Egocentric versus allocentric perspective - From spatial to social and digital cognition

Abstract

As mobile beings, it is important to maintain spatial information about our surroundings in everyday life. Neuroscience suggests the existence of two types of frames of reference in spatial memory: egocentric and allocentric representation. The former encodes the location of an object in relation to one’s body, while the latter encodes the location in relation to the external environment. Spatial reference frames (RFs) play a critical role in spatial memory, allowing the storage of information to be organized into different coordinate systems. In general, in egocentric RFs, the locations of objects are encoded relative to the location-label of the main subject, while in allocentric RFs, they are encoded relative to each other or relative to landmarks in the environment. Egocentric representation is mainly innate, while allocentric representation derives mainly from acquired experience; thus, egocentric representation dominates in the early years of life, while allocentric representation gains ground during development. The underlying neural processes for egocentric and allocentric RFs appear to be at least partially overlapping. Taking together the findings, we may suggest that the dynamic connectivity of the spatially distributed network, rather than the activity of a single brain region, is critical for accurate recall spatial cognition. Also, the extent to which a spatially distributed memory network can rapidly exchange information is critical for the efficiency of its functional output. Interesting aspects of involvement of spatially tuned neurons in the understanding of domains of social cognition have been recently proposed. Furthermore, it is worth exploring the way in which ‘the self’ is experienced and navigated in new technological and AI environments. As we now live in a new digital era, the following questions arise: How do we perceive “presence” in human-AI interactions? Also, how can egocentric and allocentric representations produce social and cognitive maps in these technological environments?