More importantly, as time passed and his contacts broadened, Yap found that his passion for testing rocks was waning, while he was growing increasingly interested in social phenomena. His will to study geographical differences in social phenomena formed gradually, foreshadowing his subsequent change in path toward human geography.
更重要的是，隨著年齡增長與接觸面的擴大，葉高華發現自己化驗石頭的熱情逐漸下降，對於社會人文的現象卻愈來愈有興趣，一個以「社會現象的地理差異」為主旨的研究方向隱然成形，埋下了他日後轉向人文地理學的伏筆。