Boundaries Shape Cognitive Representations of Spaces and Events

Efficient navigation from one place to another is facilitated by the ability to use spatial boundaries to segment routes into their component parts. Similarly, memory for individual episodes relies on the ability to use shifts in spatiotemporal contexts to segment the ongoing stream of experience. The segmentation of experiences in spatial and episodic domains may therefore share neural underpinnings, manifesting in similar behavioral phenomena and cognitive biases. Here, we review evidence for such shared mechanisms, focusing on the key role of boundaries in spatial and episodic memory. We propose that a fundamental event boundary detection mechanism enables navigation in both the spatial and episodic domains, and serves to form cohesive representations that can be used to predict and guide future behavior.