Abstract
This chapter presents a picture of how hippocampal place cells might contribute to spatial memory via a field density model that provides information about direction to goals. A key feature of the model is that it demonstrates a way around the apparent paradox of hippocampal cells representing local features of the environment while at the same time being able to represent a distal goal. The model also circumvents many of the criticisms that have been made of cognitive map-type descriptions of hippocampal spatial function.