Julian, & Spiers, 2017; O'keefe & Nadel, 1978; Tollman, 1948). Hamsters, wolves, chimpanzees, and bats leverage prior exploration to determine and follow shortcuts they may never have taken before (Chapuis & Scardigli, 1993; Harten, Katz, Goldshtein, Handel, & Yovel, 2020; Menzel, 1973; Peters, 1976; Toledo et al., 2020). Even blind mole rats and animals rendered situationally-blind in dark environments demonstrate shortcut behaviors (Avni, Tzvaigrach, & Eilam, 2008; Kimchi, Etienne, & Terkel, 2004; Maaswinkel & Whishaw, 1999). Ants forage for food along meandering paths but take near-optimal return trips (Müller & Wehner, 1988), though there is some controversy about whether insects like ants and bees are capable of forming maps (Cheung et al., 2014; Cruse & Wehner, 2011).