Geographically Impaired
By Larry Bleiberg
Dallas Morning News
There’s no need to tell Linda Grekin to get lost.
It comes naturally.
As Grekin discovered years ago, she’s geographically impaired. She has misplaced her car in parking garages, wandered in circles around shopping malls, and avoided expressways for fear that road construction will force her to take an unfamiliar exit. When she stays in a hotel, she never knows which way to turn when she leaves the room to find an elevator.
But as the Ann Arbor, Mich., librarian discovered, she is not alone — up to 20% of the population lacks a sense of direction, she estimates.
“It’s just one of those skills that people expect you to know and think you’re not too bright if you don’t have it,” she says. “People do not make fun of you if you’re not good in math.”
After years of getting lost and stopping for directions, she researched and wrote a book on the topic. The result, “I’ll Never Get Lost Again (RDR Books, $12.95), will bring comfort to many.
And, stereotypes aside, they’re not all women. Although females, she has Found, are statistically more likely to lack a sense of direction, males — as many spouses will confirm — aren’t immune.
Grekin tells the story of Detroit mobsters who were caught after shooting at a building because they could not find an expressway entrance. And she recounts the ordeal of Atlanta Braves pitcher Pascual Perez who missed a game because he circled the city unable to find his way to the baseball stadium.
Others with the problem include advice columnist Ann Landers, folk singer Joan Baez, and opera star Beverly Sills, who can’t find her way around New York’s Lincoln Center, where she is the chairwoman.
Grekin’s book held few surprises for me because I’m married to one of the directionally impaired.
I discovered this when we were dating. At first I didn’t believe my future wife when I learned how she got to the airport. She drove tow work first because she knew the way from there.
It’s a boast I can make.
Liz says she sees the world differently than the geographically secure: It’s not a place where one location follows another in a logical fashion. It’s more like a dropped slide Tray, where landmarks are encountered in no discernible order.
North, south, east and west mean nothing to her. The only direction she knows is forward.
People with a sense of direction often suspect those who get lost aren’t paying attention. It’s much more complicated than that.
Grekin’s research found that a sense of direction is closely linked to the ability to rotate images in one’s head. People who can find their way don’t have to turn a map to match the direction they’re heading. They can tell what room is above them in a two-story house. And if they’ve used direction s to go somewhere, they don’t need them written in reverse to find their way home.
None of this is true for the geographically impaired.
While researching the book, Grekin had no trouble finding people who get lost.
“They’re everywhere,” she says. “They feel completely incompetent, and a lot of people have never told anybody. I interviewed a lot of men who simply had their wives drive them every place.”
She said most people first discover their disability when they get their driver’s license. They find they don’t know where they are going or how to get home.
Grekin says the problem appears to be hereditary, a point that was made clear to her the morning her daughter announced she couldn’t go to school. The problem: A friend who had the same class schedule was sick, leaving her daughter no way to find her way from one class to the next.
For some, a lack of direction severely limits their world. People won’t leave their neighborhood or city, let alone travel out of the country.
____________________
Health Tip
January 20, 2001
Compass Points
There's not a lot understood about why some people have a great sense of
direction and others don't.
But a group of researchers published a report in the British Medical Journal
that might offer a clue. They suggested that a sense of direction might be
associated with the pineal gland, the gland that produces melatonin.
The researchers studied 760 patients, of whom 394 showed calcium
deposits in their pineal glands. They rated the subjects' sense of direction
on a scale of 1 to 10.
The subjects who didn't have calcium deposits had an average score of 7.6,
while people with calcium deposits couldn't score better than an average of
3.7.
To prove their point, the researchers tried the same study with homing
pigeons. Pigeons with normal glands found their way home with no trouble.
Those with calcium in their pineal glands got lost.
https://www.wbur.org/hereandnow/2019/04/19/map-skills-severe-weather?utm_source=npr_newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_content=20190428&utm_campaign=bestofnpr&utm_term=bestofnpr
Dallas Morning News
There’s no need to tell Linda Grekin to get lost.
It comes naturally.
As Grekin discovered years ago, she’s geographically impaired. She has misplaced her car in parking garages, wandered in circles around shopping malls, and avoided expressways for fear that road construction will force her to take an unfamiliar exit. When she stays in a hotel, she never knows which way to turn when she leaves the room to find an elevator.
But as the Ann Arbor, Mich., librarian discovered, she is not alone — up to 20% of the population lacks a sense of direction, she estimates.
“It’s just one of those skills that people expect you to know and think you’re not too bright if you don’t have it,” she says. “People do not make fun of you if you’re not good in math.”
After years of getting lost and stopping for directions, she researched and wrote a book on the topic. The result, “I’ll Never Get Lost Again (RDR Books, $12.95), will bring comfort to many.
And, stereotypes aside, they’re not all women. Although females, she has Found, are statistically more likely to lack a sense of direction, males — as many spouses will confirm — aren’t immune.
Grekin tells the story of Detroit mobsters who were caught after shooting at a building because they could not find an expressway entrance. And she recounts the ordeal of Atlanta Braves pitcher Pascual Perez who missed a game because he circled the city unable to find his way to the baseball stadium.
Others with the problem include advice columnist Ann Landers, folk singer Joan Baez, and opera star Beverly Sills, who can’t find her way around New York’s Lincoln Center, where she is the chairwoman.
Grekin’s book held few surprises for me because I’m married to one of the directionally impaired.
I discovered this when we were dating. At first I didn’t believe my future wife when I learned how she got to the airport. She drove tow work first because she knew the way from there.
It’s a boast I can make.
Liz says she sees the world differently than the geographically secure: It’s not a place where one location follows another in a logical fashion. It’s more like a dropped slide Tray, where landmarks are encountered in no discernible order.
North, south, east and west mean nothing to her. The only direction she knows is forward.
People with a sense of direction often suspect those who get lost aren’t paying attention. It’s much more complicated than that.
Grekin’s research found that a sense of direction is closely linked to the ability to rotate images in one’s head. People who can find their way don’t have to turn a map to match the direction they’re heading. They can tell what room is above them in a two-story house. And if they’ve used direction s to go somewhere, they don’t need them written in reverse to find their way home.
None of this is true for the geographically impaired.
While researching the book, Grekin had no trouble finding people who get lost.
“They’re everywhere,” she says. “They feel completely incompetent, and a lot of people have never told anybody. I interviewed a lot of men who simply had their wives drive them every place.”
She said most people first discover their disability when they get their driver’s license. They find they don’t know where they are going or how to get home.
Grekin says the problem appears to be hereditary, a point that was made clear to her the morning her daughter announced she couldn’t go to school. The problem: A friend who had the same class schedule was sick, leaving her daughter no way to find her way from one class to the next.
For some, a lack of direction severely limits their world. People won’t leave their neighborhood or city, let alone travel out of the country.
____________________
Health Tip
January 20, 2001
Compass Points
There's not a lot understood about why some people have a great sense of
direction and others don't.
But a group of researchers published a report in the British Medical Journal
that might offer a clue. They suggested that a sense of direction might be
associated with the pineal gland, the gland that produces melatonin.
The researchers studied 760 patients, of whom 394 showed calcium
deposits in their pineal glands. They rated the subjects' sense of direction
on a scale of 1 to 10.
The subjects who didn't have calcium deposits had an average score of 7.6,
while people with calcium deposits couldn't score better than an average of
3.7.
To prove their point, the researchers tried the same study with homing
pigeons. Pigeons with normal glands found their way home with no trouble.
Those with calcium in their pineal glands got lost.
https://www.wbur.org/hereandnow/2019/04/19/map-skills-severe-weather?utm_source=npr_newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_content=20190428&utm_campaign=bestofnpr&utm_term=bestofnpr
https://www.npr.org/2024/05/10/1249905954/terrible-at-directions-tricks-to-improve-your-navigation-skills?utm_source=npr_newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_content=20240514&utm_term=9461007&utm_campaign=news&utm_id=60971399&orgid=652&utm_att1=
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