Getting lost

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Getting lost is the occurrence of a person or animal losing spatial reference. [1] This situation consists of two elements: the feeling of disorientation and a spatial component. [2] While getting lost, being lost or totally lost, etc. are popular expressions for someone in a desperate situation (perhaps not literally lost), getting lost is also a positive term for a goal some travellers have in exploring without a plan. [3] [4] [5] Getting lost can also occur in metaphorical senses, such as being unable to follow a conversation.

Contents

Process

In a maze, one can get lost on a voluntary basis Maze.JPG
In a maze, one can get lost on a voluntary basis

Psychology and neuroscience help to understand the underlying processes which take place before, during and after getting lost. Getting lost is an aspect of behavioral geography, in which human wayfinding and cognitive and environmental factors play a role. For successful travel, it is necessary to be able to identify origin and destination, to determine turn angles, to identify segment lengths and directions of movement, to recognize on-route and distant landmarks. This information is required to plot a course designed to reach a destination (previously known or unknown) or to return to a home base after wandering. If a destination is known but is not directly connected by a path, road, or track to the origin, successful travel may involve search and exploration, spatial updating of one's location, finding familiar landmarks, recognition of segment length and sequencing, identification of a frame of reference. Human movement is often guided by external aids (cartographic maps, charts, compasses, pedometers, and the like). [6]

Getting lost is particularly problematic for children (who have not yet developed tools and strategies for maintaining their bearings) and for the elderly, particularly those experiencing the onset of dementia. [7] Such individuals "can get lost while trying to find their local shop – due to their diminishing memory they can forget where the shop is, or where they live and why they went out of their house in the first place". [7] People experiencing dementia also get lost more easily in poor visibility conditions because the mind fails to appropriately fill in cues as to missing landmarks. [7] Getting lost in unfamiliar terrain can lead even an adult with a healthy mind to panic and engage in unthinking behaviors that make the situation even worse. [8] The tendency of the mind to seek patterns and familiar signs can contribute to this in two ways. First the lost person may mistake features of the terrain for markers that were seen before they became lost, creating a false sense of orientation that may lead the lost person to pursue routes that take them even further off course. Second, the lost person may mistake such features for markers that were seen after they became lost, creating a false sense that they have made a circle and returned to an earlier point of their effort to find their bearings. [8] This may result from topographical disorientation, the inability to orient oneself in one's surroundings, sometimes as a result of focal brain damage. [9] This disability may result from the inability to make use of selective spatial information (e.g., environmental landmarks) or to orient by means of specific cognitive strategies such as the ability to form a mental representation of the environment, also known as a cognitive map.

Lost person behavior

Search and rescue teams have identified some behavioral patterns in people who get lost in wilderness settings, and they use those patterns to improve the likelihood of finding lost people. For example, lost people tend to follow linear features (e.g., a stream) and to go downhill. [10]

Historical occasions

There have been some historically notable instances of people getting lost and either being rescued or dying. George Shannon, the youngest adult member of the Lewis and Clark Expedition got lost on two occasions after being separated from the expedition. On August 26, 1804, he was sent to retrieve two pack horses; he was separated from the party for sixteen days and nearly starved, as he went without food for twelve days except for some grapes and rabbits. At first he thought he was behind the expedition, so he sped up thinking he could catch up. Then, getting hungry, he went downstream to look for a trading party he could stay with. Finally John Colter was sent to find him. The second time was on August 6, 1805, when the expedition was at the Three Forks. Shannon was dispatched up a fork the party had named Wisdom (the middle fork was named Jefferson and the placid fork, Philanthropy). He rejoined the party after three days by backtracking to the forks and following the trail of the others. [11]

John Muir wrote in his journals of an occasion when a visiting artist named Billy Simms "went forth to sketch while I was among the glaciers, and got lost - was thirty-six hours without food". [12] Mentally ailing Church of England mission priest Alexander Mackonochie died after getting lost on December 14, 1887, while walking in the Forest of Mamore, near Loch Leven, Scotland: the circumstances were later commemorated in a poem by William McGonagall. [13] In September 2014, Soviet and Russian mathematician Alexey Chervonenkis got lost in Losiny Ostrov National Park; a later search operation found him dead near Mytishchi, a suburb of Moscow. [14]

In fiction and mythology

People are sometimes depicted in fiction and literature as getting lost, with substantial consequences. For example, due to "the physical structure of Rome, whose streets were notoriously labyrinthine", it has been observed that "getting lost in Rome was staple of travel narratives". [15] The experience of getting lost is also a commonly reported theme of dreams. [16]

In previous times, mythological explanations were given for getting lost and going astray. In the mythology of the British Isles, the culprit making someone get lost—being pixy-led, fairy-led or pouk-ledden as it is called—can be a fairy, Robin Goodfellow, Puck, Hob, a pixy or one of the gwyllion. [17] [18] In the mythology of Ireland, there are also places under fairy spells, leading to the same effect. They are called stray sod or foidin seachrain. [19]

In German speaking Europe, someone getting lost could be attributed to be the fault of a variety of sprites (such as a Will-o'-the-wisp, a wood sprite, or the wild huntsman, the Mittagsweibchen ("noon-woman") or Rübezahl), of a witch or magic in general, or of mythical plants such as the Irrwurz. There are further places known called Irrfleck ("astray spot") or Irr-Revier ("astray district") where people go astray. [20]

Getting lost in the bush has been identified as an enduring trope of Australian literature, often featuring lost children. [21] [22]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cognitive science</span> Interdisciplinary scientific study of cognitive processes

Cognitive science is the interdisciplinary, scientific study of the mind and its processes. It examines the nature, the tasks, and the functions of cognition. Mental faculties of concern to cognitive scientists include language, perception, memory, attention, reasoning, and emotion; to understand these faculties, cognitive scientists borrow from fields such as linguistics, psychology, artificial intelligence, philosophy, neuroscience, and anthropology. The typical analysis of cognitive science spans many levels of organization, from learning and decision to logic and planning; from neural circuitry to modular brain organization. One of the fundamental concepts of cognitive science is that "thinking can best be understood in terms of representational structures in the mind and computational procedures that operate on those structures."

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Navigation</span> Process of monitoring and controlling the movement of a craft or vehicle from one place to another

Navigation is a field of study that focuses on the process of monitoring and controlling the movement of a craft or vehicle from one place to another. The field of navigation includes four general categories: land navigation, marine navigation, aeronautic navigation, and space navigation.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Claustrophobia</span> Fear of small spaces

Claustrophobia is a fear of confined spaces. It is triggered by many situations or stimuli, including elevators, especially when crowded to capacity, windowless rooms, and hotel rooms with closed doors and sealed windows. Even bedrooms with a lock on the outside, small cars, and tight-necked clothing can induce a response in those with claustrophobia. It is typically classified as an anxiety disorder, which often results in panic attacks. The onset of claustrophobia has been attributed to many factors, including a reduction in the size of the amygdala, classical conditioning, or a genetic predisposition to fear small spaces.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Spatial memory</span> Memory about ones environment and spatial orientation

In cognitive psychology and neuroscience, spatial memory is a form of memory responsible for the recording and recovery of information needed to plan a course to a location and to recall the location of an object or the occurrence of an event. Spatial memory is necessary for orientation in space. Spatial memory can also be divided into egocentric and allocentric spatial memory. A person's spatial memory is required to navigate around a familiar city. A rat's spatial memory is needed to learn the location of food at the end of a maze. In both humans and animals, spatial memories are summarized as a cognitive map.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Morris water navigation task</span> Task used in experiments to measure spatial learning and memory

The Morris water navigation task, also known as the Morris water maze, is a behavioral procedure mostly used with rodents. It is widely used in behavioral neuroscience to study spatial learning and memory. It enables learning, memory, and spatial working to be studied with great accuracy, and can also be used to assess damage to particular cortical regions of the brain. It is used by neuroscientists to measure the effect of neurocognitive disorders on spatial learning and possible neural treatments, to test the effect of lesions to the brain in areas concerned with memory, and to study how age influences cognitive function and spatial learning. The task is also used as a tool to study drug-abuse, neural systems, neurotransmitters, and brain development.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Place cell</span> Place-activated hippocampus cells found in some mammals

A place cell is a kind of pyramidal neuron in the hippocampus that becomes active when an animal enters a particular place in its environment, which is known as the place field. Place cells are thought to act collectively as a cognitive representation of a specific location in space, known as a cognitive map. Place cells work with other types of neurons in the hippocampus and surrounding regions to perform this kind of spatial processing. They have been found in a variety of animals, including rodents, bats, monkeys and humans.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cognitive map</span> Mental representation of information

A cognitive map is a type of mental representation which serves an individual to acquire, code, store, recall, and decode information about the relative locations and attributes of phenomena in their everyday or metaphorical spatial environment. The concept was introduced by Edward Tolman in 1948. He tried to explain the behavior of rats that appeared to learn the spatial layout of a maze, and subsequently the concept was applied to other animals, including humans. The term was later generalized by some researchers, especially in the field of operations research, to refer to a kind of semantic network representing an individual's personal knowledge or schemas.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Retirement home</span> Housing facility for the elderly persons

A retirement home – sometimes called an old people's home,old folks' home, or old age home, although old people's home can also refer to a nursing home – is a multi-residence housing facility intended for the elderly. Typically, each person or couple in the home has an apartment-style room or suite of rooms with an en-suite bathroom. Additional facilities are provided within the building. This can include facilities for meals, gatherings, recreation activities, and some form of health or hospital care. A place in a retirement home can be paid for on a rental basis, like an apartment, or can be bought in perpetuity on the same basis as a condominium.

Witzelsucht is a set of pure and rare neurological symptoms characterized by a tendency to make puns, or tell inappropriate jokes or pointless stories in socially inappropriate situations. It makes one unable to read sarcasm.

Visual agnosia is an impairment in recognition of visually presented objects. It is not due to a deficit in vision, language, memory, or intellect. While cortical blindness results from lesions to primary visual cortex, visual agnosia is often due to damage to more anterior cortex such as the posterior occipital and/or temporal lobe(s) in the brain.[2] There are two types of visual agnosia: apperceptive agnosia and associative agnosia.

Social neuroscience is an interdisciplinary field devoted to understanding the relationship between social experiences and biological systems. Humans are fundamentally a social species, rather than solitary. As such, Homo sapiens create emergent organizations beyond the individual—structures that range from dyads, families, and groups to cities, civilizations, and cultures. In this regard, studies indicate that various social influences, including life events, poverty, unemployment and loneliness can influence health related biomarkers. The term "social neuroscience" can be traced to a publication entitled "Social Neuroscience Bulletin" which was published quarterly between 1988 and 1994. The term was subsequently popularized in an article by John Cacioppo and Gary Berntson, published in the American Psychologist in 1992. Cacioppo and Berntson are considered as the legitimate fathers of social neuroscience. Still a young field, social neuroscience is closely related to personality neuroscience, affective neuroscience and cognitive neuroscience, focusing on how the brain mediates social interactions. The biological underpinnings of social cognition are investigated in social cognitive neuroscience.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Retrosplenial cortex</span> Part of the brains cerebral cortex

The retrosplenial cortex (RSC) is a cortical area in the brain comprising Brodmann areas 29 and 30. It is secondary association cortex, making connections with numerous other brain regions. The region's name refers to its anatomical location immediately behind the splenium of the corpus callosum in primates, although in rodents it is located more towards the brain surface and is relatively larger. Its function is currently not well understood, but its location close to visual areas and also to the hippocampal spatial/memory system suggest it may have a role in mediating between perceptual and memory functions, particularly in the spatial domain. However, its exact contribution to either space or memory processing has been hard to pin down.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dorsolateral prefrontal cortex</span> Area of the prefrontal cortex of primates

The dorsolateral prefrontal cortex is an area in the prefrontal cortex of the primate brain. It is one of the most recently derived parts of the human brain. It undergoes a prolonged period of maturation which lasts into adulthood. The DLPFC is not an anatomical structure, but rather a functional one. It lies in the middle frontal gyrus of humans. In macaque monkeys, it is around the principal sulcus. Other sources consider that DLPFC is attributed anatomically to BA 9 and 46 and BA 8, 9 and 10.

Topographical disorientation is the inability to orient oneself in one's surroundings, sometimes as a result of focal brain damage. This disability may result from the inability to make use of selective spatial information or to orient by means of specific cognitive strategies such as the ability to form a mental representation of the environment, also known as a cognitive map. It may be part of a syndrome known as visuospatial dysgnosia.

Spatial cognition is the acquisition, organization, utilization, and revision of knowledge about spatial environments. It is most about how animals including humans behave within space and the knowledge they built around it, rather than space itself. These capabilities enable individuals to manage basic and high-level cognitive tasks in everyday life. Numerous disciplines work together to understand spatial cognition in different species, especially in humans. Thereby, spatial cognition studies also have helped to link cognitive psychology and neuroscience. Scientists in both fields work together to figure out what role spatial cognition plays in the brain as well as to determine the surrounding neurobiological infrastructure.

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Cognitive geography is an interdisciplinary study of cognitive science and geography. It aims to understand how humans view space, place, and environment. It involves formalizing factors that influence our spatial cognition to create a more effective representation of space. These improved models assist in a variety of issues, for example, developing maps that communicate better, providing navigation instructions that are easier to follow, utilizing space more practically, accounting for the cultural differences on spatial thinking for more effective cross-cultural information exchange, and an overall increased understanding of our environment.

Sense of direction is the ability to know one's location and perform wayfinding. It is related to cognitive maps, spatial awareness, and spatial cognition. Sense of direction can be impaired by brain damage, such as in the case of topographical disorientation.

A conscious city is a large built environment that is aware of the needs and activities of its inhabitants and responds to them. Research in conscious cities explores how architecture and urban design can better consider and respond to human needs through data analysis, artificial intelligence, and the application of cognitive sciences in design.

Spatial anxiety is a sense of anxiety an individual experiences while processing environmental information contained in one's geographical space, with the purpose of navigation and orientation through that space. Spatial anxiety is also linked to the feeling of stress regarding the anticipation of a spatial-content related performance task. Particular cases of spatial anxiety can result in a more severe form of distress, as in agoraphobia.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Wayfinding (urban or indoor)</span>

Wayfinding has been used in the context of architecture to refer to the user experience of orientation and navigating within the built environment.

References

  1. ↑ Paul A. Dudchenko, Why People Get Lost: The Psychology and Neuroscience of Spatial Cognition (Oxford, 2010)
  2. ↑ K. A. Hill, The Psychology of Lost Archived 2013-12-28 at the Wayback Machine (National SAR Secretariat, 1998)
  3. ↑ Flinn, John (March 24, 1996). "Savoring the joys of getting lost". Sfgate. Retrieved 29 November 2017.
  4. ↑ "A good traveler is one who does not know where he is going, and a perfect traveler does not know where he came from." - Lin Yutang
  5. ↑ "Getting Lost - Let's find a beautiful place and get lost" . Retrieved 29 November 2017.
  6. ↑ Reginald G. Golledge, Wayfinding Behavior: Cognitive Mapping and Other Spatial Processes (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998)
  7. 1 2 3 Betty Rudd, Introducing Psychopathology (2013), p. 72.
  8. 1 2 John Edward Huth, The Lost Art of Finding Our Way (2013), p. 30-38.
  9. ↑ Aguirre GK, D'Esposito M (September 1999). "Topographical disorientation: a synthesis and taxonomy". Brain. 122 (9): 1613–28. doi: 10.1093/brain/122.9.1613 . PMID   10468502.
  10. ↑ Scoles, Sarah (2024-01-22). "The Burgeoning Science of Search and Rescue". Undark Magazine. Retrieved 2024-02-27.
  11. ↑ "Chapter 4: Lewis and Clark". Heniz History Center exhibit. Retrieved 2011-08-22.
  12. ↑ John Muir, in William Frederic Badè, The Writings of John Muir (1923), Vol. 9, p. 389.
  13. ↑ McGonagall, William (5 September 2011). "The Tragic Death of the Rev. A. H. Mackonochie".
  14. ↑ Известный ученый Алексей Червоненкис погиб в Москве. MSK.kp.ru - (in Russian). kp.ru. 23 September 2014.
  15. ↑ Richard Wrigley, Regarding Romantic Rome (2007), p. 176.
  16. ↑ Stephen Gislason, Neuroscience Notes (2015), p. 128.
  17. ↑ Katharine Briggs: An Encyclopedia of Fairies, Hobgoblins, Brownies, Bogies and Other Supernatural Creatures. New York 1976, p. 330 f., 333.
  18. ↑ Morgan Daimler: A New Dictionary of Fairies: A 21st Century Exploration of Celtic and Related Western European Fairies. Alresford 2020, p. 266.
  19. ↑ Katharine Briggs: An Encyclopedia of Fairies, Hobgoblins, Brownies, Bogies and Other Supernatural Creatures. New York 1976, p. 385.
  20. ↑ Ranke: irreführen. In: Hanns Bächtold-Stäubli, Eduard Hoffmann-Krayer: Handwörterbuch des Deutschen Aberglaubens: Band 4 Hieb- und stichfest - Knistern. Berlin 1932. (reprint: Berlin/New York 2000), p. 776.
  21. ↑ Tilley, Elspeth (2012). White Vanishing: Rethinking Australia's Lost-in-the-bush Myth. Rodopi. ISBN   9789401208703.
  22. ↑ Thompson, Jay Daniel (18 November 2014). "The 'lost child' is a white Australian anxiety about innocence". The Conversation. Retrieved 2 August 2023.

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