In many animals the ability to navigate over long distances is an important prerequisite for foraging, including ants and bees. The use of path integration(PI) is widely accepted, however the questions of to what extent the path integration can help navigation and if a higher form of inner global representation called “cognitive map” is really existing are still under debate. This paper presents an artificial memory system which is based on path integration and various landmark guidance mechanisms,and used some real animal experimental data into their artificial memory system, in order to show that the “cognitive map” is not necessary, cause the PI and landmark in their artificial memory system can guide the entire work of navigation in ants and bees.
Cruse, H., & Wehner, R. (2011). No Need for a Cognitive Map: Decentralized Memory for Insect Navigation PLoS Computational Biology, 7 (3) DOI: 10.1371/journal.pcbi.1002009
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