Your sense of direction: place-centred or egocentric

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Charles Trowbridge (don't ask me, I just read it in a book) postulated in 1913 that some people carry informal maps in their head centered on their home or most familiar places and are therefore oriented on familiar ground but lost and directionless otherwise. Others are 'egocentric', ie see direction in relation to their own position moment by moment and are therefore better at navigating themselves whereever they are. I'm someone who half the time turns in the wrong direction when I leave a shop/pub/cafe; I'm one of those people Ally hates who stand around at the exit to train and tube stations looking like a lost sheep; my personal maps don't even usually include street names (in cities I navigate by shops, mainly)

Which are you? Can you explain to a place-centred person what it feels like to be (egotistically) directionally competent?

― Ellie, Friday, 9 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Hi Ellie!
I similarly lack an inner gyroscope. I am greatly envious of those who can find their way around.
I do, however, enjoy aimlessly wandering and getting lost and generally exploring places. I have found some beautiful little places on my inadvertent detours - Sicilian Avenue in Holborn, Newman Terrace... Charlotte Street. I think that walking without direction is one of life's great pleasures.

― Will, Friday, 9 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I am place centred. I too am one of those people Ally hates. Actually, I'm not. I'm so embarassed about being this kind of person in my own city that I tend to stride off confidently in one direction and then have to double back on myself, feigning that I have suddenly remembered an urgent errand that forces me to alter my destination.

― Nick, Friday, 9 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

From your description it sounds like I have both. I never, ever come out of a shop the wrong way, but I also carry maps around in my head. In fact I generally find it much easier to navigate round somewhere if I've seen a map just once even if I've been to the place a few times already.

― RickyT, Friday, 9 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Nick - I go for a little puzzled frown and a tut of irritation ('oh, stupid me').

― Ellie, Friday, 9 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

My sense of direction is good. I always know if I'm heading E,W,S or N. Plus, I look on the map before I go. And if I take a wrong turn, I innately know how to double back.

― james, Friday, 9 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

If I've been somewhere once, I know it!

― james, Friday, 9 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Recently I took a stroll from Aldgate East after a damn good curry, and stumbled upon Islington completely by accident. It just came out of nowhere. I know plenty of places in London but still don't have a clue how they all join up. My ignorance is a constant source of pleasure.

― Trevor, Friday, 9 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I have in my mental toolkit a rock solid magnet for knowing which way is north, a mapo maker which not only retains every street I have ever walked down but is also able to extrapolte from side dtreets the general geography of the whole town and am able to reconcile that with any map I see to fill in the blanks.

Come with me, you will never be lost.

― Pete, Friday, 9 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I need to pretrace my steps a week in advance before I do anything much to the annoyance of SHE WHO WALKS PURPOSEFULLY even when lost~^dammit, let's go Britain's fukn small#we'll get there^

― , Friday, 9 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I know little pockets of London, but becomes a hopeless wimp anywhere I don't know. I do, however, hold great truck in following the sun - indeed, should I ever be going anywhere I don't know but know which point of the compass I need to follow, I tend to do okay. And pass some interesting things on the way.

If I don't need to remember a particular route, it'll take me a dozen times before I have a clue about it. But if I do need to, my brain crwaks into gear and I can do alright. Although, on my first scoot home on my 50cc moped, I managed to take a 2.5 mile detour to travel 400 yards. And that was nothing compared to my first trip to Vicky's on the bike...

― Mark C, Friday, 9 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I love Mark C.

Q: Do women find cluelessness re: sense of direction a turn-off? Everyone likes a leader!

― Nick, Friday, 9 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I am much like pete. I have an excellent an unflappable sense of direction and reams of mental maps. I often disturb friends, when in strange palces, by saying things like oh its this way and finding things simply because I have looked at a map a few days previously and have scoped the relative positions of things. I have the underground systems of London New YOrk and to a lesser extent paris seared into my brain. its just one of those things I'm good at. (I thing its a 3d visualisation thing, something I'm pretty goos at too).

― Ed, Friday, 9 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

i often turn the wrong way coming out of shops - glad i'm not the only one! the best way to navigate is by pubs i find. unless you happen to go into them of course...

― katie, Friday, 9 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

So, Ellie - does that wondering about lost thing explain why you keep on stepping on stuff???

― Kodanshi, Friday, 9 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I have a fairly decent sense of direction. I am no good at giving directions ("it's, you know, that way somewhere") and I do better finding places with a map than with verbal directions.

― rosemary, Friday, 9 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I'm just like Ed in this respect, I don't often get lost (as he will happily confirm). I developed good directional skillz to avoid getting ripped off by cab drivers.

― suzy, Friday, 9 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I'm just... not very practically focused, I guess. Why look at the street/your feet when you can have your head in the clouds? (And probably end up under a bus). The 'd' word* has been used, but I reject it (= ditz).

― Ellie, Friday, 9 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

HMM. I don't about me, really. I think by default I'm place-centered, but will risk The Great Unknown as needed -- after which it isn't unknown anymore. ;-)

― Ned Raggett, Friday, 9 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I think I don't have either. I never know where I am in relation to other places unless it's somewhere I've been over and over, and even then it's not a mental map so much as a mental set of directions with a few illustrations.

― Maria, Friday, 9 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

one year passes...

I am still in awe of people who have a natural sense of North, South, East and West.

― N. (nickdastoor), Wednesday, 10 September 2003 21:30 (twenty-two years ago)

All you need to know is where the sun is and a rough sense of whether it's morning or afternoon.

― Ed (dali), Wednesday, 10 September 2003 21:33 (twenty-two years ago)

Ed=The Voice of Reason.

― t\'\'t (t\'\'t), Wednesday, 10 September 2003 21:41 (twenty-two years ago)

Yes, well I can do that if I'm outside and it's daytime. I'm talking about people who know it without having to think about it.

― N. (nickdastoor), Wednesday, 10 September 2003 21:43 (twenty-two years ago)

And don't even have to be there (eg. 'It's just north-east of the town hall')

― N. (nickdastoor), Wednesday, 10 September 2003 21:45 (twenty-two years ago)

N.,

i can innately sense direction (like at night for example), although occassionally it falters indoors.

― gygax! (gygax!), Wednesday, 10 September 2003 21:48 (twenty-two years ago)

i only have problems with the whole "east/west/coast/inland" thing...

anything that goes away from the ocean to me is "east", and the opposite is "west".

― donut bitch (donut), Wednesday, 10 September 2003 21:50 (twenty-two years ago)

Do you start walking backwards when you're in New York?

― N. (nickdastoor), Wednesday, 10 September 2003 21:56 (twenty-two years ago)

I have innate direction sense pretty well but I'll also admit to the J-L thing.

― teeny (teeny), Wednesday, 10 September 2003 22:03 (twenty-two years ago)

What's the J-L thing?

― N. (nickdastoor), Wednesday, 10 September 2003 22:23 (twenty-two years ago)

sorry, wrong thread.

― teeny (teeny), Wednesday, 10 September 2003 22:24 (twenty-two years ago)

I don't think I have either. I mean, I'm not centered anywhere, I can think my house is one way but really it won't be.

― Maria (Maria), Wednesday, 10 September 2003 22:26 (twenty-two years ago)

A NYC baby, I always based my sense of direction on where a particular building is/was: once I'd been to a particular place once, I could usually remember where it was. Now, my sense of direction is skewed, as FL is mostly wide open space and where I think is North is usually East, South = West, etc.

― Nichole Graham (Nichole Graham), Wednesday, 10 September 2003 23:14 (twenty-two years ago)

I'm pretty good with direction. I always consciously recall the compass at Disneyland for some reason and think about it in terms of where the sun is... Also, as it gets dark, I think I'm remembering where I was as the sun went down - but this part is unconscious.

― Spencer Chow (spencermfi), Wednesday, 10 September 2003 23:19 (twenty-two years ago)

I'm a tosser proud of his inner compass - as I'm rising from some strange underground station, I understand the direction the train had been going and my needle spins according to each dull twist in the passage. I'm always where I think I am.

But I can make myself lost on a bicycle. That's better.

― Eyeball Kicks (Eyeball Kicks), Wednesday, 10 September 2003 23:24 (twenty-two years ago)

anything that goes away from the ocean to me is "east", and the opposite is "west".

I have the same problem, except opposite; I still want to say that the coast is east of here.

― Chris P (Chris P), Thursday, 11 September 2003 00:40 (twenty-two years ago)

I can't figure out where I am in my own apartment half the time. The amount of times I've gotten people lost at FAPs isn't even funny.

― Ally (mlescaut), Thursday, 11 September 2003 01:26 (twenty-two years ago)

Though strangely I can find Tracer Hand's house from like 3 miles away.

― Ally (mlescaut), Thursday, 11 September 2003 01:26 (twenty-two years ago)

is that due to a sense other than direction?

― RJG (RJG), Thursday, 11 September 2003 01:30 (twenty-two years ago)

His magnetic pull and debonair dj skillz, obviously.

― Ally (mlescaut), Thursday, 11 September 2003 01:55 (twenty-two years ago)

eight months pass...

I don't know why I have no sense of direction, often even turn the wrong way coming out of bathroomes in stores-have no idea if I am n/s/e/w/-I get really frustrated and have lost it when I get lost and am late or have driven around for hours- to sometimes places I have been before-this is frustrating and embarrassing- I have had this since I was a child- what is the reason and how can I prevent it???it seems to in part memory skills or lack of them??
Janet

― Janet Soucy, Thursday, 13 May 2004 14:52 (twenty-two years ago)

i'm suprised i didn't answer this thread first time around, it's a problem i have. a place-centred problem. I echo what N. said when he revived the thread in 2003.

― m. (mitchlnw), Thursday, 13 May 2004 15:11 (twenty-two years ago)

N,E,S,W, internal - this unit does not get lost.

― jel -- (jel), Thursday, 13 May 2004 15:20 (twenty-two years ago)

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