Researchers at UCL have discovered what happens in our brains when we start connecting the dots
When you first move to London it’s very common to quickly gain very detailed, even intimate knowledge of two or three locales, but not know how they are connected geographically.
It’s not until there’s a Tube strike and you have to cycle or take the bus, or for some other reason find yourself driving or walking with central London, that you suddenly realise that places you thought were separated by several sets of escalators and two Tube lines are only 15 minutes walk apart. It was only last week that one of us realised that Goodge Street is a short walk from Euston Station… and for years the other thought that Stratford, apparently due east on the Jubilee Line, was somewhere near Colchester…
A study published last week by Francis Carpenter and his colleagues at UCL shows how this kind of spatial understanding is represented in our brains.
The brains behind the ‘Aha!’ moment | Science | The Guardian
