Birds, rats, and even hamsters can effortlessly find their way home, so why do humans often get lost?
On the afternoon of December 7, 2009, a college student from a university in Tai’an, Shandong, got lost while hiking along the fire prevention road of Mount Tai. After more than six hours of intense search and rescue efforts, the trapped student was successfully rescued. In recent years, incidents of getting lost in the wild have occurred frequently, and almost everyone has experienced that helpless feeling when disoriented. In fact, apart from having unique language abilities and unparalleled intelligence, humans have quite poor orientation skills compared to other animals — a trait that seems rather uniquely human.
For most animals, determining direction and finding paths is not a difficult task. As early as 1948, American psychologist Edward Tolman from the University of California observed the extraordinary navigation skills of rats. When searching for food in a maze, rats accomplished it with almost no effort. Even if their familiar routes were blocked or they were moved to a new starting point, they could explore new paths and locate the hidden food.
Since then, it has been discovered that many other animals are naturally not prone to getting lost. Take the golden hamster, for example — even if its eyes are covered and it is taken through winding paths to a place far from its nest, it can still find its way home and dash straight back in a beeline. Geese, toads, and spiders also demonstrate similar capabilities.
However, human navigation skills are far inferior to those of these animals. In one test, researchers asked participants to walk from a starting point to an endpoint blindfolded and then return to the starting point. But none of the participants performed satisfactorily — some overshot the mark, while others fell short. It appears that humans are inherently poor at orientation. So, did humans gradually lose this ability during evolution, or is this capability still in a “dormant phase,” waiting to be unlocked?
Researchers found that when people recall the way home, certain neurons in the hippocampus of the brain fire intensely. This indicates that the human brain has neurons specifically responsible for orientation. Moreover, these neurons are located in a similar area to those found in the hippocampus of rats, monkeys, and goldfish. Given this, why do people still get lost?
In a test, participants’ orientation abilities in a virtual maze were examined. The maze was filled with “shortcuts” that seemed to offer a quick route to the destination. Anyone with basic knowledge of geometry would know that these “shortcuts” are actually “traps” that do not lead anywhere. Yet, the participants blindly fell into these traps.
This test shows that when judging directions, people rarely consider geometric knowledge but instead rely on road signs to guide them home. Even when using buildings as references, we only use them to tell us whether to turn left or right, completely ignoring the spatial arrangement of these structures.
Perhaps early humans also used geometric knowledge to define the world around them and determine direction. But as the human brain developed further and stored more experience, along with increasing reasoning abilities, humans gradually lost this precise orientation skill and began to find their way home through reasoning, experience, and landmarks such as buildings and signs.
Early humans mostly led nomadic lives, without fixed dwellings. Their living environments were relatively open, and the surrounding world remained almost unchanged — either deserts or snowfields, where there were no paths, let alone buildings. Therefore, they relied on reasoning and experience to navigate. For example, the Inuit people of the Arctic, who live in snowy regions, are adept at noticing subtle differences in their surroundings to use as navigational cues.
Later, the world became divided into countries, cities, districts, and streets, with roads, buildings, and signs. To find their way home, people created maps. To determine their location, people invented the Global Positioning System (GPS). Now, people rely on various tools to guide them.
But the problem is that, unlike animals that can precisely calculate direction and distance, relying on environmental markers or various tools to find direction is prone to errors, leading to complete disorientation. Take the Inuit, for instance — fashionable young Inuit hunters have started using GPS for navigation. Once the GPS fails, they may be unable to find their way out for days, eventually ending up in helpless and dangerous situations, sometimes with serious injuries or fatalities.
But this rarely happens among older generations of hunters. This may be because the older generation relies more on subtle clues from the environment, using reasoning and experience to find their way. However, if a heavy snowfall buries familiar landmarks, even the older generation can temporarily lose their way. The difference is that their reasoning and experience help them rediscover clues and find a way out.
Human orientation abilities are far inferior to those of animals. Nevertheless, although we often get lost, we excel in other aspects of navigation. We might forget the way home after leaving a store, yet we can surf the internet; we might get lost in the jungle, yet we can land on the moon.
So, we don’t need to lament the loss of our precise orientation skills. Instead, we should cherish the vast living spaces we’ve gained. To survive, humans, like other animals, are constantly honing our abilities — whether we lose or gain, progress or regress, we continue to thrive under the forces of natural selection.
What should you do if you get lost?
You should do the following:
■ Climb a mountain or a tree to get a full view of your surroundings
■ Walk a bit, then stop and observe the environment behind you
■ Pay attention to the position of the sun and the buildings
■ Carry a GPS and several compasses with you
■ Memorize the route by remembering certain buildings
■ Stay put and wait for someone to rescue you
You should not do the following:
■ Panic — you may miss or forget important landmarks
■ Change direction — you may become harder for rescuers to find