
Human spatial memory is made up of numerous individual maps (2016) - dnetesn
http://maxplanck.nautil.us/article/351/orientation-without-a-master-plan
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taneq
I was told ages ago that humans divide our spatial memory into discrete
spaces, and then store our memories of objects relative to the space in which
we saw or thought about the object. That's why when you need to get something
from another room, and you walk through a doorway to get there, so often
you'll realise you've forgotten what it was that you needed to get. And then
you walk back through the doorway and you'll remember.

I'd guess this is also why memory palaces work - you're basically allocating a
data structure to store your facts in.

~~~
aantix
There’s a psychotherapy approach called Internal Family Systems, IFS, that is
the theory that we’re all naturally made up of individual, multiple
personalities. Each part of you having it’s own anxieties, fears, goals.

It’s why you could seemingly be one personality when you encounter love,
hungry, horny, etc and seemingly different person while in a different
context.

[https://youtu.be/LuJLv98ks-I](https://youtu.be/LuJLv98ks-I)

~~~
drdeca
Is this psychotherapy approach generally respected among therapists, or is it
kinda fringe?

Because from that description, it sounds like it would probably be a fringe
thing, but I don't know the field in the slightest, so I can't be confident in
that.

Also, that description at the end of the post, that you say it explains,
doesn't seem to match my experience.

Also, I don't think I see how it relates to the parent comment?

~~~
mr_overalls
I don't work in neuroscience, but I've taken a few courses in undergrad. I'll
chime in until a professional can answer your question more definitively.

There's some evidence that the left and right brain hemispheres have their own
desires and goals, based on some studies conducted by Roger Perry in the
1960's. Sperry received the 1981 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his
split-brain research.

[https://embryo.asu.edu/pages/roger-sperrys-split-brain-
exper...](https://embryo.asu.edu/pages/roger-sperrys-split-brain-
experiments-1959-1968)

Aside from the left-right split, I think there's a large category of well-
supported models that conceive of the mind-brain as modular, but with sub-
units dedicated to basic processing tasks (memory retrieval, sensory
integration, etc.) rather than being fully-formed, discrete "personalities" in
themselves.

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chippy
"We find it easy to remember the position of many items as one unit when
arranged in large open spaces. Hence, large corridors, roads, and entrance
areas that provide a broad overall view enhance wayfinding."

I think this is something that web design has lost. Most modern web design is
optimised for the mobile and as a result, navigation and menus are hidden
behind hamburger menus, swipe left menus, or behind mysterious icons. Instead
of a broad overall view, the user has to enter each corridor and room to find
out what is in there. Where once websites were about having a broad overall
view of the site perhaps now it's about getting the focus on a piece of
content on it's own.

I suppose another example that comes to mind is API Documentation on one page,
versus split up into many little pages in a structured hierarchy.

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nonbel
Actual study:
[https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S001002771...](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0010027716301500?via%3Dihub)

Looks like they put people in two different types of VR environments. One was
an open room ("vista space"), the other was more like a simple maze with a few
corridors ("environmental space"). There were various objects throughout the
environments that the subjects were asked to memorize and then "point" towards
using a joystick.

The subjects were allowed to learn the locations of the objects in various
ways such as from a few vantage points, or moving around along various paths
through the space, whether the objects appeared one at a time or all at once,
etc. They then measured how long it took the subjects to complete the
"pointing" (latency in seconds) and the error in direction (degrees).

They predicted that in the open room condition, subjects would perform better
when the object was 0, +/\- 90, and 180 degrees relative to the body
orientation, but for the corridor case performance should be best when the
object was +/-45 or +/-135 degrees from the body orientation. I didn't figure
out why they predicted this.

They found that people in the "corridor" condition took longer to point at the
object and made more errors, and this increased the more walls that were in
between the subject and the item. They also found that the performance was
largely as predicted according to the relative prediction of the object
(better at +/\- 45/135 in the corridor condition, and vice versa for the open
room condition).

They conclude: _" memory differences between vista and environmental space
originated mainly from the spatial compartmentalization which was unique to
environmental space learning."_

Seems like a pretty flimsy connection between data and theory to me. If anyone
can figure out why they made that prediction about body orientation please
comment.

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Regolitch
I've always thought that this was the case.

I have a very good memory for places. But I am terrible at remembering where
places like relative to each other.

I grew up on a coastal town, where essentially every 'area' lay on a single
highway. And after living there for ~15 years on and off, I could name almost
every business in three towns, which ones had shut down and re-opened as
something different, what had been swamp a few years before.

Everything.

But if I got in my car, and tried to drive to a specific location, I was
completely useless.

I could tell you what the building looked like, what was accross the street,
what was next to it on either side.

But I woukd be completely unable to tell you if it was north or south of me.

I often had to navigate by mentally walking from building to building.

~~~
MarsAscendant
> I often had to navigate by mentally walking from building to building.

That's similar to how I navigate if I have to find out if there's a certain
kind of business in proximity. I quickly "fly" down the street in one
direction, see if there's what I need – say, a convenience store – for about a
bus stop or two, then the other way. I'm looking in the direction I'm
scouting, but my mind is wandering way further.

I'm also quite capable of finding my way back to somewhere I'd been once, but
I won't be able to tell you where it is on the map unless I find something
memorable on it and orient myself similarly to above.

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dqpb
> _In their study, the Max Planck researchers tested the spatial memory of
> volunteers in a virtual environment using 3-D glasses._

Well, the photo at the top of the article shows them wearing an Oculus.

~~~
angusp
One assumes that "3D Glasses" was meant to mean a VR headset

~~~
MarsAscendant
Seems worth noting that they're not the same thing, given the geeky nature of
the forum we find ourselves on.

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danharaj
It's a sheaf!

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sheaf_(mathematics)](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sheaf_\(mathematics\))

