Navigational skills - huh?

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Who here as great navigational skills? If AS is supposed to be an "extreme male brain" and stereotypically males are supposed to be great at navigating, how come I still get lost in my neighborhood?

I have an excellent brain that can twist itself into fascinating shapes, for example, I can write sentences in cursive simultaneously upside down AND backwards so that if I turn it 180 degrees and read it in a mirror it is perfectly legible--but I cannot for the life of me translate a map into a sensible tool. At every corner I have to turn the map in the way that I'd be facing so I know which way to turn next, and even then I still get confused.

What the f#*&^ gives here???? Shouldn't they be the same part of the brain working?

I can't describe a route, but once I've traveled it a few times, I can picture it in my mind with the turns and I don't get lost. Before GPS technology I had to use maps and I usually couldn't picture it, as the actual route looks different than it does on the map. Years ago I had to take my mother into a cancer hospital in my state capital. I did okay getting there from the map, made a few wrong turns. I got lost coming back home but I kind of knew the general direction I was supposed to go and kept heading that way until I found a highway I recognized. The key is not to panic, which is hard for me.

GPS has been a big relief to me, though you still have to be careful where you turn. Sometimes when it says turn there are two streets close together. And I find it doesn't always give you the optimal route. But still way better than maps.

Maps are hard for me because they're symbolic and require a fair amount of abstraction -- they're a distilled, watered-down, heavily-reductionary 2-dimensional version of actual 3-dimensional places....

So I struggle to use the kind of maps printed on paper (at least if I've never been to the place that the map is supposed to represent), but I do really well with the nice 3D maps I make in my head.

Sigh, I sure do envy you

I have to turn maps around too, the directions don't reverse themselves in my head and I get disoriented.
Strangely though, I am great at "feeling" which way to go without a map.
This is far more useful when lost out in the bush than being late for an appointment at a specific place.
Guess which happens more often?

I am good with using written instructions for getting somewhere especially if there are landmarks.
I would never trust myself with a GPS gadget in the car and actually had my mother return one out of fear it would distract me too much.
Not to mention the times lost people asked for directions since the gps wasn't accurate.
Sun sets in the west rises in the east. Can't get too lost, it's florida.

I am even more terrible with compasses. If I know which direction is East or West it still doesn't help me because I have to figure out where I am in relation to the direction in which I have to go, right? And if I'm facing one way then I get confused when I have to turn or turn around. Ugh. My brain spazzes out when I have to figure it all out.

I am great at navigation. I look at maps and know where to go and I keep myself oriented in my mind. I can usually think of alternate routes off the top of my head. I keep a general NSEW assessment of my position going at all times and I can recall landmarks if I pass them once.

This is me, too.

Same here. Maps are no problem, you simply need to stretch them in your mind and put it above the surrounding environment. ^^ I also got a good feeling for directions, so even with geocashing ccordinates, I can say pretty well in which direction the next searchpoint is.

This isn't an issue if I do the 'overkill' technique. I study the area. If I'm traveling I study the route, the topology, the weather; 10 day forcast, precipitation probabilities and the temperature ranges. I drill it down to clickable maps of road construction or in the city I look at street level shots. Traveling is very very difficult for me but it would be worse if I had no idea where I was going. GPS' are handy but annoy me. One of my sidebar interests is studying the NY subway. I've been on it for years and eventually when I memorize it I will visit. [of course I will check their website for lines down or detoured]

I have always had excellent to superb navigational skills since I was a small child.

My first obsession was geography and cartography; I loved memorizing maps.

I enjoyed looking at various kinds of maps, political, topographical, etc.

When my dad drove the car, I would have the map, and guide him.

I was known by my family as "The Little Navigator" as a child.

Now, I still have these skills intact, and I never get lost.

Not even if I am in a new area I never visited before.

I love imagining myself moving through the map.

Last edited by MannyBoo on 04 Apr 2013, 8:17 am, edited 1 time in total.

I have NVLD, so my navigational skills are pretty much null and void.

It's weird. If I'm wandering around a neighborhood or city (I do a lot of wandering), or I'm trail waking through the woods, I have a great sense of direction. When I'm driving I easily get lost/disorientated, unless I've mapped it out which I'm really go at. If I'm in a big building or especially a mall I easily get lost/disorientated, but I can get my bearings easily of there's a directory.

I'm moving to a city I've never really been in before soon (Everett, WA) and I've spent dozens of hours exploring it on Google maps, earth and street view. I love exploring and mapping out places. I might know more about the layout by now than people who've lived there a long time. When I get there I'll know exactly where everything is and how to get there.

Last edited by briankelley on 04 Apr 2013, 6:58 pm, edited 1 time in total.

me too

This is how I am as well. If I'm out walking around I can figure out how to get anywhere, but if I'm driving I can manage to get lost trying to find my own apartment. When I was a little kid my parents and I would go for a walk in the evenings and we would go to some random neighborhood and I would be able to find my way back using a different route than how we got there, and it was usually a route that I had never walked before.