Les recherches menées ces dernières années dans le domaine de la cognition spatiale font état d’observations empiriques originales dont l’approche « traditionnelle » parvient parfois difficilement à rendre compte. L’une des contributions majeures de ces observations a été d’inviter à repenser la perception de scènes, considérant que celle-ci bénéficierait à ne plus être appréhendée comme étant centrée principalement sur la modalité sensorielle considérée. À ce titre, le Modèle multisource de la perception de scènes (Intraub et al.) offre un cadre théorique alternatif, selon lequel la perception de scènes serait structurée autour d’un cadre spatial égocentrique, complété par différentes sources d’information (externe, interne). Toutes travailleraient de concert de façon à créer une simulation des régions environnantes probables, intégrant la vue perçue dans un contexte spatial plus large. Cette revue de question se propose notamment de présenter comment l’une des avancées du modèle d’Intraub est d’unifier différents champs de la cognition jusqu’alors appréhendés isolément.

Research conducted these last years in the field of spatial cognition report empirical findings that are difficult to account for with the traditional visual cognitive model of scene perception. One of the major contributions of these findings has been to invite rethinking scene perception, which would benefit from not being apprehended as centered mainly on the sensory modality considered. On the contrary, the Multisource model of scene perception developed by Intraub et al. offers an alternative theoretical framework considering visual perception as an act of spatial cognition, with spatial information at its core. According to this model, during the initial understanding of a view, the cognitive system would be elaborating a multisource representation, with spatial information constituting an egocentric framework that conveys to the observer a sense of the environment in which he/she is embedded. Scene representation would be organized around an amodal spatial structure combining different sources of information: a bottom-up and external source of information derived from different modalities (e.g., visual, haptic), as well as internal sources of high-level information (i.e., amodal, conceptual and contextual information). These different sources of information would work together to create a simulation of the likely environment, integrating the perceived view into a broader spatial context. Beyond rethinking scene perception, one of the advances of the model is to unify different fields of cognition apprehended until then in isolation. The current paper aims to present this model and some of the results it allows to account for.