The Wall Street Journal: When you’re strolling in your home
city, and you see someone with pull out a map, you can be pretty
sure you’re looking at a tourist. But a new study suggests that
a map-like spatial orientation is layered on top of people’s
understanding of even highly familiar places. In other words,
you may not have a map stashed in a fanny pack, but you can’t
escape the way of looking at the world that maps tutor us in.
From a new study in Psychological Science: “We examined how a
highly familiar environmental space—one’s city of residence—is
represented in memory. Twenty-six participants faced a photo-
realistic virtual model of their hometown and completed a task
in which they pointed to familiar target locations from various
orientations. Each participant’s performance was most accurate
when he or she was facing north, and errors increased as
participants’ deviation from a north- facing orientation
increased…. Although participants recognized familiar local
views in their initial locations, thei