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In many horror movies, there’s a scene when the captives try to escape. After hours of attempted fleeing, the characters realize they’d been walking in circles, and they’re as close to the murderer as they were when they started.
Turns out there’s something to this. Researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics in Germany discovered that when people are lost in the woods or the dark, they do, in fact, walk in circles.
Scientists gave nine people GPS devices and instructed them to either walk through the woods or the desert in a straight line. Two of the three people who walked in the desert during the day walked in a straight line. The third began walking on a straight path in the evening and when the clouds covered the moon, he began walking in circles. Hikers in the forests struggled to keep a straight path. But if it were cloudy or dark, they circled around. Sometimes they repeated the same circle every 10 minutes.
Participants refused to admit they followed the same path over and over, though. “They didn’t really believe when we showed them afterwards,” Jan Souman, lead researcher, told ABC News. “I think that’s certainly a point to take away, people may feel very confident about the direction where they’re going but it’s not certain.”
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I need GPS to get out of my own driveway, so I totally believe this! I am geographically challenged.
posted by Hyacinth on 9-9-2009 at 11:32 am
Walked in a circle in Amsterdam one time with my niece. I was supposed to be the Great Expert at Travel…but when she said, “Isn’t that the same clock tower we walked by before?” I blushed at my ignorance. Still. Had a good time, and we had a good laugh about the proverbial “walking in a circle.”
posted by Rachel on 9-9-2009 at 12:23 pm
A question… I wonder if this has anything to do with the coriolis effect. Do the people always turn the circle in the same direction? If not do they walk in circles in relation to being right or left-handed?
posted by Gordon Daily on 9-9-2009 at 1:42 pm
@Gordon: According to the linked abstract, it sounds like the answer to your question is “no.”
“…[P]articipants walked in often surprisingly small circles (diameter < 20 m), though rarely in a systematic direction. These results rule out a general explanation in terms of biomechanical asymmetries or other general biases. Instead, they suggest that veering from a straight course is the result of accumulating noise in the sensorimotor system, which, without an external directional reference to recalibrate the subjective straight ahead, may cause people to walk in circles."
posted by Kelsey on 9-9-2009 at 2:14 pm
I wonder what happened when they used people whose legs were the same length :)
posted by Wayne on 9-9-2009 at 3:12 pm
Sounds like these people were NASCAR drivers, always turning in the same direction!
posted by Kate on 9-9-2009 at 3:15 pm
This reminds me of the movie, Flight of the Phoenix. The lead character even goes into depth as to why it is a bad idea to walk the desert during the day, and why you would walk in circles. He stated that everyone has a dominant foot, and it makes more dominant steps, but it’s minute so we don’t realize it. I can’t confirm the scientific accuracy, but I do find it interesting and probable.
reCaptcha: the Paterno. It’s good to know that reCaptcha knows who is worthy.
posted by Steven on 9-9-2009 at 10:39 pm
In the woods, anyway, I heard a good way to keep from walking in circles is to cut a long pole (at least 10-12 feet long), tuck it under one arm, and drag it behind you. Supposedly the rigidity of the pole helps keep you going in a straight line.
The other thing would be to have a point of reference. In a desert, you could always look back at your footsteps behind you and see if you are veering to one side or the other. In woods, maybe if one could try to keep lining up three or more items in a line? As you reached the first one, line up the second, third and a new landmark/reference point, and repeat the process.
Walking in the dark is entirely different. Sit tight and stay put, unless you can find Polaris and consistently see it as you walk. The rotation of the earth will cause other celestial bodies like the moon to alter their position relative to you through the night.
-”BB”-
posted by Bicycle Bill on 9-9-2009 at 11:16 pm