The Empirical and Theoretical Foundations of O'Keefe and Nadel's Cognitive Map Theory: A Historical Assessment

O’Keefe and Nadel’s (1978) proposal that the hippocampus functions as a cognitive map represents one of the most influential theories in neuroscience. This historical analysis examines the empirical and theoretical foundations upon which their theory was built, distinguishing rigorously between evidence available before 1978 and subsequent confirmatory findings. Drawing from primary textual analysis of The Hippocampus as a Cognitive Map, contemporary reviews, and the evolution of spatial cognition research, this paper argues that O’Keefe and Nadel succeeded by transforming Tolman’s behavioral metaphor into a neurobiological research program, despite the absence of detailed computational mechanisms. The theory’s influence stemmed from its ability to bridge behavioral and neural levels of analysis while establishing a productive experimental framework. This analysis reveals how O’Keefe and Nadel navigated the theoretical landscape of 1970s neuroscience—shaped by emerging computational perspectives and limited formal modeling tools—to create a foundational theory that fundamentally shaped spatial cognition research and continues to evolve through contemporary findings on remapping, representational drift, and compositional cognitive maps.