This review examines the hypothesis that 'mental navigation' — the use of cognitive map-like representations to traverse conceptual, social, and abstract spaces — serves as a default computational mode in human cognition, not just a specialized spatial function.
The paper proposes that the neural machinery underlying spatial navigation (e.g., hippocampal-entorhinal circuits) is broadly recruited for reasoning, planning, and abstract thought, suggesting mental navigation is a domain-general default process rather than a context-specific one.
As a theoretical review/opinion piece, it lacks primary empirical data; causal claims about mental navigation as a 'default' mode rely on correlational and indirect evidence from existing studies.
