City or countryside? According to a recent study, where you live has a direct impact on your sense of direction.
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If you grew up in Paris, your sense of direction probably won’t be the same as someone from New York. Indeed, according to a study, the direction of the orientation would be partly determined by the environment in which we grew up.
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A study, co-directed by a CNRS researcher, looked at the factors that influence the sense of orientation. To achieve this, the researchers compared the performance of nearly 400,000 people from 38 countries using the Sea Hero Quest video game. A game originally designed to learn more about Alzheimer’s disease. The latter aims to analyze how people locate themselves on maps and memorize itineraries. The findings of the study were published in the specialist journal Nature on March 30. The results thus indicate that “individuals’ orientation abilities are influenced by their geographical origin”.
Countryside or city: which place of life promotes better orientation?
After analyzing the results, the scientists came to the following conclusion: people who grew up in the countryside generally have a better sense of direction than others. A very marked observation, especially for people from Canada, the United States, Argentina or even Saudi Arabia. How to explain this? “Rural areas are by nature more complex than grid towns: the road networks are less organized and the distances traveled are often greater”, explains to “ETX Daily Up Antoine Coutrot”, researcher at the CNRS and co-author of the ‘study.
If the study marks a difference between people who grew up in the city and in the countryside, there is also a notable difference between the different big cities of the world, as the expert explains: “the street networks in Paris or Prague are particularly tortuous, at least as far as what can be found outside the cities. This explains the differences between countries. In Europe or Asia, cities are generally complex, so the differences in spatial skills are smaller between city dwellers and non-city dwellers. But in other countries, the cities are often simpler, more gridded, as is the case in Argentina, Canada or the United States,” says Antoine Coutrot. Thus, people who grew up in a city with a complex layout like Paris, with small intertwined streets or a heterogeneous road network, have a better sense of direction.