What did we ever do before GPS? How did people find their way around?

[Liberal_in_LA]

Is GPS All in Our Head?

IT’S a question that probably every driver with a Garmin navigation device on her dashboard has asked herself at least once: What did we ever do before GPS? How did people find their way around, especially in places they’d never been before?

Like most questions asked in our tech-dependent era, these underestimate the power of the human mind. It is surprisingly good at developing “mental maps” of an area, a skill new research shows can grow stronger with use. The question is, with disuse — say, by relying on a GPS device — can we lose the skill too?

The notion of a mental map isn’t new. In the 1940s, the psychologist Edward C. Tolman used rats in mazes to demonstrate that “learning consists not in stimulus-response connections but in the building up in the nervous system of sets which function like cognitive maps.”

----------------

Navigating, keeping track of one’s position and building up a mental map by experience is a very challenging process for our brains, involving memory (remembering landmarks, for instance) as well as complex cognitive processes (like calculating distances, rotating angles, approximating spatial relations). Stop doing these things, and it’ll be harder to pick them back up later.

How to avoid losing our mental maps? The answer, as always, is practice.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/05/opinion/sunday/is-gps-all-in-our-head.html?_r=1&hp

[DefenseLawyer]

1. Breadcrumbs. Duh. n/t

[ErikJ]

51. Laughed out loud

[redqueen]

2. I don't know how anyone uses those things.

They always seem to get things wrong, and I like looking up the directions and picking the way I want to go, not following the often incorrect instructions from some annoying computer.

[Mopar151]

33. My cousin has gone "fishing" (HD towing)

For some truckers who's misplaced faith in GPS has put them MILES into the boondocks, unable to turn around. One tow bill was $12000!

[XemaSab]

55. Every time I've been in a car with one

it's tried to give me crazy directions.

A couple weeks ago I was trying to get to Trinity Center, CA, which is along a numbered state highway. The directions told us to turn down a muddy dirt forest service road in January.

I know how that movie ends.

[elleng]

3. Posted a bit earlier,

more food for thought!

http://www.democraticunderground.com/101611599

[Liberal_in_LA]

9. ooops.

[elleng]

11. OK. Hard to keep track,

and we all need the info!

[sufrommich]

4. I'm one of those people who's "inner GPS" never

worked well, I was always getting lost. Between the GPS and cell phone, I never fear getting to where I'm going, both have enhanced my life greatly.

[elleng]

14. Good for you.

My inner has been pretty good, and younger daughter's is great! Told my folks once, 'When driving, rely on Daughter#2 for directions, NOT Daughter#1!'

[sufrommich]

21. My friends and family always knew it was a crap shoot

if I had to drive alone. "Will she or will she not make it to her destination".

[rox63]

5. I still don't use GPS

Maps, landmarks and good old memory work fine for me.

[FarCenter]

6. Cache Cab: Taxi Drivers' Brains Grow to Navigate London's Streets

Memorizing 25,000 city streets balloons the hippocampus, but cabbies may pay a hidden fare in cognitive skills

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=london-taxi-memory

[Liberal_in_LA]

10. interesting...

[PVnRT]

7. Kind of hard to have a "mental map" of a place you've never been before...

I don't use the navigation things, but I have used my cell phone to get me to a place I'm unfamiliar with. I guess I'm inferior or something.

[Nikia]

39. I agree

I have lived in a small town for 5 years where I had never traveled before. After 5 years, I know the town well but when it comes to getting to another small town in the area, where I have never been, I have to be sure to get good directions. In addition, a lot of county roads aren't E-W or N-S, they curve all over the place in the middle of no where. If you get lost, it can be hard to figure it out on your own.

[REP]

8. Didn't/don't need it in my hometown. Forever lost in CA without it.

Before I had a car with GPS, it was Thomas Guides and a 50/50 chance of finding where I was going in San Francisco.

[pinboy3niner]

12. An expert explains it all...

[Robb]

24. I think that's the closest I've ever gotten to physical pain from watching someone speak.

Christ.

[hootinholler]

35. Classic ain't it?

It made quite the splash at the time.

[NRaleighLiberal]

13. we love reading maps. No need (or desire) for GPS for us.

[elleng]

15. Me too, Raleigh!

LOVE maps, always have. I remember studying maps of Europe for '57 family trip, and have never given it up!

P.S., just drove to NCarol!

[Luminous Animal]

16. Maps aid in exploring, in my opinion.

No GPS for me, either.

[EFerrari]

18. Same here.

[Blue_Tires]

31. +1

[TwilightGardener]

48. Yup. Plus, where I live, Garmins etc. are an attractant for thefts from cars.

[NNN0LHI]

17. Went to grade school with a kid

You could completely blindfold him in the middle of a playground and spin him around and around and no matter where you stopped him he knew what direction he was facing. We discovered this one day when the teacher did an experiment on all of us and he was the only one who got it right every single time.

Kind of strange. He had a built in GPS even before there was such a thing.

Don

[Bonhomme Richard]

19. I happen to like to know where I am going....

before I leave.
I found GPS to be a pain in the ass. Exception...the sailboat at night in the ocean.

[librechik]

20. Columbus believed he had reached India til the end of his life.

[Warpy]

22. I lived in Boston for over 20 years

and managed to get lost for about 5 minutes 3 days before I moved away. Some places are easier to get lost in than others and a city that was planned by cows and drunken sailors is the easiest of all.

I doubt GPS would have helped. Continuing to walk until I found a street name that was familiar did.

However, I still rely on inner "maps." I'm old and consider a GPS in a car to be a silly crutch.

[Proud Public Servant]

23. The Guugu Yimithirr people know

They're an Aussie aboriginal people whose language (also called Guugu Yimithirr) whose language has no words for right or left (and, iirc, no words for in front of or behind). Instead, they use compass directions at all times (so, for example, I'd currently be typing with my south hand while looking at the computer monitor to the east). In order to do this, they apparently need to be exquisitely sensitive at all times to geographic location. Need GPS? They are GPS!

[pinboy3niner]

30. Yeah, but they're hard to superglue to the dash

[Solly Mack]

25. I still use maps.

I've a GPS available but I just never think to use it. lol

I always get the maps out and plot my route that way. I learn it - then apply it.

My husband is the opposite. He adores his GPS.

[Oldtimeralso]

26. An Amtrak accident the other day was GPS related

In the town of Leoni MI a semi trailer got stuck of a crossing due to the driver following his GPS and not his head. A driver with a CDL is responsible for all clearance's of his truck and load. He was driving a low-boy trailer that bottomed out on the crossing.

First of all it usually is blatantly obvious that a railroad crossing is raised and the driver was not paying attention. Secondly all railroad grade crossings have a sign on their control box as to who to notify if there is a problem. He failed to call. If he had called the train would have been held short of the scene by the dispatcher. Hope he has good insurance!

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

27. Before GPS? Mapquest!

Before that, we could study the moss on trees, the hoof tracks through the forest, etc.

[Life Long Dem]

37. Google maps street view will get you a virtual look at the trees.

I use this all the time. Once I know what the area looks like, I can find the place better. I do have a GPS, but use Google maps.

[Diclotican]

28. Liberal_in_LA

Liberal_in_LA

For the most part I manage well withouth a GPS.. I use map, geograpic points in the area Im in, and not least, I read this little things who are on the side of the road, telling where I are and where the roads goes.. Not allways easy to do in 80-100kmh but for the most part I manage really well.. I usally also prepare reading the map before I go away on adwentures now and then..

For the most part I drive in my local area, where I don't are unsue where most things are.. So I guess Im little spoiled there...

And, even tho modern GPS is a marvel of genius, it is not perfect.. as many trailer drivers have experienced first hand in Norway, where they are stuck on roads who are to small to the trailer.. Or have been lured into the wilderness and dosen't know how to get out again - and have to call police and resque to get them out of it.. That happend all the time..

Diclotican

[southernyankeebelle]

29. I have never used GPS and I have a hard time reading a map. I in deep trouble.

[bikebloke]

32. I'll trust maps, even when they're wrong.

Biking from Belgium to Holland, I had a terrible map (Himmel & Frey...avoid them). Camp grounds marked where there had never been any in all the history of humankind. The same with roads. Finally, I found myself in a spot that looked like the map corresponded with the spot I was in. Took a compass reading, then bushwhacked my way. And arrived exactly where I was going, albeit through their back road.

[hootinholler]

34. We had maps

We had cities laid out in an addressing system.

These tools were beyond use by many of the directionally challenged.

[treestar]

36. You called people up and asked them how to get to their house/office

Depending on the person, it could take a lot of time. Both the describer and the direction-taker could be of varying geographical intelligence!

Recently I had a lady who kept calling me - she just could not find my place! She was right on the road and kept passing it. I described the landmarks of the area and she just got them confused with other places. Finally I physically went out front and waved at the cars on the highway until she drove along and could see me!

Clearly she did not have a GPS!

[Johnson20]

38. Maps, compass, dead reconing, triangulation, north star etc etc. n/t

[trof]

40. I learned to make a flight plan in the Air Force.

Still do it for cross country trips.

[marmar]

41. I've always been great with maps and directions......

...... GPS is more of a distraction than a help to me.

[former9thward]

42. GPS is great.

Mine tells me if there is a traffic jam ahead and how to get around it. I love it.

[MrCoffee]

43. Completely off-topic, but

"Is GPS All in Our Head?" made me think of Lee Mercer Jr.

[Jennicut]

44. I love my GPS but I am also dyslexic and get my left and right mixed up.

I am horrible at directions. Most dyslexics are. I can even get a little lost even with my GPS. Its good for people like me.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

45. Sun, stars, sextants, pilotage, dead reckoning, maps, and bread crumbs.

Or you radio a flight service station and get a DF steer.

[hobbit709]

46. I always have a general idea of where I am in relation to where I'm supposed to be going.

I was with a friend once who had a Garmin in his car and it told us to take a given route. We ended up in a subdivision with no other exit. then it froze and got confused. I told him to turn here and go to the next cross street(the whole subdivision was little meandering strrets with no signs) and go so far and turn again and pretty soon we found ourselves at an exit and got to where we were going. he just looked at me with "How did you do that?"

[nadinbrzezinski]

47. The same way I still do

Don't own one.

[Fumesucker]

49. An entire generation of drivers now who have never tried to refold a map..

An exercise in topological futility best left to fifth degree black belt origami sensei.

[pinboy3niner]

50. They should suffer...

...just like WE had to!

[ErikJ]

52. North star

My brain must be wired to it cuz I always seem to know N and South. Strong hunting instinct I guess.

[NJCher]

53. vive la GPS!

Oh yeah, isn't that the truth. People's abilities in giving directions vary tremendously. In fact, you find out what poor communicators some people are when asking them for directions. I can remember a few cases, however, when I asked for and received very thoughtful, good directions.

So GPS is a boon for people like me. I have PTSD and a very poor short-term memory. If someone says "take a right, follow Hogan Trail 2 miles, then left, then right" I might get "take a right" and that's about it. I would have to write the directions down, and a pen and paper isn't always handy.

After the car accident that gave me PTSD, I quit going a lot of places because it was just too stressful. Also, these days it's hard to find anybody who knows anything. Then GPS came along and it helps immensely. Now I can go wherever I want, even at night, and not be stressed out about ending driving endlessly, trying to find my destination.


Cher

[cantbeserious]

54. Maps, Compass And Past Experience

eom

[pinboy3niner]

56. HAL...

(After killing the rest of the crew) Look, Dave, I can see you're really upset about this. I honestly think you ought to sit down calmly, take a stress pill and think things over. I know I've made some very poor decisions recently, but I can give you my complete assurance that my work will be back to normal. I've still got the greatest enthusiasm and confidence in the mission. And I want to help you.

[randr]

57. I have stubbled upon amazing places when looking for other places

I think the GPS system is almost as great a step forward as the discovery of radio it is still nice to turn off the noise and listen to your own music.

[phylny]

58. My sense of direction was always poor.

I need to drive a lot to areas I'm unfamiliar with, and we've moved a great deal as well. So, I rely on my Garmin, which rarely gives me bad advice. If it does, remember, "A better route is available."

My husband, a former airborne ranger, has the best sense of direction and directional memory of anyone I've ever met. Unfortunately, he cannot use the automatic coffeemaker. Or so he says