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Related Experiment Video

Updated: Feb 6, 2026

Involving Individuals with Developmental Language Disorder and Their Parents/Carers in Research Priority Setting

Involving Individuals with Developmental Language Disorder and Their Parents/Carers in Research Priority Setting

Published on: June 6, 2020

Space, time, and language.

Michael C Corballis¹

¹School of Psychology, University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand. m.corballis@auckland.ac.nz.

Cognitive Processing

|August 21, 2018

Summary

This summary is machine-generated.

Spatiotemporal cognition, essential for mental exploration and language, relies on the hippocampal-entorhinal circuit. This circuit

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Area of Science:

Neuroscience
Cognitive Science
Evolutionary Biology

Background:

Cognition is fundamentally linked to spatial awareness and navigation.
Mental exploration of space is flexible, involving manipulation of viewpoints and scenarios.
The hippocampal-entorhinal circuit, with specialized cells, underlies spatiotemporal cognition.

Purpose of the Study:

To explore the relationship between spatiotemporal cognition and language generativity.
To investigate the evolutionary origins of language based on spatial processing.
To highlight the role of the hippocampal-entorhinal circuit in complex cognitive functions.

Main Methods:

Review of neurophysiological recordings in rat brains.
Analysis of the properties of place cells, grid cells, and border cells.
Theoretical integration of spatial cognition mechanisms with language evolution.

Main Results:

The hippocampal-entorhinal circuit's capacity for spatial remapping supports flexible mental exploration.
The generativity of language may stem from the underlying generativity of spatiotemporal scenarios.
Understanding this circuit in rodents provides insights into the evolutionary history of cognition.

Conclusions:

Spatiotemporal cognition, supported by the hippocampal-entorhinal circuit, is a likely precursor to language generativity.
Language may have evolved as a mechanism for sharing complex spatial representations and scenarios.
The evolutionary roots of language are deeply embedded in our capacity for spatial processing.