Rediscovering the joy of the journey in the age of turn-by-turn directions

With the proliferation of GPS technology, studying how humans and other animals find their way using the Sun, stars, and landmarks may feel ancient and irrelevant. However, two recent books convincingly argue that such endeavors are well worth our time.

In Supernavigators, David Barrie tells astounding tales of how various animals navigate the world and the equally intriguing stories of the scientists who study them. Ants and bees, we learn, can orient themselves by detecting the polarization of the Sun, whereas dung beetles use moonlight and the Milky Way as their guide.

Barrie, an expert sailor, explains the challenge of navigating across a vast ocean without a compass and discusses how the animals that do so maintain a steady course using odor, soundscapes, and the weak Earth magnetic field. Here, he relates the story of a pigeon race that went awry in 1997, when infrasound shock waves generated by a Concorde supersonic transport airliner led tens of thousands of the birds—which are known for their navigational acumen—off course. Many were never seen again.

Researching animal navigation has practical benefits as well. Understanding when and where animals that serve as vectors for viruses and bacteria move can help public health experts predict the spread of certain diseases. The extraordinary sensory mechanisms of animals could also inspire technologies, including radar, machine vision, robotics, and self-driving cars.

Barrie argues that returning to more traditional ways of navigating connects us back to nature: “Rather than automatically relying on GPS…we should open our eyes and exercise our brains,” he writes. “Unless we want to lose our navigational skills altogether, we must learn again how to speak the language of the earth.”

Exchanging animal migration for human navigation, in Wayfinding, journalist M. R. O’Connor offers stories from the Arctic, Australia, and the South Pacific, where people still practice traditional methods of navigation in the seemingly featureless landscapes of snow, sand, and water. Placing how people navigate in a broader historical context—from imperialism to an era defined by climate change—she discusses the evolution and implication of human navigation with various scholars, including neuroscientists, anthropologists, and philosophers.

O’Connor argues that collective storytelling and close observation are key to successful human wayfinding. Some Arctic navigators, for example, build detailed mental images by using verbal descriptions of the route from their ancestors. Native languages that can communicate subtle differences in various types of snow—for example, “uluangnaq,” soft mounds of new snow—and self-explanatory naming of landmarks (such as an animal heart–shaped island)—help, too.

Aboriginal people, meanwhile, rely on an oral tradition passed down over generations to communicate ancient trade routes and water holes, covering thousands of kilometers. Preservation of the route knowledge is tightly linked to cultural identity.

Those familiar with spatial navigation research might wonder whether such people use “egocentric” route knowledge—local landmarks and directions centered on the self (such as left or right)—or “allocentric” map knowledge, which relies on more external perspectives (such as north or south). But O’Connor cautions readers against applying a simple dichotomy. Individuals use an amalgam of navigation strategies, she argues, and groups of people rarely rely on a single one.

O’Connor’s coverage of the cognitive map theory—one of the most eminent theories in the field—is deep and broad. General audiences and experts in navigation and cognition will likely learn something new here.

She centers her discussion on the hippocampus, a structure deep in the medial temporal lobe that is believed to be essential for maintaining one’s bearing in space and time. Importantly, this function can be enhanced or deteriorated depending on one’s experiences.

O’Connor is concerned that our reliance on GPS turn-by-turn direction will negatively affect hippocampal function, increasing our reliance on habitual and addictive behaviors. Her fears are not unfounded, but her message feels overly negative. Existing literature that shows relationships among passive wayfinding, hippocampal processing, and neurological dysfunction is mostly correlational (as she acknowledges).

In the end, both books will make readers think about what we lose when we blindly outsource navigation to GPS. Wayfinding is not only about transferring ourselves from point A to point B; it is also about how we observe and interact with our world. As O’Connor writes, we “record the past, attend to the present, and imagine the future” during our journey. We should not give it up too easily.

About the author

(1) Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Leipzig, Germany. (2) Kavli Institute for Systems Neuroscience, Trondheim, Norway.