Cognitive maps
noun phrase
Definition: Cognitive maps are internal or external structured representations used to organize knowledge about environments, relations, or decision situations. In decision modeling traditions, they are commonly represented as graphs whose nodes denote concepts, constructs, or states, and whose arcs encode relations among them; recent work also treats them as internal world models supporting navigation, planning, and reasoning [Yeung et al. 2025].
Example in context: “A large literature on hippocampus-dependent navigation has shown that active exploration of novel environments is key to building cognitive maps in non-human animals and humans, which is critical for supporting efficient navigation.” [Cen et al. 2024]
Synonyms: cognitive representations; internal world models
Related terms: spatial navigation; planning; reasoning; knowledge representation; fuzzy cognitive maps; decision modeling