Geospatially challenged, strong or average?

[shootingstar]

I'm probably geospatially-challenged. I'm the sort of person if there are 3 different subway exits, and I use an exit route that I normally don't use and end up on a street where I normally don't walk on, I have to think a minute where I am.

Last week, I went snowshoeing in the mountains with my partner. On the last day, he wanted to explore a piece at midway in the snow journey. So I said, ok and I'll just go back ..thinking I knew the route.

I got lost..for almost an hr. Getting lost on a mountain side, with more snowy hills, mountains ahead and ridges in below freezing temp. is different from getting lost on a bike. At least on roads, there's signage, etc.

I could hear the snowmobiles screaming around somewhere...but wasn't clear where to go to flag one down for directions. I wasn't feeling great and knew darkness would fall in less than 2 hrs.

Needless to say...I did get "found" by my partner who snowshoed downward to the hotel and then back up from the valley... after not finding me at hotel where we scheduled to check out in 2 hrs.

Cycling has helped me to feel more comfortable ...to get lost and to climb out of "lostness"....in order to explore the world on my own. It hasn't necessarily made me more geospatially stronger --yet.

[OakLeaf]

Oh, I'm hopeless. I'm really good at maps, really awful at remembering a route "freehand" (free-brain?). That's why God made GPS.

[Mr. Bloom]

Glad you weren't lost in the dark...but don't be too hard on yourself - what happened to you is very easy to have happen. That's what they make break crumbs for:D

[mimitabby]

Mr Silver, I'll fedex you some of those break crumbs.

[Eden]

Mr Silver, I'll fedex you some of those break crumbs.

That's the stuff thats all over my rims after a wet, gritty ride right? ;)

[Andrea]

I'm very geospatially challenged! I actually got briefly lost on my local greenway one day :rolleyes:

[Zen]

That's the stuff thats all over my rims after a wet, gritty ride right? ;)

;)

around here we use the mountains as a compass.
If you're actually in the mountains, well...

[froglegs]

I'm an engineer so I would like to think I'm geospatially strong.......but I'm probably kidding myself...... so yeah, let's go with average. :rolleyes:

[Wahine]

I got this directly from an expert in the field.

"Self appraisal of sense of direction has minimal validity of actual wayfinding performance." The correlation is actually less than .3 on 4 different studies that are considered the definitve research in this area.

Cornell E H, Sorenson A and Mio T, 2003, Human Sense of Direction and Wayfinding, Annuls of the American Association of Geographers, 93, 402-428.

I have a history of excellent wayfinding performance myself. I like to drive DH crazy by taking new routes everywhere all the time until he's so confused he would have no way of finding his own way back.;):D

[shootingstar]

I'm an engineer so I would like to think I'm geospatially strong.......but I'm probably kidding myself...... so yeah, let's go with average. :rolleyes:


Well, my partner did his civil engineering degree and of course he's done surveying work somewhere in his early years....he used to have a 100 acre farm which included heavily wooded area. He's gotten lost several times at night on his own property..but found his way out. But he' s probably not bad because he so heavily involved in cycling advocacy that he's often exploring new routes for bikes. He has also cycled solo across North America 3 times and doesn't seem to get overly lost. Part of his trips is collecting info. and taking photos of local cycling facilities and routes in unknown areas to him, so his wayfinding is more natural and quicker.

I wonder if I had continuing driving a car, if my geospatial capabilities would have been marginally better. I gave up my license over 1/4 century ago...I really didn't enjoy driving on highways...and overall was afraid when driving.

During the first few months of living in Vancouver I didn't find the mountains here helpful at all especially in older areas with non-grid streets. To the nubie, to even distinguish which mountain, can be abit confusing at first...since there is a whole wall of them northward...and others east...I go southeast away from the famed mountains in North Vancouver....and 40 kms. later when I go to work, there are more mountains elsewhere....I need a map to even tell you what these mountains are... Of course Greater Vancouver area has many big and small bridges.., different water bodies,....which makes route design for cycling a challenge in swiggly ways...



On the other hand, I have highly visual memory for other complex things..I know that I am a visual learner..

[MomOnBike]

As the old mountain man said, "I've never been lost. But I have been turned around for days at a time."

Terms defined:
Lost --> not being able to find your way home.
Turned around --> no idea where you are exactly, but with a vague idea which way home lies.

Yep, that's me.

I have a pretty good internal compass, and that helps. Also extensive early training. My Dad stressed knowing where you are and how to get home. He'd take me up into the mountains on horseback, then let me lead us home. We took the occasional odd route, but it was good training. There are tricks to it

I think I depend on the sun, as grey skies confuse me. I'd probably be hopeless in Australia, but I'm pretty reliable in North America.

[fastdogs]

I am challenged in the city, but used to say I had a very good internal compass in the woods, mountains or plains. I spent lots of time in the woods finding my way around as a kid, and as a teenager went trail riding every night- lots of nighttime trail rides to obscure caves with only a cowpath to follow through heavy woods, or just a vague feeling of direction when there was no path.
Then, fairly recently, I got lost in the woods in a snowstorm (not even a blizzard or anything, just a steady snow). So I can't say I never get lost in the woods any more, and the internal compass apparently doesn't always work properly. So I never say never any more.
vickie

[OakLeaf]

Some of the responses imply that wayfinding ability is related (or identical?) to spatial perception. Is that true?

Because I'm really good at, say, if a new shock absorber has to go just so to get into place, I'm really good at saying "here's the space it has to go in via, and here's the angle it has to go in at."

Maybe I just tend to panic way too quickly when I feel that I'm lost, due to a bad experience when I was a toddler (and shouldn't have been left to find my way alone, but that's another story). Maybe if I didn't just assume I was going to get lost - and could settle down emotionally enough to figure things out - I'd be better? Wahine, what do your studies say?

[Crankin]

Well, my spatial perception is awful. I used to think my geo-spatial skills were really good, until I started doing more things in the woods. On the road, I have an excellent sense of direction, with like almost a sixth sense about which way is the right way to go. I usually know which direction (N<S<E>W) I am heading whether in the car or on my bike. However, I am not much for exploring. I get very nervous if I don't have a cue sheet or planned route. I can remember a route or trail pretty well once I have done it, though. Pretty much, I make my husband take the GPS if we are doing anything in the woods. He can't remember any directions, so it really is a life saver for us.

[Wahine]

Some of the responses imply that wayfinding ability is related (or identical?) to spatial perception. Is that true?

Because I'm really good at, say, if a new shock absorber has to go just so to get into place, I'm really good at saying "here's the space it has to go in via, and here's the angle it has to go in at."

Maybe I just tend to panic way too quickly when I feel that I'm lost, due to a bad experience when I was a toddler (and shouldn't have been left to find my way alone, but that's another story). Maybe if I didn't just assume I was going to get lost - and could settle down emotionally enough to figure things out - I'd be better? Wahine, what do your studies say?

Soooooo. The story I get from my resident expert. First off, this is a very complicated question so the following answer is extremely simplified.

Being able to manipluate an object in space or do spatial type puzzles requires a different realm of spatial intelligence than navigating or wayfinding. The difference is that in the first scenario the individual is working with an object in a manner that they can "see" to some extent the total problem/puzzle. When one is wayfinding, you are immersed in the space and have to find your way without direct visual knowledge of the entire space you are moving through. So the perspective is different and the magnitude of the space is very different.

Having said that, there is no reason why a person could not be good at both things, good at one and bad at another or bad at both. It's like saying a blond person has blue eyes but a brown haired person could also have blue eyes.

Does that make any sense at all?

[Wahine]

Well, my spatial perception is awful. I used to think my geo-spatial skills were really good, until I started doing more things in the woods. On the road, I have an excellent sense of direction, with like almost a sixth sense about which way is the right way to go. I usually know which direction (N<S<E>W) I am heading whether in the car or on my bike. However, I am not much for exploring. I get very nervous if I don't have a cue sheet or planned route. I can remember a route or trail pretty well once I have done it, though. Pretty much, I make my husband take the GPS if we are doing anything in the woods. He can't remember any directions, so it really is a life saver for us.

This brings up a different issue with navigation. Some people are survey navigators and others are landmark navigators. Survey navigators rely on distant landmarks to find their way and as long as they have visual clues to their direction, they can generally do vey well. Landmark navigators do better by remembering turns at specific landmarks. These people can tend to do better in scenarios where distant visual clues are not available but distinctive landmarks close the the path are.

I navigate like you and am a survey navigator. Stick me outside where I can pick up some distant landmarks and I do very well. Stick me in a building with a lot of different hallways and I'll get turned around and not know if I'm going N/E/S/W. Dense woods don't allow for sighting of distant landmarks.

[snapdragen]

I have an excellent sense of direction when driving.....the Suby has a compass. :o Otherwise, I'm screwed.

Most recent adventure, I took BART up to San Francisco, got off at the Embarcadero station. Took the escalator up and started walking. Eight blocks later I realize I am nowhere near the Ferry Building, I was going in the opposite direction. I had no clue. I must learn to read directional signs....

[bmccasland]

You can always try navigating around here - the streets curve, the cardinal direction are pretty much meaningless. We have flat country, and there are no high landmarks to visaualize. The directions are: up-stream, down-stream, riverside, and lakeside, with the Mississippi River and Lake Pontchartrain as the reference points. Which is why if one is in the Central Business District (CBD) and you cross the Crescent City Connection (bridge) to the "West Bank" you will technically be going east :rolleyes: according to the compass, all because of the curves in the River.

[OakLeaf]

Maybe this is my problem.

[shootingstar]

We have flat country, and there are no high landmarks to visaualize. The directions are: up-stream, down-stream, riverside, and lakeside, with the Mississippi River and Lake Pontchartrain as the reference points.

Where we live, I can't imagine describing or figuring out which direction the water is flowing where we are....we live near a lovely creek, which empties into an inlet and then into the ocean... or is it the other way around?..:confused: and then kms. away there's a river that I guess flows from or into the Pacific Ocean..? We have penisulas, a few mini islands, etc.

The ocean tides do go up and down ..pretty well near our doorstep, of which there is a bike path and pedestrian path running parallel.

Certainly the kayakers that roll by our building have their world of wayfinding... I'm not a water person since I can't swim.

[Mr. Bloom]

Maybe this is my problem.

I used to live in Barbados. This is good down there...they have NO signs!

[Trek420]

Most recent adventure, I took BART up to San Francisco, got off at the Embarcadero station. Took the escalator up and started walking. Eight blocks later I realize I am nowhere near the Ferry Building, I was going in the opposite direction. I had no clue. I must learn to read directional signs....

Or get out of BART, take stairs/escalator/elevator to the street, look down the street for this ;) You know we're just kidding you Snap.

[NoNo]

Definitely strong. Not that I don't miss a turn from time to time, but I never think of it as getting lost, just another adventure:)

[Grog]

Having a good sense of direction is something I like to think I owe to my dad.

When I was a young child, maybe 5 or 6, we lived in a very small town and my brother was hospitalized for long periods of time (he's been fine for years now) so we were driving to the big city about 45 minutes away all the time. I remember countless hours in the backseat of the car. My dad would always tell me: "Look carefully at where we're going, because one day you'll be driving too." He was also very meticulous at studying maps before we went somewhere new, and we spent the end of many dinners running to the big map to win point-the-country contests. I highly recommend you do that with your kids if you have some! It's great.

So now I do pretty much the same. When I travel with my sweet partner, I take the wheel for the trickier parts of the drive, like going through cities, finding our hotel or a specific place to eat. I do a lot of studying ahead of time with all the maps I can, though, and memorize a few street names that seem like a given city's backbone. And, when I (inevitably) get lost, I do another of my daddy's tricks: remain quiet, and follow the car in front of me! Most of the time, I find my way back even before my husband has the time to ask: "Aren't we lost?" :D

[Jolt]

Definitely somewhat challenged, particularly on the roads! When driving somewhere new, I make at least one navigational mistake the majority of times (of course, part of this probably has to do with the less-than-great signage on some of the back roads). When hiking, I'm OK at following a trail and usually figure out pretty quickly if I've gotten off it (which happens sometimes when there are side paths).

[OakLeaf]

Interesting: There's a Men's Route and a Women's Route (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/01/07/AR2008010702043_pf.html)

[Mr. Bloom]

Interesting: There's a Men's Route and a Women's Route (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/01/07/AR2008010702043_pf.html)

There's a Jeff Foxworthy joke in there somewhere:D