Libraries, supermarkets, classrooms…the world is full of places
that look very similar, and yet our brains always seem to keep
track of where we are. In a new study published in the Journal
of Neuroscience, researchers at Princeton University and Ohio
State University have uncovered one way in which the brain does
this. Similar-looking places can be distinguished from each
other because of differences in what we experience when
navigating to them. As we head toward a destination, our brains
catalogue details such as other nearby buildings, the look of
the doorway, even the people nearby. The researchers discovered
that the parahippocampal cortex, a part of the visual system
that analyzes the current scene in front of us, also
incorporates the details leading up to the scene, or its
“temporal context.” As a result, even when two scenes look
identical, we create different memory traces for them when their
temporal contexts are different. Ultimately, this can help our
brains to keep track of where we are in the