The disorientated ape: Why clever people can be terrible navigators

The human sense of direction is extraordinarily variable. Now we know why some people are so good at getting lost

Humans 12 December 2018
lost people artwork

Andrea Ucini

IT IS autumn in New York City and a monarch butterfly is setting off on a 4000-kilometre journey to a fir tree on a mountainside in central Mexico, where it will spend the winter.

It is autumn in New York City and you come out of a café, set off for your hotel just a few blocks away, take a wrong turn and get utterly lost.

Perhaps it is unfair to compare the navigational skills of a human to those of the legendary monarch butterfly but, however you look at it, our sense of direction isn’t up there with the greats. Despite our stunning cognitive abilities, we can be dunces when it comes to finding our way around, and some of us are very good at getting lost indeed.

Why we are so bad at navigating has been a mystery for centuries, but now, at last, we have some answers. For a start, the mechanisms of the brain’s GPS are being laid bare. We are also discovering why some people have a better sense of direction than others. The latest findings even address the stereotype of men as better navigators than women. They also show how we can all become better navigators. Although we will never match a monarch butterfly, there are ways we can help ourselves make it back to that hotel.

First things first: your sense of direction is not, of course, an actual single sense. What we are talking about here is your ability to get to a destination as quickly and efficiently as possible, without getting lost. To do this, you need to know …

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