Kruse Kronicle

How to give directions

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mwkruse
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Marginal Revolution:  How to give directions Tyler Cowen

…there are two ways to give directions. One is using a so-called "route perspective", as in the example above. This adopts a first-person spatial perspective and is characterised by references to turns and landmarks. The other is a so-called "survey perspective", which gives directions as if looking down upon a map. This type of direction giving is characterised by references to cardinal directions (North, South, East and West) and precise distances.

And which is better?
When Hund's team used a fictitious model town made of plywood to test the ability of undergraduates to follow directions, they uncovered a curious anomaly. The students reported finding route perspective directions easier to follow and yet they steered a toy car to a destination more quickly and effectively when they were following cardinal directions. …

I tend to prefer receiving cardinal directions, but that is partly because I live in the Midwest, where the world is laid out more or less according to a grid. Having also lived in Philadelphia for a while, I found cardinal directions much more challenging. The grid disappears once you leave the city proper, and landmarks become more critical. I tend to give cardinal and landmark directions when I'm asked for directions; saying things in more than one way will improve success.

Comments

One response to “How to give directions”

  1. Rob Decker Avatar
    Rob Decker

    In a linguistics class and instructor mentioned that, in the indigenous AmerIndian group that he lived with and studied, there was no word for “right” and “left,” let alone cardinal directions. I couldn’t fathom that. But in the village he lived in, everything was relation to landmarks. “Go towards the mountains; turn towards the large corn fields, etc.”
    This came back to me when I was in the Bahamas trying to get directions from the desk clerk. It seemed difficult for her to tell me which direction to turn as I left the parking lot in order to get to a certain restaurant. Again, for her, and others from whom I asked directions, everything was by langmark. Everyone knew where this beach or that gas station was.
    It was a strange experience.
    In Chicago, we definately prefer cardinal directions. The Chicago Fire allowed us to rebuild the city with a perfect grid, and everyone knows intuitively where the lake is.
    Mapquest, on the other hand, really prefers street landmarks and “right” and “left” turns. So does Garmin.

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