Walking in Circles

[Greg]

Just read an interesting article...

Interesting article

'Walking in circles'




'Did you know that people who are blindfolded will tend to walk in circles?

No one completely understands why human beings do this. If someone is blindfolded or disoriented or even lost in unfamiliar territory, they will often veer off course in random circles, even when they think they are walking in a straight line.

Some have supposed that the phenomenon of walking in circles has something to do with being right-handed or left-handed, or perhaps something to do with having stronger or longer legs on one side or the other. But neither of these explanations has held up to scientific study.

One of the more interesting studies was conducted recently by Jan Souman of the Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics.

They studied people walking in desert and forest environments. Some of the walkers were blindfolded and some were not. All were told to walk in a straight line as far as they could. The participants in the study walked for hours as their paths were recorded by GPS monitors.

Those who walked blindfolded ended up walking in surprisingly small circles. For those walkers who were not blindfolded, an interesting discovery emerged:



When the sky was cloudy and the walkers could not see the sun by day or the moon by night, the walkers could not keep a straight line. They veered off course in random directions, crossed their own paths, and walked in circles.


But when the sky was clear and the sun or moon were visible, the walkers could keep a long straight line for many hours through trackless deserts and vast forests.

This seems to show that when we cannot keep an external reference point, something inside us makes us walk in random circles.'

We can't help walking in circles

Without landmarks or the sun to guide them, people really do veer off in one direction – but it's not because one leg is longer than the other

www.newscientist.com

 

[Toddy]

My husband and sons, and other menfolks that I know, all seem to have an inbuilt North.
They all instinctively know which way is North.

I don't, and I don't know any other female who does.
I have to learn and focus to work it out, and I can, but it's not instinctive.

What happens when the Magnetic pole fluxes I do not know

M

 

[Wander]

I think that phenomenon has been known for quite a long time.
Only recently I had an experience of this myself.
A couple of weeks ago I was some local woods. In a copse of sweet chestnut there's the remains of a bronze age burial mound. It's a good place for snakes and lizards.
The chestnut was coppiced a couple of years ago now, and stands about 10-15 feet tall. And in this time of year it's all in leaf.
The mound is about 100 yards into the trees.
In I went.
It was VERY overgrown with a lot of undergrowth, making it difficult to walk in a straight line. But I got to the mound easy enough.
I walked around it but due to it being so overgrown I probably made so much noise I scared any animals away.
So I went to leave.
Thing is, after walking up, over, and around the mound, I had disorientated myself. And all the cover meant I had no reference points.
A brief stab of panic hit me, but I knew I could not get truly lost - this (very) small copse was surrounded on all sides by a pathway. All I had to do was walk in a straight line and after a hundred yards or so I'd come out to one of the paths.
I was pretty sure I was pointing toward the direction I had entered, so I started walking. The undergrowth got thicker and thicker. 'This couldn't be it,' I told myself.
So I took a few moments to think about it and get my bearings. Looking up, I could see the trees looked thinner in one direction, and the direction I had come from was an open pathway. So I decided to go that way (approx 90 degrees anti-clockwise from the direction I had originally been heading). But with the tree cover and undergrowth, I soon lost my bearing. 'Sod it,' I thought. 'I know if I keep on a straight line I will come out on one path or another soon enough.' So I decided to press on rather than keep chopping and changing.
This was, on this occasion, the right thing to do. As I said - I knew this area was surrounded by paths so knew I couldn't get truly lost. Sure enough, five minutes later, I came out on to one of the paths. Which was about 90 degrees (clockwise) from the direction I had entered the woods.
Whilst I never expected to come out at the exact same spot I had entered the woods, I did expect to come out on the same path way I had gone in.
A very surprising, and humbling, experience. Taught me a lot, not much new stuff, but things I already knew but had taken for granted.
But that's another thread altogether.
Lucky me that I was nowhere remote or in any real danger of getting lost. And lucky me that I was rudely reminded of the danger and risk and taught a good lesson.

 

[TLM]

My husband and sons, and other menfolks that I know, all seem to have an inbuilt North.
They all instinctively know which way is North.

I don't, and I don't know any other female who does.

So it is a Y chromosome thing?

My experience is that walking straight is a learned skill that takes some upkeep. There are some tricks that help like taking a target as far as possible and then taking the next on in line. Of course that does not work very well in a ten foot jungle. There is always the cheat of using a compass ...

I seem to remember that some time ago I read an article that claimed that a magnetic molecule had been found in the human eye. So far I have not seen any magnetic lines of force however hard I have looked.

 

[Greg]

I think that phenomenon has been known for quite a long time.
Only recently I had an experience of this myself.
A couple of weeks ago I was some local woods. In a copse of sweet chestnut there's the remains of a bronze age burial mound. It's a good place for snakes and lizards.
The chestnut was coppiced a couple of years ago now, and stands about 10-15 feet tall. And in this time of year it's all in leaf.
The mound is about 100 yards into the trees.
In I went.
It was VERY overgrown with a lot of undergrowth, making it difficult to walk in a straight line. But I got to the mound easy enough.
I walked around it but due to it being so overgrown I probably made so much noise I scared any animals away.
So I went to leave.
Thing is, after walking up, over, and around the mound, I had disorientated myself. And all the cover meant I had no reference points.
A brief stab of panic hit me, but I knew I could not get truly lost - this (very) small copse was surrounded on all sides by a pathway. All I had to do was walk in a straight line and after a hundred yards or so I'd come out to one of the paths.
I was pretty sure I was pointing toward the direction I had entered, so I started walking. The undergrowth got thicker and thicker. 'This couldn't be it,' I told myself.
So I took a few moments to think about it and get my bearings. Looking up, I could see the trees looked thinner in one direction, and the direction I had come from was an open pathway. So I decided to go that way (approx 90 degrees anti-clockwise from the direction I had originally been heading). But with the tree cover and undergrowth, I soon lost my bearing. 'Sod it,' I thought. 'I know if I keep on a straight line I will come out on one path or another soon enough.' So I decided to press on rather than keep chopping and changing.
This was, on this occasion, the right thing to do. As I said - I knew this area was surrounded by paths so knew I couldn't get truly lost. Sure enough, five minutes later, I came out on to one of the paths. Which was about 90 degrees (clockwise) from the direction I had entered the woods.
Whilst I never expected to come out at the exact same spot I had entered the woods, I did expect to come out on the same path way I had gone in.
A very surprising, and humbling, experience. Taught me a lot, not much new stuff, but things I already knew but had taken for granted.
But that's another thread altogether.
Lucky me that I was nowhere remote or in any real danger of getting lost. And lucky me that I was rudely reminded of the danger and risk and taught a good lesson.

Great example..

 

[saxonaxe]

I don't, and I don't know any other female who does.

You are not alone Toddy. My late wife was capable of getting lost in the back garden...

When we went anywhere, she would drive to the location and I would navigate.
"Take the next left".............
" No, the other left..towards me"
" At the T junction..turn right..that's towards you"
We managed ok.......

 

[Toddy]

On the walking in circles bit though; have you noticed how many people drift across the pavement when they're walking ?
Especially anyone who's had a hurt ankle, knee or hip/back.
Straight lines no longer compute somehow.
I wonder if they took that into account in the study ?

 

[Stew]

I want to give this a try when I next find a deserted beach!

 

[TLM]

I am fairly certain there are women who can handle maps and navigation, so far I have not met one. Wifey gets us there but usually not without a few turns back ...

I have practical experience on the circling, no sun, no wind, got thoroughly confused and the compass seemed to point mainly to the shotgun , got that finally cleared but it took some while (50 years ago, learned my lesson there).

 

[Toddy]

I'm good with maps, and I am good with spatial orientation. Mental 3D manipulation is easy. Just I have no inbuilt North.

The circles thing though, I do think balance, or a disturbed one, has a bearing...no pun intended

 

[TeeDee]

On the walking in circles bit though; have you noticed how many people drift across the pavement when they're walking ?
Especially anyone who's had a hurt ankle, knee or hip/back.
Straight lines no longer compute somehow.
I wonder if they took that into account in the study ?

Also those with their faces stuck in their phones.

 

[Broch]

err... the missus is a geographer and a geologist - she can read maps very well and I'd bet my life on her navigation (actually, thinking about it, I have on many occasions ).

The whole going around in circles is interesting. My poor spaniel is now blind, has been for a few years, she tends to wander to the left and then corrects herself using sound and smell. Interestingly, if you look at her straight on, her eyes drift to the left then return to the straight on - I wonder if blindfolded people's eyes drift.

 

[TeeDee]

I'm good with maps, and I am good with spatial orientation. Mental 3D manipulation is easy. Just I have no inbuilt North.

The circles thing though, I do think balance, or a disturbed one, has a bearing...no pun intended

I wonder if different cultures have different abilities in recognising environmental indicators on a purely subconscious level that then give an 'instinct' to the cardinal directions??

Could one pick up on all the various cues that exist around us without really thinking about it and then be better enabled to 'find home'?

 

[nigelp]

I am fairly certain there are women who can handle maps and navigation, so far I have not met one. Wifey gets us there but usually not without a few turns back ...

I have practical experience on the circling, no sun, no wind, got thoroughly confused and the compass seemed to point mainly to the shotgun , got that finally cleared but it took some while (50 years ago, learned my lesson there).

I teach navigation and the ability to use and map and compass is certainly not gender related - maybe slightly generational related.
It’s much more a confidence and past opportunities thing for some generations; people of say 50/60 plus and particularly woman didn’t get the opportunity to use a map and compass (men always seem to have map and compass entitlement) and so are less confident. They certainly can and do learn to navigate as well or better than men. I have frequently seen many ladies out shine the men and pick up and use techniques and progress. Those woman tend to come at new skills and training without the baggage of self taught ‘skills’, ‘YouTube’ and ‘their mate Dave who once was once in the Marines and showed them how to do bearings’ baggage.
When I have younger couples on courses both genders tend to do equally well and not as much along strict gender lines. Younger men and woman are more often confident and learn and apply skills very quickly.

Everyone who attends my courses will learn to use a map and compass!

 

[Laurentius]

Yes I have known this for a long time, I can remember discovering it when I tried to cross a familiar field in a thick fog when I ended up at the gate where I started out from.

 

[Robson Valley]

Two of hundreds of solo winter hunting days.
First time, walked in a circle, maybe a mile in diameter. Insulted as I believed I was alone. Footprints in the wet 8" snow. Mine!

Japanese study of sock-footed and blindfolded subjects in a gymnasium. Ink in the socks, paper covering the floor. Walked in circles. What the researchers could see is that the subjects put more strength into a right step than a left step. I don't find that hard to imagine.

Second time, hit with a sudden mountain snowstorm. Visibility 20 yards and less, might as well go home. Which way was the road (and the truck)? Careful work with my big Suunto compass, my head was wrong by 90 degrees.

 

[TLM]

I teach navigation and the ability to use and map and compass is certainly not gender related - maybe slightly generational related.

The few times I have taught someone how to use map with compass I have noticed that women tend to follow the instructions better than men but that they also follow them often without thinking what they are doing. (yes I know, generalizations) So what you say to them had better be exactly right.

I have used maps so much and drawn so many engineering drawings in various scales in 2D and 3D that I really can't say when and how I learned to to imagine the maps 2D info in 3D and use that to plan the route to walk. No one taught me that. As I know fairly well the local forest types etc. I can be fairly confident here but I am not at all confident in different surroundings concerning the "walkability". Learned skills anyway not innate.

Of the two skills, compass using and map reading, I rate the map reading as more important and more difficult in the sense that learning it is pretty much a trial and error process.

 

[Stew]

Just read an interesting article...

Interesting article

'Walking in circles'


View attachment 75393

'Did you know that people who are blindfolded will tend to walk in circles?

No one completely understands why human beings do this. If someone is blindfolded or disoriented or even lost in unfamiliar territory, they will often veer off course in random circles, even when they think they are walking in a straight line.

Some have supposed that the phenomenon of walking in circles has something to do with being right-handed or left-handed, or perhaps something to do with having stronger or longer legs on one side or the other. But neither of these explanations has held up to scientific study.

One of the more interesting studies was conducted recently by Jan Souman of the Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics.

They studied people walking in desert and forest environments. Some of the walkers were blindfolded and some were not. All were told to walk in a straight line as far as they could. The participants in the study walked for hours as their paths were recorded by GPS monitors.

Those who walked blindfolded ended up walking in surprisingly small circles. For those walkers who were not blindfolded, an interesting discovery emerged:

View attachment 75394

When the sky was cloudy and the walkers could not see the sun by day or the moon by night, the walkers could not keep a straight line. They veered off course in random directions, crossed their own paths, and walked in circles.


View attachment 75395But when the sky was clear and the sun or moon were visible, the walkers could keep a long straight line for many hours through trackless deserts and vast forests.

This seems to show that when we cannot keep an external reference point, something inside us makes us walk in random circles.'

Just wondering, did the studies test the same subjects multiple times? Wondering if a person will always circle the same way - if so it could be good to know which way I circle!

 

[Robson Valley]

The Churchill River in northern Canada is really a very long chain of lakes, festooned with hundreds of solid rock islands. As you travel by boat, the nature of the shoreline, the horizon, changes dramatically. 7-10 day adventure is commonplace in my family.
Everybody gets a copy of the topo map and everybody has a very good compass and knows how to use it. We discuss landmarks. Still, it's really easy to wonder out loud: "where the hell are we?" It's every bit as bad as walking in circles on land. Even on the water, the compass is so valuable. The whole place is just rock, water and trees.

I have lived on, fished in or peed in some 80 km of that river.
From Black Bear Island Lake down to Keg Falls. Might have given my family the encouragement to come and visit me. Ever since, we all enjoy the same 50km stretch of the river. You get to "learn the water." Walleye cheeks, anyone?

 

[SaraR]

I’ve always enjoyed maps, am good at navigation (was always in charge of the map when on holidays as a kid), have a good sense of direction, which I think is partly innate, partly down to me paying attention to where I am, where I’m going and where things are in relation to each other. Building an mental map of where I’ve been basically.

What I have noticed though is that, like most women I’ve come across, I give directions as ”left” and ”right” relative to direction of travel or a specific object/location. Giving directions based on points of the compass does not come natural to me, whereas men seem to prefer giving directions eg for driving using points of the compass. I usually only use that for landscape-sized or larger areas.

I seem to have an inbuilt ”up”, which usually but not always match ”North”. But since I tend to know where I am relative to ”up” and to my base/accommodation, that is usually not a problem. On my first day in Nanjing in China, a colleague showed me around and as soon as we got out on the street I commented on how we were heading East. He asked how I knew that and I pointed out that is was around midday and the sun was to our right. Because I was in a new place it was natural for me to check the direction of the street to get a feel for things, and what shocked me a bit was that I had just noticed that my ”up” for this new place that I’d spent less than a day in clearly was pointing due South. I spent 2 months there and it remained in the same direction for the duration of my stay, despite getting a map to pour over.