ABSTRACT
That we are able to find our way around in the place where we are is an everyday experience familiar to everyone. This experience is in fact so familiar that we tend to overlook that our accomplishment, and many related accomplishments such as directing newcomers or finding the shortest path to travel, are hardly possible unless we possess a memory representation of the particular place, i.e., a cognitive map, to use the more convenient but less precise shorthand term. The relatively rare and sometimes dramatic cases of disorientation have perhaps attracted more interest than they deserve (Binet, 1894; Weisman, 1981; Zimring, 1981).
