The term 'cognitive map' was first coined by Tolman (1948), who defined it as a representation of the environment which indicated the routes, paths and environmental relationships that an animal uses in making decisions about where to move. As well as the ability to learn right from left, a feature of a cognitive map, according to Tolman, was the ability to make novel short-cuts between two points.
Bennet and Tolman's research is focused on whether the dog has the ability to find it's way home, not whether the dog has the ability to find a location in someone's brain.
When he found where I worked in 1972, two Building Departments, a house I rented for 3 months in 1974, and took my girlfriend to where she lived in 1978, two Building Departments, and the house on Fairview Place that I sold to Billy Griffin from the Miracles, he wasn't finding his way to any of these locations because of a cognitive map or because he was "familiar with the terrain," he was finding these locations because he was familiar with the "terrain," of my brain. Read about Hunter at OpEdNews.
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