Researchers have investigated why we get lost in places that are similar to other areas we’re familiar with. Zheng led a team that found that “the brain may treat similar environments as if they are even more different than a pair of environments that have nothing in common. The concept is known to brain scientists as ‘repulsion.’ . . . Ekstrom points to a visit to a restaurant. There are many aspects about dining out that will always be the same – being seated, ordering food and waiting for the meal. But dinner with a romantic partner would come with key differences than, say, a dinner with a co-worker. ‘That’s the challenge for the brain: A lot of stuff in our daily life is similar, so there’s no reason to use our limited resources to relearn very similar experiences,’ Ekstrom said. ‘But at the same time, there are things in our everyday life that we have to treat as different in order to be able to learn.’” This study is published in Nature Communications.
“Ever Been Lost in the Grocery Store? Researchers are Closer to Knowing Why It Happens.” 2021. Press release, The University of Arizona, https://news.arizona.edu/story/ever-been-lost-grocery-store-researchers-…
Sally Augustin, PhD, a cognitive scientist, is the editor of Research Design Connections (www.researchdesignconnections.com), a monthly subscription newsletter and free daily blog, where recent and classic research in the social, design, and physical sciences that can inform designers’ work are presented in straightforward language. Readers learn about the latest research findings immediately, before they’re available elsewhere. Sally, who is a Fellow of the American Psychological Association, is also the author of Place Advantage: Applied Psychology for Interior Architecture (Wiley, 2009) and, with Cindy Coleman, The Designer’s Guide to Doing Research: Applying Knowledge to Inform Design (Wiley, 2012). She is a principal at Design With Science (www.designwithscience.com) and can be reached at sallyaugustin@designwithscience.com.