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Navigating a city with Anna
4 Plays4 minutes ago
When you navigate a city, what is your inner experience? Do you see detailed overhead maps, or street-level views of landmarks, or neither?
Vynn Suren and Francis Irving interview Anna about how she uses her imagination to find routes, program a computer and remember names.
Anna describes how she sees both an overhead map view and street-level views of landmarks. She switches between them dynamically.
What’s a visual map vs a spatial map? What features are salient? What is a waypoint? How do the imagined maps vary in quality between different cities? What does the marker look like that shows where you are? There’s then a discussion about how people work out the route to take on the map, and what happens when they get lost. What’s the inner experience of being lost? How do you find yourself again?
The conversation switches to use of imagination while computer programming. Anna describes the abstract concepts she sees in a spatial structure. What then happens when you’re interrupted? Does this apply to other tasks, e.g. getting quotes for insurance?
To wrap up, the team talk about names and faces and how well people remember them. If you visualise writing is it serif or sans-serif, is it white or grey?
Timestamps:
00:55 Imagine an apple
02:17 Inner background music
05:00 Navigating a city
08:26 Spatial vs visual
11:07 Finding the best route
20:17 Typical waypoints
22:49 Sense of direction
26:33 Getting lost
30:18 Variety of experience while navigating
34:08 Imagination while computer programming
38:56 Interruptions
41:02 Smoky grey shapes of thinking
44:35 Inner experience during collaborative tasks
46:29 Remembering names and faces
Show Links:
- This isn’t f***ing Dalston! - mapping the cognitive boundaries of part of London
- The Image of the City - book about how people make mental maps
- Mind’s Eye Mentorship - 1:1 coaching, used to be called AphantasiaMeow
- Guugu Yimithirr language - uses north/south where English uses left/right
- Country Driving by Peter Hessler - getting lost in rural China
- Statistics of mental imagery by Francis Galton - either this, or William James referencing it, mentions the smokey grey shapes
- 1946 birth cohort study - NHS research project
Contact Details:
Please follow us, get in touch, tell us about your inner experiences!
Twitter: @imagine_apple @SurenVynn @frabcus
Email: imagine@flourish.org
Theme written, performed and recorded by @MJPiercello
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Transcript
Introduction to City Navigation Visualization
00:00:00
Speaker
Imagine that you're in a city and you're trying to get somewhere. What do you see in your mind's eye? A combination of the place I want to go to, how it looks when you get there, and then if the mind is like a camera, so zooming out to see from above the map of where you're going. um And I kind of assumed everyone did this, but Francis says not.
00:00:30
Speaker
ah We are Imagine an Apple with your host, me, Vin, and Francis. Hello. And today we're going to be interviewing Anna, who has the ability to navigate cities ah by visualizing anything she wants. um So it's sort of a pro-fantasic ability. ah Hello, Anna. Welcome to the show. Hi, nice to meet you. Hi. Thanks for having me.
00:00:55
Speaker
So before we jump in into how you visualize maps and your super city navigation skills, we have a few ah basic set of questions that we like to ask everyone.
Anna's Visualization Techniques
00:01:06
Speaker
ah The first of which is like, can you imagine an apple? I can imagine an apple. Yes, I would say. It's red and shiny and it's round. And it's definitely solid.
00:01:22
Speaker
But it's not that detailed, I would say. But it does exist, it's there. But you could make it as detailed as you wanted to. Yeah, I could zoom in or zoom out, I think. Yeah. Interesting. OK, cool. Now, recall a memory from your past and your experience of remembering it. OK, should so I do that out loud? Yes. OK. Describe ah the visual details of it, if there's any images, audio or emotions or concepts that you might have with it.
00:01:53
Speaker
All right, I'm going to recall the memory of waiting for the school bus when I was a teenager. So I'm visualising like the road and the cars going past and it's cold. I guess I'm a bit impatient, but also kind of happy to be outside. um Yeah, yeah. Very well. So ah what about inner voices? Do you have an inner voice? What does it sound like?
00:02:23
Speaker
ah Yeah, I do. It's talking to me most of the time. I also think a lot of the time um I'm listening to a song in my head. So it's song lyrics. And I have noticed that if I ask other people what song can you hear in your head right now, very often people are listening to a song. So quite a lot of the time it's a song. I don't know if you've noticed that. Does that include the instruments and things or just the vote the voice? No, the lyrics and the tune.
00:02:52
Speaker
Yeah, in your own voice, but you sing a sort of thing. Yeah, I guess so. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Inner Voice and Verbal Processing
00:02:58
Speaker
So like default mode is just a song is playing of some kind. Just like background music. So do you have background music right now going in your head? No, because I'm talking to you, but I think it's like a verbal, if there's other verbal processing going on, there's no song. So sometimes my voice is talking. Um, but then if that's not happening, there'll be a song playing. What about when I think this is quite common? Not if I'm reading though. So yeah, the verbal.
00:03:21
Speaker
There's like one verbal input in time, which might be reading, or it might be talking to somebody, or it might be listening to the radio, um or it's the voice talking. Interesting. And that's most, of because I feel, because that happens to me a few percent of the time I have a song and that gets in my head, but but not all the time. Consciously, consciously aware of. Yeah. Yeah. and But yeah, I have noticed if you say to somebody what song is it playing in your head, very often if there's no like other speaking going on, they will listen to a song. Try it.
00:03:50
Speaker
Okay. Do you have that then? Just have a tryst? I don't have a song going around in my head all the time. I usually like to have it like a bit more quiet. Although sometimes when a song does get stuck in my head, it's there for a while. But preferably I like to, you know, have a quiet mind.
00:04:12
Speaker
ah So yeah, yeah, definitely in a voice of some kind always. Do you, does this in a voice have like an accent? Oh, I think it has my accent. Yeah, I think it's my voice. I think so. Yeah. Yeah. I think it sounds like ah what's called an articulatory inner voice, which is using the speech systems of the brain rather than audio one, which is using the audio parts of the brain. Okay. like yeah So that pretty much covers our next question as well, which is like, can you imagine music? Because your inner voice is basically just an earworm. Cool. Right. Well, that's our basic questions that I'm dusted. Now, let's get on to like some ana-specific capabilities that we're going to be talking to you about.
Visualizing Cities and Maps
00:05:00
Speaker
So imagine that you're in a city and you're trying to get somewhere. What do you see in your mind's eye? OK.
00:05:10
Speaker
Well, usually it would be a top-down view, like a map. Well, yeah, it would be a combination of the place I want to go to, like how it looked when you get there. And then like, if the mind is like a camera, so zooming out to see from above the map of where you're going. um And I kind of assumed everyone did this, but Francis says not. So yeah, so kind yeah, a combination of the place itself and then the bird's eye view from above. So I'm here.
00:05:40
Speaker
places there. Here's how we go together. Oh, wow. That's so interesting. i I've never done this before. ah So this is quite like a rare skill. And I'm like, fantastic. Do you how much detail is there in your map?
00:05:57
Speaker
Not a lot, to be fair. Like, yeah, there's a dot where I am, there's the place. And then there's, I guess, like the main features of the time of the city. ah Yeah.
00:06:10
Speaker
And it's not necessarily north facing either, although sometimes it is, if that makes sense. okay Yeah. know that yeah It's not necessarily ah oriented North Upright. It probably looks like a the kind of pencil map you would sketch if you were going to sketch the city. Do you see what I mean? is that yeah level detail So it's very schematic, bare-bones detail. It's not like Google Maps if you were to like go into like a Google street mode or something.
00:06:42
Speaker
Yeah, that would be awesome. But no, no it's it' more like what you would draw. OK, so that's like the map mode where you go into bird's eye view. You also mentioned that you see the place that you're going that you would be arriving at. So you see the point A and the point B. What is that like? And and how how is that different from bird's eye view map mode? Yeah, OK. So I mean, i guess yeah I guess the first view is like being Google Street View. So you're there. and like okay I'm in the place I'm going to go to and looking around visualising it and then yeah and then the second mode is that mode so I guess maybe it's like recalling the place oh yeah that place and it sounded like you swapped between them smoothly like you like a camera came out and went into the air or something or yeah exactly describe that more
00:07:32
Speaker
um
00:07:35
Speaker
Well, I don't know if it is smooth, it feels smooth. It's not it's not like a sort of pan of view upwards like a camera would, but it's, yeah, it just sort of instantly. There's definitely a sense of something spatial happening, I think. Like, yeah. Right. Of it of the transformation and rotation needed to get from one to the other. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Yeah. So it's almost like, oh, I'm experiencing being here. I'm experiencing being there visually, how the place looks. And then a spatial orientation happens between me being here and the space being there. and Yeah, if that makes sense, a rotation. Right, so in specifically it means you know from what you can see where you are now, you know what the rotation is to the map. So you know like which way to go almost or? Possibly, yeah. i don't think I don't think there's anything sort of, yeah, I think i think it's spatial rather than visually for two, I mean.
00:08:26
Speaker
Yeah, this is what I wanted to ask you more about actually. yeah so So when you experience your whereabouts, is it experienced like ah like a thick sense, like you just know where you are, or are you seeing it visually in your mind's eye? So you're using you know a visual stimuli, like you're you're conjuring visual imagery in your mind's eye and then using that to navigate.
00:08:55
Speaker
um maybe it's a bit Yeah, that's quite a fine distinction, isn't it? i think I think it's spatial rather than visual. I think it's a spatial thing that then becomes a 2D map, if you see what I mean. ah yeah yeah Yeah, so I think it's primarily spatial, but then perhaps expressed in the same way that maps are spatial.
00:09:13
Speaker
So does it have a colour or texture or like, can you tell, are there labels in writing in a particular font or anything like that? um No, I think it's like a grey and white pencil sketch on a white piece of paper. But yeah, yeah it no isn's not yet but there aren't sort of visual details or font labels or anything like that. Yeah, it's like you would draw it. Is there like a specific feature of the map that is more salient than others?
00:09:42
Speaker
So for example, are the roads the thing that you pay attention to the most? Or do you imagine yourself between point A and point B and taking like the shortest distance between there, regardless of whether there's a road or not? Yes, there are salient features and I think those salient features are the things, perhaps the waypoints that you would, if you were traveling, you would notice as you were traveling. So yeah, the roads or the sort of major stations, if it's a city or yeah, you know, the things by which you would know your progress and navigate, if you see what I mean. So they're not, they're not the most visually striking thing necessarily. Landmarks. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. So the landmarks will be labeled on the map in some way or? They wouldn't be not labeled verbally, but
00:10:35
Speaker
I would know what they were, if you see what I mean. There might only be like four or five of them, you know, two or three of them even. So you've just got a sense of where they are rather than they're visually on the map. No, they're visually on the map, but they're not like, yeah, they're not labeled with text, if you see what I mean. Yeah, but they have like a cross or a picture. Yeah, yeah, a little picture or a, you know, a schematic. If it's a tube stop, then, you know, a circle.
Familiar Cities and Spatial Orientation
00:10:59
Speaker
Oh, so the tube stopper lit like via circle with a line through it kind of. Yeah. we Yeah. Or just a circle. Yeah. Um, so like, I'm thinking, that I mean, over my house and I'm thinking about going downtown. I think, you know, I can kind of, and you know, what I immediately do is picture the shop I want to go to say, and then zoom out. Okay. These are the roads. These are the three or four roads that I would cross to get there.
00:11:26
Speaker
like the road visually see the road junction as a sort of schematic diagram. um And yeah, and then the road junction where I'm going to as a gray pencil map. So these kinds of um navigation, this is this specific to London? is it like Do you imagine this for um all cities or are you particularly good at London and it's harder to like transpose this to new places that you've never been to before?
00:11:57
Speaker
I think the level of detail would be much higher in London and London would definitely be north facing as well. Whereas I think if I, if it was a new place, I think I would still do it, but it wouldn't necessarily be north facing. It would be sort of oriented to however the direction it was in my head, if that makes sense, because I wouldn't necessarily know how it was on the map, but I have a spatial sense of it. oh So it just happens automatically, like wherever you are. I think so. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Um, there was a fascinating experiment someone did where they asked people to draw probably seen it, it was in London where they asked people, they stopped people on the street and asked them to draw a map of where they were, I think it was Hackney Road, and the different maps that people produced were so interesting. Yeah, the, yes, you know, the different level of detail on the map, how the maps were drawn, what people chose to feature, it was extraordinary, I really recommend looking that up. Oh, I'd love to find that, I might ask you if I can't find it, if you can. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. We'll put it in the show notes.
00:12:57
Speaker
Yeah, but I think everybody has that to some, well maybe they don't, maybe that's something me you'll find out. But if you're walking around the city, I think you everyone has that to some extent, a sort of little spatial map of where they are, where they're going. So it's it's just it's just that really. Yeah, I mean, I'm almost a fantastic, I'm very hyper-fantasic, but I do have a spatial awareness of the very important roads and how they lay out to each other. And they're only angled from my perspective, not from above, but like that road's over there, and that road's over there kind of thing.
00:13:26
Speaker
So like one of the sages you described sounded very familiar and it's really spatial, there's literally no colour, it's not even grey and white, it's just colourless. Right, but it's visual.
00:13:38
Speaker
Well, I didn't think it was, but A for Tezi and Mia, when I did i did to a coaching session with him about like getting better at imagination, he was like, yeah, this spatial stuff is a component of visual imagery, which makes sense because visual imagery is located at spatial locations. so vi Visual is basically colour and texture at a spatial location. So he was like, it's part of the same part of the brain as the visual part, even though you're not doing the colour and the texture.
00:14:02
Speaker
and Apparently, but I don't know how any I've not seen any good science on this. So I don't know how true. Yeah what the detail is You mentioned the dots where you are Yeah, I thought you said to me you before it was an arrow, but I'm not sure there's always a dots. What's it? what what does the dot look like and what colors so um on Yeah, I guess on the map it's a little gray dots and then the destination little gray dots
00:14:34
Speaker
Yeah. I'm just thinking actually, I think every, this yeah, the visual element is the gray pencil map. And then every kind of waypoint that was highlighted is on the map. And for each of those, the scenes that I can jump into and then then be in and then visualize. So the, you know, the road junction, I can then visualize the road junction and how that's laid out and what the texture of the brick is like on the building.
00:15:03
Speaker
and then the next way point I can again go down and you know see I'm seeing that in my mind you know the shop fronts and so on um so perhaps they are particularly strong visual memories or perhaps they're things that are spatially salient that one remembers because they're spatially salient I don't know but those are Yeah it's really interesting you do both those things because I've talked to people who only do the visualization of waypoints so they just go what if I go down this junction what will I see when I get there and then imagine being down the junction and then imagine being down the next one and the next one but they don't have a map and I've talked to other people who only have a map and don't imagine the street views but you're using both which is probably super powerful
00:15:44
Speaker
Yeah, no, I primarily rely on like landmarks and then just like go according to like directions there. But you seem to have like that plus like the bird's eye view map. ah Do you see that simultaneously or is one happening at like a specific time followed by the other? No, it's one followed by the other. But I guess, yeah, I guess it's, you see the overall map, it was sort of sense of the overall map.
00:16:13
Speaker
Perhaps you can hold in your mind five or six features of the overall map. Start dot end dot, five or six waypoints, three or four waypoints, and then seamlessly without any sort of jumps for each of those waypoints. So, oh yes, that's that junction. That's what that looks like. That's that junction, that's what that looks like. If that makes sense. But when you're seeing the junction, you don't see the map at the point. ah But you can know quickly like switch the other one.
00:16:44
Speaker
But yeah, perhaps it's, yeah, I don't see it, but I still have a sense of where I am within it, if that makes sense. I don't see it. to see what The number of features. So you said five or six features. It's like, that's the route find. You've already done the route finding and you know what the route you're taking is. But before that, if there's a really complicated road network with hundreds of roads, do you see all of them and like choose which one you're going to go down? How does that work? Oh, wow. I don't know.
00:17:11
Speaker
No, I think, yeah, I've really done the root finding, I think. And there's a sort of sense of these are the key points. And then there's sort of some complexity. There's sort of lots of roads here, but I have to worry about them. So on the map, there's some squiggles. Right. But you do all this in your head. Like you're not looking at Google maps. And while you decide which waypoints you're going to use for this journey. I mean, this is, I guess this is somewhere i like I already know how to get to. Yeah. Okay. Yeah.
00:17:34
Speaker
Yeah. But I'm not, I'm not somebody who can like, you know, visualize the whole Google maps and pick the best route. No. So you're not, mine you can't trace the route on the, on the complete detailed map with all the roads on it. It's more like you just get aware of which the way points are for this journey. Well, I think you're like, if I'm Paddington and say, I want to go to like, you know, some London bridge or something.
00:17:58
Speaker
Like, ah you know, it's not like I'm looking at Google Maps and I can kind of go, oh, here's five or six routes I could take. Let's pick the best one. It's like, oh yeah, I know padding is here and I will enrich down here. Like there were sort of three, four different routes I could take. I think I'll take this one. And then I kind of go, oh yeah, go across, go down, go left. Okay. Yeah. That's already miles better than what I could manage. I would be like, I have this one route and if I miss it, I'm going to have to like rely on Google Maps or something like that.
00:18:26
Speaker
Yeah, that's really fascinating. Do you, how do you use Google maps? if you i you Yeah, no, I do. Um, yeah, definitely. That's yeah. Interesting. So yeah. I wonder if people different, how they do that. I would want to put in destination, see the route, um, look at the sort of top down view and then pick the best route that seems best to me.
00:18:54
Speaker
And, yeah, and again, optimised with, you know, waypoints, I know. So, yeah, you know I know, OK, I know, Oxford Circus, I'll go that way. Oh, so you might pick a route that you know you'll be able to remember, kind of. Yeah, for familiarity. But I think probably many people do that. I mean, it depends if I'm in a rush, I'll just be the fastest one. But, you know, it's kind of nice to go places you are familiar with.
00:19:20
Speaker
Yeah. Cause you know, oh you know i'll I'll get to the interchange and I'll know where to go. That's easy. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I definitely pick conceptually simple routes and go, Oh, I'm going to pick that route. Cause I just stay on one road for longer and I don't have to. Yeah. Yeah. That's slightly different. That's cause I'm remembering conceptually like go down here and turn left, which is really ineffective. Um, but you're making me wonder about, yeah, about wayfinding and different ways people do it. I mean, we naturally.
00:19:50
Speaker
when we give direction to somebody, we naturally, I think, use, we sort of think of the major waypoints and we describe them visually to people generally, right? So that seems like an intuitive way of doing it, the decision points. so yeah it' made It seems intuitive, you'd remember the decision points and have a sort of visual concept of those. Yeah, and I don't know, I guess maybe the spatial element is slightly different. and let Maybe learn from using maps, I don't know. I was wondering like what sorts of Waypoints are typical waypoints for you. What exemplifies a waypoint? I'm trying to imagine.
00:20:29
Speaker
A decision point where you could go down several different routes, I guess. Or something, possibly something that's like visually salient, like you know okay a big statue there or something. But more likely a decision point. right Or a major route interchange. Sorry.
00:20:49
Speaker
I, cause when someone says like waypoint, I immediately, I immediately go to like, okay, that means landmark. And so I probably like base my decision on where to like turn left or right based off that big landmark. But obviously for you, it's not something as like salient as like a landmark. It's probably something more, as you said, like a decision point. What does that mean? Yeah, a kind of a rooting point, I guess. So yeah, where the roads cross or where the railway lines cross. Okay.
00:21:19
Speaker
So yeah, probably something that's salient on the map, actually. Yeah, the thing the map would show you. Yeah, so yeah, yeah like imagining here to this time, I go, yeah, I'm going to cross the road at the bottom. That looks like this on the map with the roads crossing. You can visually see what that looks like. and then i Then it's a blank to the end of the next road. you know There's a sort of indeterminate line length on the map. It doesn't really matter. And then visualize the bottom of the road again.
00:21:48
Speaker
And yeah, if you asked me what was between those two points, there's nothing I can't, you know, I can make an effort and see it, but there's nothing that comes up, um, automatically. Okay. Cool. Yeah. So it's like, yeah, the rain's filtering the effect. The rain's filtering for those are the most important bits. Um, and remembering most important bits, I guess. Is there a route that you can imagine, uh, perfectly from the start till the end and you know, everything that comes in sequence.
00:22:19
Speaker
I feel like there are, but I'm sure if I did it, I would find many things that I hadn't remembered. Yeah. Uh, no. So I'm going to, I'm going to say no, because, um, it would be very much edited highlights, I think. Um, um, yeah. And again, yeah. If I tried to draw it on a map, you know, I think I would quickly find that I'd forgotten many, many of the most important bits. Yeah. Um, I do find that like wherever I am, I.
00:22:49
Speaker
This is one question I'd like to know the answer to, actually, is how often do people know where North
Cultural Navigation Practices
00:22:55
Speaker
is? Because some people just always know where North is, and some people don't. And I think there must be something about how, yeah, about people's kind of proprioception, I don't know the word proprioception, but whatever, you know, experience of being in the world must be more or less spatial, depending on that.
00:23:15
Speaker
Do you always know? Um, no, but if I realized that I don't, I get nervous and try and work it out. Okay. So I think I do most of the time, but I wouldn't, yeah, I would, I wouldn't know in every situation, but if I did, then I would sort of freak me out a bit. Um, but some people always know, I think some people, you know, they're just always aware of it. Um, and I think that, yeah, some people must have the top denim up in the head all the time. Perhaps I don't know.
00:23:41
Speaker
um There's definitely some anthropological um ethnographic like records about some tribes who, instead of having indexical directions, so left or right, they have like north and south. And so for them, they have the extract added benefit of like the language forcing them to um think in that way and communicate as well in that way. Like, here's north side, here's south side, instead of like,
00:24:09
Speaker
here it's on your left or it's on your right. Yeah, that's super interesting. Yeah. Yeah. And so that kind of like reinforces the, what might be like a natural compass that some people have all the time and maybe it makes it easier for them to access that direction. Yes. And then I, yeah. And so, yeah. And then I wonder if the, yeah, in turn, I wonder how that affects the internal, um, perception of, yeah, where they are and where things are, whether that's then more, yeah, that's then.
00:24:40
Speaker
I don't need to describe it, more spatial, I don't know. yeah yeah Yeah, I'm definitely much more comfortable if I know where north is as well, and quite often that's the first thing I'll find out if I don't know anything else. okay um Because even if I know literally nothing else but I know which way north is, I can vaguely try to get somewhere. I vaguely walk in the right direction even without knowing any of the streets. fascinating moving And that goes horribly wrong, I remember it, yeah. I remember when I was first in Cambridge it going horribly wrong and there was this road that curved and I hadn't realised. And I just ended up out in the West Cambridge over the North Cambridge.
00:25:19
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. Definitely makes me feel safer. Sorry, go on, go on. I was going to say, like, I have no idea where north is. Most of the time, and I just like, I mean, I'll be able to infer it from the direction of the sun, but most of the time I don't know where north is and it doesn't really bother me because I don't know. I just probably use other ways of navigating. So it's fascinating just like to see how it must be correlated with having a spatial map because any kind of spatial map, whether it's above view or view angled where you are, you sort of need to know where north is for it to be useful. whereas andmark matt
00:25:53
Speaker
you're looking for the landmarks, so it's slightly it's more like you need to know at each junction which way to go. It's just slightly different, right? I think you can have spatial maps if you don't know where North is, but you can have very simple ones, I think. um yeah so Yeah, you can have a sense of I'm here and the thing's over there and the other thing's over there. Yeah. But you can it's very limited, I think, what you can do with that. So yeah, if if if you're new to a place, I think you can do that quite, but then you can't can't store that in any great detail. eat right yeah like you can have a tele degree I can have a temporary map when I just got off a train and I know that I need to be left with a train line or something. and I don't know which way north is. that kind of thing yeah yeah yeah exactly but i also I also find that if I'm walking around this turn I get lost then I'm but immediately very uncomfortable. I know I'm lost quite quickly and get very uncomfortable.
00:26:40
Speaker
oh You don't find it fun? No. and And some people, I think, don't ever get lost. And some people are very comfortable being lost. But I think that must also relate to the kind of the sense of because I immediately kind of go, oh, God, my map's gone where I am. And presumably some people never, ever lose themselves on the map. I don't know. Some people don't mind losing themselves on the map or don't have a map in the first place. What's it feel like being lost? Does it feel in your body somewhere or?
00:27:13
Speaker
Is it cognitive? Well, yeah, it feels like um it feels a bit like not being able to see anything. Because, yeah, like if you shut your eyes and you can't see anything, you don't know where anything else is. And so that's quite scary. um It feels a bit like that because suddenly I've lost the sense of the map and where you are. And then that's quite scary. It feels a little bit like that. um So, yeah, you don't quite know.
00:27:43
Speaker
where the boundaries of yourself are and where the boundaries of everything else is. And that feels a bit alarming, if that makes sense. Interesting. Do you find that offensive? No. Not really. like being lost. I mean, I have to, because I'm lost a lot of the time. Yeah, I'm basically indifferent.
00:28:03
Speaker
I'll either definitely need to practically get somewhere and then immediately try and get unlost, or I'll just enjoy being lost for a bit and be like, look at everything I can see you in this place I've never been to before. How do you get unlost if you're lost? Yeah, I was going to ask you that as well. I mean, if I don't care much because I don't have a deadline, then I just keep wandering around till I find somewhere that I'm not lost anymore.
00:28:28
Speaker
but Otherwise now these days I just look at a map, but that's yeah before maps, I would ask people directions. I would, I would interrupt people all the time. Yeah. And how would you know if you're unlust? You would see something in you knew.
00:28:46
Speaker
Yeah, I would either recognise a juncture where I am remember because I can't yeah see a place and know I'm in a place or know, even if I don't know where I am, know what route I'm going to take, I guess, by whatever means I'm using for route finding. But it's a bit weird the concept of being lost when you have a GPS on you all the time.
00:29:09
Speaker
Yeah. that' What do you do like when you get that fear? Do you just like immediately look at your phone and look at Google Maps or? um Yeah, these days I would. I guess, yeah, in the olden days I would yeah ask somebody or, you know, yeah attempt to sort of spatially orientate by going, oh, I know that chimney must be in the north. You know, I recognise that chimney, so it's over there. Or, you know. Just yeah kind of wander until I could then reorientate in relation to the map.
00:29:40
Speaker
But yeah, it's not a feeling I enjoy at all. And it does feel like some kind of sense has been switched off at that point. Interesting, yeah. And what do you do, Vin? I don't give a... I don't care. The fastest way for me to like get unlost is to retrace my steps, and that's if I want to get unlost, and I just generally don't have the anxiety that you have, Anna. So I mainly just...
00:30:04
Speaker
wonder about, hoping that I'll i'll find something, some cute little cafe that I can summon upon. So yeah, not quite as yeah but credit as a concern for me as it is for you. So I've got a non-mapping question on a completely different topic I want to ask, but before I do, is there anything else anyone wants to talk about to do with navigation before I switch? No, just just to say that, yeah, I always assumed that everyone else was exactly like me and this is not the case.
00:30:35
Speaker
um And it's kind of blowing my mind that this people are so different, that's all. yeah I don't think it's completely rare. I would like to do a survey and find the percentages. I think there are a lot of people who see a map and there are a lot of people who see round marks. I'm not sure how many people do both. Everybody must do both in extent, no, but perhaps, yeah.
00:30:56
Speaker
I'm inclined to think that the landmarks is an easier thing to do than the maps because simply because I do the landmark thing and have no map. But I could be wrong of course. Yeah, and I don't think it's easier. I think, yeah, I think everybody must be both to an extent, but perhaps it's just a, as you say, like different senses. So also there's, there's always people who are really good at that. Like, are you quite good, well-known for being good at navigating or not? Do people tend to think you don't get lost or you arrive at tiny places? No, especially, no. And like I have, yeah, there are, I've certainly met people who are far better than me at navigating.
00:31:33
Speaker
So they presumably have an even better visual imagery of the map, right? I don't know. I've never talked to them about it. Yeah. Maybe I'd love to. If you didn't interview the super navigator, I would love to hear it. I just say, um, I assume that they assume my assumption would be that they have a super detailed map. There's just more features on it.
00:31:52
Speaker
and a stronger sense of where they are within it. But perhaps that's completely wrong. I don't know. Yeah. which i like yeah And there have definitely always been people, some percentage of people who you know, who just, you know, get lost all the time and always arrive late at everything and don't know how to get anywhere and just go, I can't find my way. i And it was always just said, oh, I can't find my way, I just get lost, I get lost. And I've talked to at least one person like that who was like,
00:32:16
Speaker
got a really good imagination in every other way that has really good memories and but had never thought of remembering landmarks or maps i just hadn't done either of those things yeah just hadn't learned that skill and so it got lost all the time So it's not even just about image, it's not just, and and I've got no imagination apart from I've got a little bit, of like I have a little bit of spatial maps, even though I don't really have an imagination. So it's like, I think it's quite diverse than the parameters.
00:32:47
Speaker
But, and I don't think anyone's particularly rare. I don't think, yeah, there might be some really far out cases, but I'm sure, yeah, 30% of people like do what you do or something or 10% of people. It's not like 1%. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Teaching Maps in Rural China
00:33:02
Speaker
I wonder, I mean, to some extent, it must also be about learning to use maps. There's a great story in a book by um Peter Hessler, who was the, I think the New York Times is China correspondent about driving through rural China.
00:33:16
Speaker
and getting lost and using maps. And he eventually learned that he couldn't ask people directions using maps, because first he would have to explain to people what the map was um and what how maps worked, which would take ages. And then when he'd done that, people would get so excited about seeing the map that it would be impossible too to to get away within an hour or two, because people would be like so fascinated by the map and once they're not looking at it. and So to some extent,
00:33:45
Speaker
you know, even with the concept of map reading itself. is which Which decade was that in? I think the 1980s, maybe the 70s. But yeah, sort of, you know, rural, pre-industrialized China. Yeah, because by 2000, yeah, early 2000s, there were maps available of every bit of China everywhere. and yeah Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, no, that's good. So the completely different question, you're, you are also good at computer programming.
Programming and Spatial Visualization
00:34:14
Speaker
And yeah, have worked professionally as it. I've got a question. when you Can you remember when you're programming, does anything appear in your mind's eye ever ah while you're programming? And if so, what? Oh, wow. Yeah, I think there's usually a... This is very hard to describe. I'd like to hear your answer. This is very hard to get. There's usually some kind of spatial structure.
00:34:42
Speaker
So I haven't programmed for a while, but <unk>s usually you're usually sort of trying to hold three or four or five different things in your head, aren't you? And those, I think, are loosely arranged in some kind of spatial structure. But I think the things themselves are not necessarily visually detailed objects, which makes sense, right, because they're abstract things. But they are loose gray shapes that interface in a way that doesn't necessarily make sense in 3D either. Does that make sense? Not quite. No, i sorry. So you've got some concepts that aren't visual, and but they're anchored in space, in a visual space. Yeah, they're definitely, yeah. I mean, they are they are objects, they're just, um maybe they're sort of grey, smokey, vague objects.
00:35:41
Speaker
And I suppose what I mean is they have, they have spatial interrelations. So perhaps you've got a thing and it's locking into another thing and it's on top of another thing. And that is sort of spatially coherent and you can walk around it. But then the thing on top sits in relation to something else, like is connected to it. And that relationship is all spatially coherent. But if you put the two together, they would not actually fit in the same 3D space consistently. If that makes sense.
00:36:12
Speaker
Yeah. and yes So this you're describing, is that like a specific piece of software you're working on? You'll have a consistent like set of images for that piece of software, or is it to do with what your current task is? Oh, it's whatever the current task is, yeah. So it's not, you know, it's not, I guess it's like, you know, finish this function, make this bit better.
00:36:34
Speaker
um There's a hack here, optimize this bit. um And all of these tasks are like little shapes that fit together. And they're like loose gray, smokey objects. The shape is determined by whatever the task is in some sense. And you know it's a stack of things you've got to do. And you're like, going okay, look over here, look over here. That one can wait. But you couldn't I couldn't possibly draw it because it wouldn't make any sense.
00:37:08
Speaker
And is, is there a dependency, like something you have to do before something else has a particular spatial relationship? Yes. So the things that fit together or slot together. So what's that, like the thing below, you have to do the thing above or? and you I don't think it's quite that neat, but yeah, something like that. It's like, I know what the tasks are and I know where they are. and I know how they fit together. And then I suppose if, if the tasks themselves have any kind of mathematical or spatial or I guess even sort of I don't know, ordinal. Aspects that might be, that might well be reflected spatially in the, in the sort of swirling diagram of stuff. Um, if that makes sense. Yeah, but yeah, it's definitely, it's definitely spatial. So let's, you know, you call it, you call like that function is going to the function and you've got a utility class over here. Like those things are objects and they fit together and I can see how they fit together in my mind.
00:38:07
Speaker
and And I can go this bit's like, you know, more important. Now I'll go over here, look on that, but I'm still visually, I'm like, you know, especially I'm working over here, but those things are still over there behind me and I mustn't forget about them. and I can go back over here. And you hold those in your mind's eye, like what, so you can go off and go immersed into one bit of this and then come back out again and you'll remember the object's still there to deal with. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. You know, almost like, you know, Europe. Yeah. you a kitchen or something, you know. So I have to write a to-do list. I write a very local to-do list for that exact same purpose, but I would have to write it down to make sure I definitely remember it, whereas it sounds like you don't need to do that because you can sort of see it. No, I do i do that too, um and it helps solidify it. But yeah, it's not that thing is still there. And that's why being interrupted is such pain, right because that whole spatial structure then falls apart.
00:39:03
Speaker
Oh, that's really interesting. Ah. Oh, so the the the the idea of being in the zone, um, you kind of, your spatial structure collapses if you leave the zone of, uh, yeah, broing affects it like really hypereffectually. And I, again, I assume that's the same for everybody. I mean, I have seen. Nope. No. Okay. me But then I think it's true for most people that if they're interrupted, it's, you know, it's a problem. So then.
00:39:32
Speaker
There must be something else that's going on that's got that local stack. How is that local stack stored? um If not, how is it stored? Yeah, because I don't see a visual version of the local stack, but I'm sure I still have it. I have some of the lower level stuff going on still, it must be, right? because i'm ah Yeah, okay. And that sounded like lots of that. Does that work for other projects as well? so I don't know, like you're moving house at the moment. steve Do you have like in your head loads of visualizations of that project? Because that's a complicated project, you know, similarly to a software project. Yeah, that's many kind of unrelated tasks. So perhaps they're not quite as spatially related to each other. Okay. I mean, perhaps, you know, like, if you're getting quotes for insurance, there's a sense of as a space and it's the insurance space, and then you've got this quote, and this quote, and this quote, and this quote. And this one's, you know, not good. So it's like,
00:40:28
Speaker
gray or whatever. yeah so Perhaps within each individual task there are spatial elements to it and if you're thinking about you know you've got four quotes yes there's a kind of sense of those four and how they might rank perhaps or how you feel about each one and you can sort of so yeah perhaps any local task that involves having things in your head does that make sense?
00:40:50
Speaker
Okay. Visual spatial. Does that make sense? It does. Yeah. Yeah. I think it varies hugely between people, what they do with this. So I haven't asked enough people. Right. Yeah. I did once read a description of this. This is what got me into the whole topic was a description of the process of thinking by somebody who described it as having these smoky gray shapes that you could sort of move around. Oh. And I was like, yeah, yeah, that's what I do. Yeah.
00:41:19
Speaker
Oh, okay. Do you know where that was? Oh, it was years ago. I'll try and dig it out. It was, yeah, it was a philosophy of some kind. I'll try and dig it out. That'd be great. Yeah. um ha okay yeah ah that's a yeah yeah I definitely feel like the right conversations and research into this can lead to like very practical tips and people learning to use it because someone might just have not thought of doing that. so i mean i haven't I would love to ask lots of programmers the same question. I got at least one
00:41:54
Speaker
yeah someone I worked with she was like oh yeah she was very visual and was a front-end developer and she was like yeah I see the um code examples like there's text floating visually in her mind's eye uh so if she's trying to remember the syntax of an if statement she like sees an example if statement and then copies it out whereas I have to just literally if I can't just remember it by muscle memory I have to kind of google it or reason what it is or something I don't see it Interesting. Floating is text. and Yeah, so I think there's a lot, yeah, there's a lot going on there. That, I mean, that sounds, yeah, that's very mysterious. That's very mysterious, because in a way the visual visual elements are very easy to describe, whereas what's going on for you is less easy to describe, but it's very much an experience that you have.
00:42:50
Speaker
um Oh, right, yes, so I'm doing lots of unsymbolised conceptual thinking, yes. ah Yeah, whole bits categorisation and that's much, you can't, write I can't really say anything more about it. Right, okay. and But it's not, it's an experience that you, you are having and you know when you're having it and it's the same each time. But it's, yeah. And I think it's similar to yours in a sense, because I don't you see it when it's got a spatial, eye but the stuff you're saying about how things interlock,
00:43:18
Speaker
like when I'm saying the concepts, theres the concepts all interlock in this complicated way that I just don't think is spatial at all and I wouldn't want to represent spatially and it's too complicated to be spatial but I'm aware of that complexity yeah and how the things interrelay and what their dependencies are. yeah the other one The other answer I've got is people see diagrams so like literally the diagrams that you put in design documents and things so like a flow a diagram that shows the subsystems or they'll see a diagram of the requests and responses between systems right and might actually literally bring that up while coding in their head that sounds convenient
00:43:57
Speaker
and Which makes sense. yeah and so And this leads to lots of this stuff practically in a team when some person, when you're writing a document, some people prefer verbal documents. I prefer a verbal document because it has all like any level of richness of the concepts get contained verbally in it. And then my brain makes the conceptual map. Whereas other people want to see a diagram because then they can just quickly recall the diagram and it's much more practical. So they're getting lots of information very rapidly from the visual diagram.
00:44:26
Speaker
Whereas I don't really find the visual diagram very useful at all. I have to sort of study it and convert it each part of the diagram to a concept. It's really hard work. So yeah, so there's the difference in how we're doing practical tasks. This is not just about programming, I don't think. I think it's about every practical task which people work together on. And the difference in how we're doing imagery or sound or conceptual thinking in our minds while we're doing it alters what we expect in our communications with other people we're working with.
00:44:55
Speaker
And that can often create friction or effective effects of or ineffective team working, I suspect. Yeah, I think that's really true. And I think, yes, it's partly why this topic fascinates me is I think it affects how you relate to the world and also how you expect to relate to other people. um And um yeah, if you know more about how other people are conceptualizing things,
00:45:23
Speaker
it can massively improve. Yeah, both working relationships and other relationships too. So, yeah, I mean, sometimes I'm with somebody and I have a sense that we we are both looking out together at a map of the world in some way, if that makes sense.
00:45:39
Speaker
And there's a sort of shared perspective of, okay, we're here looking at the world, the world is this big thing in front of us, and we're sort of looking at bits of it together. um And I've never asked anyone, because it maybe it'd be a weird question to ask people, but I've never asked anyone, it's like, what's going on for you? And um yeah, and then sometimes I think, oh no, this the person was doing something completely different, but I don't quite know what they are doing.
00:46:03
Speaker
and So yeah, I think if, yeah, it's part of the reason it's fascinating to me is just, yeah, I think if you if you can articulate that and talk about it together, then it makes communication much easier sometimes, not just in teams, but in other relationships too. Cool. Right. What else should we talk
Memory of Names vs. Faces
00:46:22
Speaker
about? Just wrap wrap up in the last few minutes. Should we ask about faces really quickly before we go? Yeah, go for it. Anna, do you remember people's faces or their names more?
00:46:36
Speaker
Uh, definitely names, definitely names. Oh. Yeah. I was not expecting that.
00:46:44
Speaker
I mean, this is like a complete, this is a completely different thing between people, right? I can't remember people's faces, but I'm less good at it than most people. Um, and, uh, names are definitely easier.
00:47:02
Speaker
And it's quite embarrassing. That's so interesting because you have the super visualizing power when it comes to like maps and what have you. And I don't. And when it comes to like remembering faces and names, typically people imagine faces, remember their faces better than they remember names. And over the years, I've sort of like deteriorated in my ability to like remember faces.
00:47:31
Speaker
But my name like my name recall has but greatly been enhanced. And it's probably because like i just say I'm more like word-based these days. So I would imagine, OK, someone who's like more visual-based in their cognition, you would be like instantly, yeah, face recognition comes easy, but names, not quite as much. So for you to like say otherwise, it's like, what's going on? like it's not yeah In my mind, it's like, hey, but she's like a visual learner, is she not?
00:48:02
Speaker
Interesting. I think a lot of my visual recognition is actually spatial. I think visual details are not so hot actually. right right yeah yeah My father is a member of the 1946 NHS birth cohort. So when he was born, he was part of the NHS's first babies, and he was in a cohort study with all the other babies sp born that week. um And they had their 70th anniversary.
00:48:29
Speaker
party. So all the babies got invited and they were all 70 years old and I went with him. So it was like a thousand, 1500 people who are all exactly the same age and who are basically all white. And as I was walking in, I was like, it is impossible to tell these people apart. And I'm actually struggling to recognise my own father because everybody here looks so similar. They're so um demographically similar at the same age.
00:48:57
Speaker
And it made me realize how much we rely I rely on just external cues of age, you know? Yeah. It was very difficult to help people apart. So when you remember something, can you, if you remember a scene, like even like the school bus scene, can you remember like faces when you remember a scene or are the faces quite low quality or blurry? I wouldn't probably put faces in spontaneously. I guess if I was with somebody I would, but it wouldn't be particularly high quality.
00:49:25
Speaker
but Yeah, it'd be blurry, I would say. And when you remember a name, can you describe cognitively how you remember it? Yeah, I see the text. That's easy. You see the text? Yeah, so if I like to think Francis, I see Francis, the word, in front of me. it Can you say what colour or font it's in? Or is it... It's in a Times New Roman. Actually. No. It's still the least... the reef, yeah. I think it's Times New Roman. Oh.
00:49:57
Speaker
And what colour is it? It's black. It's fairly just it's probably just very dark grey actually. Okay. I'm not a massive fondant, I should say. Yeah, yeah but it yeah yeah it sounds like there's some, I'm asking those questions to see exactly how much visual processing, because you can, right people can say they see a word, but sometimes they're just, this yeah it's very subtle. No, I can see the serifs on the F, Francis, yeah.
00:50:24
Speaker
um So when someone says their name, you make sure they spell it so that you can do this. Right. No, I guess I like just translate it into what I think, how I think it's spelled. Oh, interesting. I don't consciously do it. So I actually do. I don't see names as writing, but I remember names verbally. And I definitely asked for the spelling because I'm not remembering them as audio. So I think some people remember names as audio. So they were phonetically remember it rather than
00:50:57
Speaker
remember the the characters. yeah right yeah Is that you then? That's me, that's me. I remember phonetically because sometimes the spelling kind of confuses me because of like phonetic differences. ah I might sometimes visualize a word but not according to how they would like spell it and it's completely like my own like IPA or like my own phonetic phoneticization of their name but I don't rely on like a visual spelling of their name um but I try to like just remember it audially. And by audibly does it come to your mind like do you say it in your head as the way it comes to your mind? Yeah. In your own voice or you hear them saying it when you first met them? or I think either one but I have a preference for saying it in my voice. Yeah.
00:51:45
Speaker
If I were to like visualize it as like type, ah mine would be sancery, something block and I've been very like a bright white font. Yeah. White font. Interesting. Against a dark black background of nothing. Or like or just whatever I'm looking at. Oh, just floating. Yeah, floating that. That sounds quite chic. Yeah.
00:52:11
Speaker
Cool. Well, this has been interesting. Thank you very much, Anna. We've got a bunch of things to link to you in the show notes. So the video of people drawing a map in Hackney, third piece of Hessler book about being able to explain maps. Ideally, the philosopher who talks about smokey gray shapes, which sounds really good. um So we'll try and get those.
00:52:32
Speaker
This is definitely like one of the more like surprising um interviews I've done because I was not expecting you to have so many like different ways of interacting with the world. It's great.
Conclusion and Listener Engagement
00:52:43
Speaker
Thank you very much. Very nice to meet you, Vin.
00:53:21
Speaker
If you enjoyed Imagine an Apple, please share it with your friends and vote on it on your podcast app. And do you get in touch if you've got any feedback or ideas or topics you'd like us to cover.