People born in the country have better sense of direction
People from rural areas have a better sense of direction, according to new research, which also finds that men may be better at finding their way.
If you get lost in a big city, the best person to ask for directions may not be a local urban dweller, but someone who is visiting from the country.
That’s the conclusion of a new study which indicates that the place where you grew up is crucial to the quality of your inner compass. French and English scientists tested the navigational skills of almost 400,000 people from 38 different countries, using a video game that was originally designed to check for early signs of Alzheimer’s. The test subjects participated in a virtual orienteering race in which they had to run from one point to the next.
Test subjects who had grown up in the countryside did better on average than those who grew up in the city. The worst performers were from US cities with regular grids of perpendicular streets. The study also showed that navigation skills become poorer with age, that men are averagely better at finding their way than women, and that education boosts the sense of direction.
For urban-raised test subjects, the scientists found that the complexity of their home cities influenced their ability to find their way throughout life. The scientists rated cities based on the structure of roads and streets – Paris, for example, includes many small streets crossing bigger streets at different angles, and is hence more complex to navigate than a gridded city such as New York or Chicago. As a result, the scientists found that those raised in cities like Paris had become better at finding their way, particularly in similar environments.