Transportation
Here's How Your Brain Gets You Around Town
A mix of imagination and memories of the physical shape of your surroundings helps orient you when you're lost.
Perhaps you know what it's like to be a flâneur. Without a goal or destination in mind, you walk easily for miles past your familiar city zone, not entirely sure which way you'll return.
But when it is time to head home, perhaps you've also had the experience of brief disorientation. You end up in square where you've been before, but it looks a lot like others you've seen, forcing you to pause a minute to remember which way to head. Was it down the wide street towards the back of the square, or that alleyway to the left? Ah, yes, the alley. And you're off.