Midtown is a grid and it’s easy to figure out where you are, but Wall Street’s a different story, and so is the West Village. It helps to have a sense of direction in the city. But are we born with that sense, or do enough visits to the corner of Stone and Broad Streets teach us?
Now, some researchers in Norway have come across evidence that yes, indeed, humans do have an innate sense of direction. Of course, they were dealing with rats, but what goes for rats goes for humans. (Or so the Norwegians tell us.)
“It really seems that this is hard-wired,” said Dr. Rosamund Langston, the researcher for the study, which was conducted at Norwegian University of Science and Technology. It was reported in the journal Science on Thursday, and was accompanied by language — as all such studies are — reminding us that the evidence was not absolutely conclusive.
City Room wanted to ask New Yorkers how they felt about the idea, and to do a little test of our own. We enlisted a neuroscientist, Dr. James B. Ranck Jr. of Brooklyn, to help run this very unscientific survey in Union Square. In 1990, Dr. Ranck, then and now a professor at SUNY Downstate Medical Center, discovered the very brain cells described in the Norwegian study. The cells contribute to our sense of direction and navigation. Dr. Ranck suggested that we survey people in a subway station just to ensure a baseline level of disorientation.
The Union Square stop had its effect. Platforms for the crisscrossing uptown and downtown lines, plus the crosstown L train, can be a full city block apart, and some of them curve out of sight. Staircases to street level can leave a person in the park, or on the street. It can be hard to know where you’ll end up, even if you are a neuroscientist.
“Oh, I’m totally disoriented,” Dr. Ranck, 79, said as he pushed through the turnstiles of one of the station’s southern entrances and then took his position, clipboard in hand.
Michael Macciaroli, with a messenger bag over his shoulder and a Starbucks in his hand, stepped up. When Dr. Ranck asked him to point to the north, he did it instantly. New Jersey? Same. But when Mr. Ranck asked him to point to Philadelphia, he stretched his arm in the opposite direction of New Jersey.
“No,” Dr. Ranck said, and he shook his head.
“They moved it, that’s what happened,” Mr. Macciaroli, 45, said with a laugh. “You get old enough and these things change.”
Dr. Ranck said a person’s sense of direction and ability to navigate are related, but not necessarily the same. People with a strong sense of direction have what he calls an “internal map,” and a general feeling of where north is. But even people without that sense are perfectly able to navigate.
“I think I have a pretty good sense of direction,” said Jason Vinci, 39, of Queens, resting his thumbs through the straps of his solar-paneled backpack. “I don’t know; you just sort of feel it.”
Of 20 New Yorkers interviewed — some beneath Union Square, some in the sun in the park itself — 13 pointed to north accurately and instantly, 4 pointed in the wrong direction, 2 pointed to the sky, and the data was lost for one subject. (Perhaps the questioner was briefly disoriented.)
“I confuse north and south,” said Alba Terron, 11, of Brighton Beach, Brooklyn.
As an extra challenge, we asked a few people to try a “homing task.” Mr. Vinci was one of the participants. Using chalk, we marked Mr. Vinci’s position on the ground, then asked him to close his eyes, take two steps forward, three steps to the right, spin 180 degrees, and then return to his original location.
All the others who were asked to perform this dance reversed their steps to return back to their starting point. Scientifically, this is known as a “route-following” approach; anecdotally, it’s a less-efficient but fail-safe method.
But Mr. Vinci stepped diagonally back into place, using what’s called a “path-integration strategy.”
“He understood where he was in space; he kept track of it,” said Dr. Andre Fenton, a colleague of Dr. Ranck’s at SUNY Downstate.
Almost everyone surveyed had a story of getting lost, and most said they found the subway disorienting. Four people said they regularly relied on compasses or GPS devices on their phones. And one person, originally from the Dominican Republic, said she regularly got lost in the city because she couldn’t see the North Star.
“I know places because I get lost,” said Dana David, 45, of the Upper East Side.
And who has a better sense of direction? Men or women? The survey showed no conclusive evidence, but plenty of theories.
“It’s a loaded question,” Mr. Macciaroli said. “But I’m going to say that I think men have a better sense of direction and spatial orientation, maybe because we were the hunters in our early lives, and the ladies stayed home and did the gathering, and more agricultural things.”
Asked the same question, Tanya Mauler, 37, of Sunset Park, Brooklyn, said she did not think one sex differed from the other. With her newborn baby, Ophelia, wrapped in an orange cloth up against her body, Ms. Mauler compared herself with her husband: “I’m more inclined to go a little bit more with my gut feeling. But part of it is because he’s very interested in maps.”
Isolde Raftery contributed reporting.
This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:
Correction: June 23, 2010
An earlier version of this post referred imprecisely to the academic affiliations of two scientists, James B. Ranck Jr., who helped with the test, and Andre Fenton. While they are indeed colleagues, their association is through SUNY Downstate Medical Center, where both are professors — not through New York University. (Dr. Fenton is also a visiting professor at N.Y.U., but Dr. Ranck is not.)