Your direction-finding flaws? Not an accident of nature, but not a hindrance to your next adventure, either.
By Bree Kessler
At the base of the Peruvian Andes, where they filmed Touching the Void, I was hiking with a friend when we lost the path. I sat on a rock, began hyperventilating, and repeated over and over again: We’re lost. I was experiencing spatial anxiety-a very real and common fear of not knowing where I was. All I could think was that our story would be the next survival blockbuster.
The lodge where we were staying had given us 15-step directions for what they called a “simple” half-day hike. We had made it through the hedge (step 9), the rocky field (step 10), the grassy field (step 11), and then completely lost the path before the big boulder (step 12). It turned out that we weren’t lost at all; if we had walked a few more minutes we would have seen the boulder, but it felt like we had already walked too far. So I panicked, and eventually we turned back the way we came.
Our environment is full of navigational clues and hints of practical ways to use nature-find shade under a tree, walk downhill, cool off in a stream-but not everyone interprets those clues the same way. On that day in Peru’s Andes, the signs I picked up made me feel nervous, lost. I responded differently than someone more familiar with the area would have, and my ability to wayfind-use environmental clues to strategize and plan a route-was definitely out of whack.
While I was clearly anxious about being in unfamiliar territory, I wasn’t experiencing anything unusual when it comes to women and wayfinding. Psychology Professor Carol Lawton, who has spent the last decade studying spatial awareness, has proven that the navigational strategies employed by most women are different than those employed by men-and that men have an advantage when it comes to avoiding spatial anxiety.
Lawton’s research found that, in general, men are more efficient and accurate in spatial skill tests and have a larger spatial memory, which is useful for large-scale location awareness and navigating unfamiliar spaces. We women have our weaknesses, but we’re better at remembering object locations and noticing when things change within our environments, which is useful for patrolling and navigating our personal, smaller-scale space.
Theories explaining these gendered tendencies range from speculation about prehistoric hunter-gatherer roles, to testosterone levels, to the correlation between inner-ear canal size and the strength of internal directional cues. From an evolutionary psychology perspective, for example, the roles of hunter and gatherer make sense of women’s ability to remember details close to home and of men’s mastery of large-scale spaces, which would have helped them track animals into foreign territory.
In another theory involving brain hemisphere dominance, scientists note that testosterone usually accompanies improved spatial awareness and reasoning. Elizabeth Hampson, professor of psychology at University of Western Ontario, recently discovered that women in the low-estrogen phase of their menstrual cycle showed better spatial reasoning compared to times when they have higher estrogen levels. Her discovery isn’t conclusive, but it implies that the hormone credited for making women more womanly might actually be what makes us worse at giving directions.
Biology aside, women also have different wayfinding strategies than men. In Lawton’s earlier research, she discovered that men tend to create mental maps of a place and use environmental clues-like the position of the sun or their proximity to a freeway-to place themselves within it. This “orientation strategy” allows for more spontaneous route-finding flexibility in both cities and natural settings.
In contrast, women tend to pre-plan routes and prefer following step-by-step instructions with concrete reference points like “turn right at the red building” or, as was my case in Peru, “pass the big boulder.” These kinds of details make navigating easy, but this route-planning strategy doesn’t allow for any deviations from the original plan. If you lose track of one reference point, the remaining instructions become useless. On my Peruvian hike, we couldn’t identify the big boulder marking step 12 of our step-by-step directions. Without it, all our other reference points were meaningless, so we had to abort our efforts.
Does that mean you’re destined to miss high-country highlights when you’re most emotionally vulnerable? Or that the directions you dole out from the navigator’s seat will be to blame for your round-about route to the trailhead? Definitely not.
Researchers agree that it’s possible to improve spatial ability and that-when it comes to wayfinding-practice makes perfect and the biological gender gap isn’t set in stone. Playing spatial-awareness games like Pictionary or Tetris, practicing orienteering skills like identifying distances or compass directions in familiar territory, and even studying maps can improve anyone’s spatial awareness. It turns out that even knowing how you’re pre-wired to muddle navigation-heavy adventures can help you prepare so that you’ve got the tools to stay on the right track. n
According to a 2007 study of search and rescue operations in the national park system, there are an average of 11 search and rescue operations launched daily within US national parks at an average cost of more than $895 per operation.
4 Steps to Finding Your Way
Mental Maps
Whether you are driving, walking through the city, or hiking in the woods put down the step-by-step directions and practice visualizing your route on a map. Mentally mapping familiar locations translates to an improvement in spatial memory and, ultimately, wayfinding ability in foreign locations.
Awareness
Before GPS and Google Maps, ancient Polynesians sailed around the South Pacific using changes in the stars, sun, and ocean swells as cues. Begin looking for trends and features in your comfort zone-a patch of specific trees, vegetation on north-facing slopes, or prevailing winds-some of those patterns will also provide clues in unfamiliar territory.
Practice
When it comes to orienting yourself, practice helps. Test yourself at home by hand-drawing a map of a local trail. Take the map with you next time you’re out and compare your recollections with an official map. How well did you remember the details?
Safety Net
Don’t ignore technology. Bring a GPS unit and know how to use it. While having the device won’t necessarily keep you from getting lost, even rudimentary GPS units and tracking apps on mobile devices can help you retrace your steps and avoid emergencies and unnecessary panic.
