Getting lost (topographical agnosia)

[skyrabbit]

I have lived in the same small town for about 12 years, but I can still get lost in it.  I have my "tramline" routes which I know well, but if I depart from them I can easily run into trouble.

A few weeks' back I decided to go to a particular shop on my way home from the bus station.  I had never attempted this manoeuvre before, and found it

Comments

[flamingnerd]

Errors in ability to navigate are part of developmental prosopagnosia -it's not where you can't read faces, it's where you can't recognize them very well. It's an autosomal dominant trait. prevalance = 1 in 50 people. No connection to aspergers, adhd, or anything else (it seems, so far).

Anyhoo, I've got it, and I DO NOT do the navigation in my relationship. Google will tell you more. If that's not what you've got, well pardon me. Thought I'd throw it out anyway.

[kisekileia]

They've found the gene?! Wow, I need to look this up--at least the poor navigation part definitely runs in my family. My dad (AS traits), my sister (NT), and I (mild AS) all can't navigate to save our lives. My dad and I have issues with face recognition, too. (I'm not sure if my sister does.) I can give directions, but generally only if I've taken the route many times.

[kisekileia]

Hmm...I scored 75% on the unfamiliar faces recognition test in the first link, and it says that 80% is average and less than 65% likely indicates a problem. I felt like I was guessing for most of them, though.

I'm not quite as bad at navigation as the OP, though. I would be able to stop somewhere on the way home and not get lost if it was right on the route and I'd been living in that location for at least a couple of months. It might take me a minute to get my bearings after stepping out of the store, though, and I can easily run into trouble if I stray off of familiar routes/streets.

[failstoexist]

you know, i've taken the face tests before...and I think that the problem is that they are still photos. I can very easily memorize a still photo-in fact, the only people I see as they really are in dreams and such are people I've seen photos of. even if I don't see them as they look in the photo.

While I easily recognize someone that I have seen before (in person) I can't describe ANYONE physically in a way that identifies them for other people. My memory of people's hair length/color, eyes, height, etc. is not always accurate-sometimes I feel like I remember them in the way their personality suggests (whatever that means to me) and not necessarily the way they physically appear.

[bggallag]

I"m pretty much like that as well. I generally drive myself around my city. But the other day a co-worker was doing the route, and she went different ways I had never thought of, however, I did know where she was going, just never thought to go in that particular way! I also cannot explain directions. I offer to take them there if it is close enough lol.

[stormdog]

I am equally bad at this. I know that I have to follow printed directions, step by step, without deviating, or I will get lost, even going somewhere I've been many times. My sweetie, who's lived with me in the town I grew up for less then three years, can get around much more easily than I can.

I'd like to see more about where flamingnerg got her information about the link between topographical agnosia and developmental prosopagnosia. I suspect she's right as I'm very significantly prosopagnosic myself.

[stormdog]

Oops. That should, of course, be flamingnerd".

[stormdog]

Oh heck with it. You know who I mean! *laughs*

[rampion_rampage]

i lived in the same town from the age of one until i was eighteen; my parents didn't move for another few years.
i still can't tell you how to make the five/ten minute drive from the house i grew up in to the high school i attended for four years.

conversely, when i lived in center city philly - - - was a nightmare at first until i learned how the number system worked.

[rampion_rampage]

btw, my sister (who also has AS), is exactly the same