Where you grew up may shape your navigational skills:
People who grow up outside of cities are better at finding their way around than urbanites, a large study on navigation suggests. The results, described online March 30 in Nature, hint that learning to handle environmental complexity as a child strengthens mental muscles for spatial skills.
Nearly 400,000 people from 38 countries around the world played a video game called Sea Hero Quest, designed by neuroscientists and game developers as a fun way to glean data about people's brains. Players piloted a boat in search of various targets.
On average, people who said they had grown up outside of cities, where they would have presumably encountered lots of meandering paths, were better at finding the targets than people who were raised in cities.
What's more, the difference between city dwellers and outsiders was most prominent in countries where cities tend to have simple, gridlike layouts, such as Chicago with its streets laid out at 90-degree angles. The simpler the cities, the bigger the advantage for people from more rural areas, cognitive scientist Antoine Coutrot of CNRS who is based in Lyon, France, and his colleagues report.
Journal Reference:
Coutrot, A., Manley, E., Goodroe, S., et al. Entropy of city street networks linked to future spatial navigation ability, Nature (DOI: 10.1038/s41586-022-04486-7)
(Score: 2) by looorg on Friday April 08 2022, @10:55AM (10 children)
Not sure. I still tend to get lost, sort of, in big cities. The concrete maze. My personal take on it is if you are old enough to be pre-GPS-apps or not. People that could sort of read maps and you had some idea and not just pulling it up on your phone.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 08 2022, @11:20AM (9 children)
I grew up in a very small town. I sort of always know which way is North. If I don't have GPS handy I navigate by knowing which direction I should be heading and how far I have to go. Sort of a dead reckoning. Sometimes I end up taking the long way round but I usually get there. Occasionally I get really lost, especially on cloudy nights when you can't see the stars.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by PiMuNu on Friday April 08 2022, @11:57AM (3 children)
I grew up in a town where North is uphill. But now live in a town where South is uphill. Everything is rotated. 10 years later and I still get confused.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by DeathMonkey on Friday April 08 2022, @04:05PM (1 child)
When I moved from Seattle to Denver I kept confusing north/south because the mountains are on the wrong side now!
(Score: 3, Funny) by Phoenix666 on Friday April 08 2022, @05:06PM
Easy fix: stand on your head.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by mhajicek on Friday April 08 2022, @06:35PM
My parents front door faces South, so my mental roadmap is upside down.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Immerman on Friday April 08 2022, @03:03PM (4 children)
I believe humans do have magnetoreceptors as one of the senses that don't get mentioned much - meaning that like birds and many other animals we can directly sense our orientation within the Earth's magnetic field.
However, it's not nearly as strong as in many species, and I imagine if you don't get used to using it as a child your brain might never really develop to pay attention to it. I've neglected mine for a long time, but as a kid roaming the mountains around my home I could spin around blindfolded and then point roughly north pretty reliably.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 08 2022, @03:27PM
The subjects' alignment relative to the Earth's magnetic field is likely irrelevant with these tests, as they were conducted using a video game.
(Score: 2) by mhajicek on Friday April 08 2022, @06:38PM
Either that, or you could feel the sunlight on your skin.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 4, Interesting) by ElizabethGreene on Friday April 08 2022, @07:01PM (1 child)
It has been experimentally confirmed via iirc PET scan in a changing magnetic field. That doesn't mean people are brain-trained to recognize it. The anecdotes I've read of people that measurably demonstrate magneto-orientation use a mental picture of a specific known orientation and then rotate until that picture "feels right". That matches the PET results indicating the magneto-stimulated areas are near visual processing centers.
It would be a fun thing to learn to do if you want to invest the time in it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 09 2022, @02:29AM
It's likely that people use multiple systems, some people can also see polarized light as evidenced by haidingers brush.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 08 2022, @11:45AM (1 child)
The city dwellers did a better job of avoiding the muggers while searching for the targets.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by DeathMonkey on Friday April 08 2022, @04:21PM
Define "Navigation."
I'm guessing if the game included navigating with a bit of inductive logic (e.g. figuring out destination from a grid of streets, reading a subway map, etc) vs. remembering the route based on landmarks, the city dwellers would do better.
Seems like they've specialized different aspects of navigation rather than one being better/worse at it.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Friday April 08 2022, @05:08PM (1 child)
I'll buy that premise. New Yorkers only understand "uptown," "downtown," and "Jersey."
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Friday April 08 2022, @05:11PM
What, no love for the land of Shaolin?
Best protect 'ya neck!
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Friday April 08 2022, @05:14PM (6 children)
If you think about it, though, people navigate according to landmarks and immutable indicators like the sun and stars. The latter don't change, but might not be perceptible (in NYC you often can't see the sun directly and at night the sky is a flat orange from light pollution) so you have to rely on landmarks. What qualify as landmarks might vary quite a bit: I grew up in the mountains but get lost in the suburbs because they all look identical to me.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by looorg on Friday April 08 2022, @06:24PM (1 child)
The thing is in nature there are clues. Yes there are landmarks and such (the big tree or that rock over there or whatnot). But there are also clues such as where and how things grow. None of that is available in the city; it's not like all graffiti or hobo vomit are always on the walls facing east or something.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 09 2022, @02:34AM
Neither is moss. It's true that moss is on the north side of trees, but also the south, east and west sides. If you've got decent light and an analogue watch, you're far better off using a small stick on the hour hand and using that to navigate roughly based on the sun's position.
http://www.barewilderness.com/survival-facts/tips-tricks/navigate-with-watch.html [barewilderness.com]
(Score: 1) by jman on Saturday April 09 2022, @01:20PM (3 children)
An early Laurie Anderson album has a track about someone asking for directions in a small town. One of the lines is something like "...then you take a left at that place where they're thinking of building a drive-in bank..."
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Saturday April 09 2022, @01:37PM (2 children)
Well, are you heading north to Buena Park or south to Boystown? There is a significant difference. I used to live just north of Irving Park Rd & Sheffield and you wanted to pay attention to which bar you walked into.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 1) by jman on Saturday April 09 2022, @02:11PM (1 child)
Wow, never thought about it before, but I also lived in Buena Park as a kid ... when we briefly moved to L.A. in the late 60's.
So far as Chicago goes, we moved a lot, but were usually within a mile from Wrigley. That probably also contributed to learning how to get around at a young age.
Having to watch the bar entrance is also universal. A group of my service buddies and I spent a week in New Orleans a while back. We were making our way down Bourbon and had wandered into Yet Another Bar. Two of our group lit up. The rest of us straight guys us wished them well and kept traveling...
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Saturday April 09 2022, @03:06PM
The Quarter does help out a bit by also supplying an auditory clue when the chant of "Show your tits" switches to "Show your dick." The line of demarcation is roughly around that bar where they serve hurricanes in those weird cups the color of Pepto-Bismol.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 08 2022, @06:39PM
I grew up on earth. Where did you grow up?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 08 2022, @09:53PM
It was always easier to navigate at night. Plus you could see the city lights on the horizon, and you can always cheat by using a cheap AM radio as a direction finder to know which city you were looking at.
(Score: 2) by istartedi on Friday April 08 2022, @11:56PM
Anecdote is not data, but I grew up in the suburbs and when the topic of navigation comes up I always remember the time my skills (and those of several others in our group) were pitted against a farm-boy.
There was some confusing signage on a hike that directed us to a parking lot with the same name as our point of interest. It was reasonable to assume that was our parking lot, but it wasn't. I did well to realize that this information was superseded by the fact that a valley was on our left. On the way out, the valley was on the right. On the way back, the valley must be kept on the left. It's very basic navigation; but farm-boy almost led us in the wrong direction.
A slight argument broke out, with about a 50-50 vote of "follow the sign" vs. "follow the valley". Several of us, myself included, decided to follow the valley even if it meant breaking up. We headed back. Thankfully, the entire group eventually followed, most likely due to seeing unfamiliar landmarks.
There was a story of another group being not so lucky at this spot, darkness arriving, and being rescued by rangers. I don't know if they ever fixed the confusing signs. I would have signed our lot "upper" and the other lot "lower" and installed two signs at the point of interest. It could have solved a lot of problems.
Of course suburbs vs. country is a different thing. My moderately hilly suburb might have been a better place to learn navigation than farm country which is generally flat.
There was another time when I didn't do so well, and it was just me and one other guy who was raised in a much more mountainous and rural area. We debated for about 5 minutes, and he had more confidence so I gave in. That turned out be the right decision. That hike was all woods with no visible horizon in the distance.
I find that if I have to look at a map, or seek direction, it's usually because I thought the road or path was going in some direction, but it somehow managed to have a combination of curves that goes differently.
In fact, the main highway near my house is like that. I rightly know which windows face south, but I always think of the next major town as "west" when it's really more like southwest. I suspect the gradual curve of the road has something to do with it. I think of the road as north-south because that's its direction locally (over about 20 miles) but it's actually an east-west route (over 200 miles), and it's signed that way. "Closed eastbound", I have to translate that in to "can't go south".
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(Score: 1) by jman on Saturday April 09 2022, @02:02PM
Coming from the story-mentioned city of Chicago, I'd disagree that we urban folk are worse at navigating. Playing Sea Hero Quest sounds like an interesting test for that assertion.
True, I often spent some summer time at various family farms in Wisconsin or on camp-outs with the scouts, but had also known by four how to cross a street without getting smushed by a car, and make my own way back to the house.
So far as landmarks go, they don't have to be a "natural" item such as a certain tree, or brook. Chicago has plenty. Big ones: John Hanckcock ; the Water Tower; Navy Pier; Wrigley Field; the River - don't call this one "natural". Have you ever seen the water? ;) Smaller Ones: the Picasso at Daley Plaza; the Lions at the entrance to the Art Insitute; the El station where the Ravenswood line starts; the old railroad bridge on Kinzie; the Bean at Millenium Park; the U-Boat on the side of Museum of Science and Industry (though I think they moved that inside, so time to update the internal database of landmarks).
When traveling - by car or foot, doesn't matter - in an unfamiliar area and trying to get somewhere, I often use the one landmark most everyone on the planet can employ - the sun. What time is it? Then the sun's over there. That immediately helps determine if you're moving in the right direction. You may have to double-back a bit due to some obstruction (a dense copse on foot, a windy road when driving), but trust the sun to help keep you on track. At night, it's the stars. Of course, in cloud cover all bets are off.
That's all nurture. You learn what's around where you are. Then there's nature. Some folks just have an ability to "not get lost", and just because you're born and raised in a rural area, doesn't mean you automatically have that skill.
In unfamiliar areas, I rarely get truly lost, but sometimes have to take a breath and remember the path I've taken thus far. We all keep a map in our heads which complements natural navigation skills. Some folks are just better mapmakers, just as some folks are better at jumping.
I also have made an effort, no matter where I've lived, to learn my area. When driving, take that road, even if you'll normally never need to. When walking, take that other path and see where it leads, or even get off the path entirely. Never know what you'll find or learn, and your internal map will only be the better for it.
Whether you're a City mouse or a Country mouse, the more one travels their usual haunts, the more one has memorized the space, with no conscious need to think about how to get to the destination. This can actually work against you. More than once I've been headed somewhere near a place I go regularly, and have to catch myself trying to go to the "usual" place by rote.
Oops, should have taken that left turn at Albuquerque!