Abstract:
“Dominant theories of hippocampal function propose that place cell representations are formed during an animal’s first encounter with a novel environment and are subsequently replayed during off-line states to support consolidation and future behaviour. Here we report that viewing the delivery of food to an unvisited portion of an environment leads to off-line pre-activation of place cells sequences corresponding to that space. Such ‘preplay’ was not observed for an unrewarded but otherwise similar portion of the environment. These results suggest that a hippocampal representation of a visible, yet unexplored environment can be formed if the environment is of motivational relevance to the animal. We hypothesise such goal-biased preplay may support preparation for future experiences in novel environments.”
Link: http://elifesciences.org/content/4/e06063
Architectural interpretation:
Think of an open space design: from the first step, almost all of the space is visible to you. Within, there are both places you’ve physically experienced, and locations you’ve just observed from afar. Following the rationale described in the abstract above, a place of “motivational relevance” could be represented by any section of the open space environment that poses some level of functional utility. Thus, one could form memory of a place 1. because they’ve been there or 2. because something of potential interest to them was happening there. This would hint at a different role of memory in one’s experience of an open space as opposed to a more compartmentalized environment.
An important aspect to note is that this memory scenario refers to a very particular neural pathway involving place cells; it’s not clear how the overall experience might be affected by interference with memories of other similar places – perhaps certain design expectancies would be developed, based on previous experiences.
Note:
The paper focuses on an animal experiment – it is not immediately clear how well that could translate to human systems.
memory + architecture 