Going nowhere: Humans do walk in circles
-
-
-
-
- Hypo_Mix
- added this
-
more from News:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/08/21/2662926.htm?site=news
Scientists have confirmed the popular belief that without anything to guide them humans really do walk in circles.The research, originally commissioned by a popular science TV program in Germany, is published in the journal Current Biology.
Psychologist and author Dr Jan Souman, of the Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics, says it's well known that people can walk in a straight line if they are in a known environment.
"But I was trying to simulate what happens when you get lost and try to find your way out," he says.
Volunteers were dropped off, in either the desert or forest, and shown which direction to walk towards, he says.
"They walked for about four hours."
Dr Souman says those people walking in the forest, on a day when the sun was visible, were able to use it as a guide.
"They walked basically perfectly straight," he says.
But when the sun disappeared, Dr Souman says, the volunteers walked in circles.
Dr Souman says in the desert volunteers walking when the sun was visible didn't walk in a straight line, but instead veered slightly to the left or right.
"This is probably because in the desert there is nothing to give you a reference."
He says at night, without the assistance of the moon, the volunteers didn't walk in exact circles either.
"One guy turned completely back around on himself so he was going the opposite way he started."
Dr Souman says he can't really explain why people don't walk in a straight line when they have nothing to guide them, but he has a hunch.
"If you are walking blindfolded the only information you've got to tell if you're walking straight comes from your body, the information from your muscle and joint movement."
But this information is 'noisy' or has errors, he says.
"Normally we don't notice these errors because we can correct them by looking where we are going."
But Dr Souman says even with sight, these errors build up over time and what we think is straight ahead isn't anymore.
