n E. C. Tolman's experiment, some rats were trained to run through mazes for standard food goals, while other rats were allowed to explore the mazes for 10 days without food goals or other rewards. Later, when food rewards were placed in a box at the far end of the maze, the previously unrewarded rats reached the food box as quickly as the rewarded rats after only one or two trials. This experiment demonstrated that the rats had the ability to form cognitive maps of their surroundings.
Cognitive map is any visual representation of a person's mental model for a given process or concept i.e the mental image of the attributes of our environment. This maps help an individual to acquire, code, store, recall and decode information about the relative locations and attributes in their spatial environment.
Cognitive maps help us lay out ideas, processes, and recognize the pattern and relationship.
In E. C. Tolman's experiment, the rat use cognitive maps to find where rewards in the box are located because the rats are able to create and use cognitive maps to help them navigate their environment
