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Learning about the navigational feats of animals

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Re: Learning about the navigational feats of animals

#51

Post by filoeleven »

detritus wrote: post #27
ourmandave wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We lost our cat and months later got a call from the shelter. The neighbor down and around the corner had saved him from his dog and brought him in. They IDed him from the chip. Later at the vet, they told us cats can get lost being only a few houses away. I imagine it's a whole different perspective seeing things from one foot off the ground.

Yeah, I'm sure I read a year or two back that Cats have an odd sense of direction in which they don't 'join up' different paths - say, that from out of the front of a building, to that out of the back. Rings true with a cat we have in our building here which simply cannot register that the back door has access for it, so waits out front no matter how inclement the weather. Mind you, it IS a cat - so likely purposeful…

This condition can be present in humans too.

> Not to be confused with healthy individuals who have a poor sense of direction, individuals affected by DTD get lost in very familiar surroundings, such as their house or neighborhood, daily.

Someone who has it explained to me that seeing the same room from a different direction doesn’t even register as the same place.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Topographical_disorientation

Re: Learning about the navigational feats of animals

#52

Post by meowface »

enriquto wrote: post #39
Fargren wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are reading the title as "Why animals don't ever get lost". That's one way to read the title. It can also be interpreted as "Why animals don't often get lost", or in other words, "What mechanisms do animals use to avoid getting lost." Which is an interesting question.

Their interpretation of the title seems the normal one, yours is very convoluted, like aspiring to some sort of plausible deniability. If the title was "Why people from country X are thiefs.", that would be very insulting to people from X. If the article turned out to be about why some people from X become thiefs, the title would be very misleading.

A closer analogy would be "Why people from country X steal" ("get lost" and "steal" are action statements), which, while initially a bit suspicious upon first look, isn't necessarily insulting.

"Why people from country X steal - [Opening sentence] Due to unprecedented levels of corruption and cruelty by their new tyrannical government, a third of the population is starving from man-made famines, leaving many country Xians no choice but to steal food from markets and risk one form of death to avoid another."

Still not great, since it's a negative statement, but not necessarily xenophobic. An even closer analogy would be something positive like "Why people from country X ski so well". I don't imagine there'd be many complaints, probably.

In my opinion, the headline's perfectly fine and clear.

Re: Learning about the navigational feats of animals

#53

Post by ShawnCleverdon »

detritus wrote: post #27
ourmandave wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We lost our cat and months later got a call from the shelter. The neighbor down and around the corner had saved him from his dog and brought him in. They IDed him from the chip. Later at the vet, they told us cats can get lost being only a few houses away. I imagine it's a whole different perspective seeing things from one foot off the ground.

Yeah, I'm sure I read a year or two back that Cats have an odd sense of direction in which they don't 'join up' different paths - say, that from out of the front of a building, to that out of the back. Rings true with a cat we have in our building here which simply cannot register that the back door has access for it, so waits out front no matter how inclement the weather. Mind you, it IS a cat - so likely purposeful…

Please stop perpetuating the myth that cats are "arseholes".

Cats, much like dogs, and every other non-human on the planet, have different drives and understandings than a human. Just because we aren't capable of fully understanding those drives isn't a reason to denigrate them.

The next time your cat does something that is outside of your understanding, please have a little compassion.

Re: Learning about the navigational feats of animals

#54

Post by euroderf »

insickness wrote: post #15

When I lived in an apartment in New York City, I had an indoor cat. One day I was talking to my neighbor with the door open and the cat peeked her head out, sniffing around. She was a stereotypical fraidy cat, always scared of everything, so when she walked out the door, I knew she wouldn't go far, especially when she walked up the stairs outside my apartment. I few minutes later I hear her meowing like crazy. I went…

We live three flights up but the cat will only go two flights up. I think it's because the cat only skips one floor, and he can't count, not even to two: he can only register one floor-skip.

Re: Learning about the navigational feats of animals

#55

Post by tubularhells »

KMag wrote: post #32
detritus wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I'm sure I read a year or two back that Cats have an odd sense of direction in which they don't 'join up' different paths - say, that from out of the front of a building, to that out of the back. Rings true with a cat we have in our building here which simply cannot register that the back door has access for it, so waits out front no matter how inclement the weather. Mind you, it IS a cat - so likely purposeful…

To be fair, I know lots of people who will walk 2 sides of a triangle because they know how to get from A to B and A to C, but just don't have a sense that B and C are rather close. I think they feel there's probably a shortcut between B and C, but they just don't have the sense of direction to just walk in the general direction from B toward C until things start looking familiar. I also can't count the number of tim…

I know someone who freezes on trips in other countries when she enters an underground station and the map stops responding. She just doesn't understand why the magic stopped working. She is so dependant on Google maps that she doesn't trust herself anymore. I tried to explain GPS and satellites, but she is dense.

Re: Learning about the navigational feats of animals

#56

Post by toast0 »

detritus wrote: post #27
ourmandave wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We lost our cat and months later got a call from the shelter. The neighbor down and around the corner had saved him from his dog and brought him in. They IDed him from the chip. Later at the vet, they told us cats can get lost being only a few houses away. I imagine it's a whole different perspective seeing things from one foot off the ground.

Yeah, I'm sure I read a year or two back that Cats have an odd sense of direction in which they don't 'join up' different paths - say, that from out of the front of a building, to that out of the back. Rings true with a cat we have in our building here which simply cannot register that the back door has access for it, so waits out front no matter how inclement the weather. Mind you, it IS a cat - so likely purposeful…

That sort of explains why my barn cat likes to spend a day going in one door of my house and out another. We do have a lot of exterior doors, so it's kind of like the Scooby Do hallway scene, but with an orange cat asking to come in and out.

Re: Learning about the navigational feats of animals

#58

Post by KMag »

Spooky23 wrote: post #35
KMag wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair, I know lots of people who will walk 2 sides of a triangle because they know how to get from A to B and A to C, but just don't have a sense that B and C are rather close. I think they feel there's probably a shortcut between B and C, but they just don't have the sense of direction to just walk in the general direction from B toward C until things start looking familiar. I also can't count the number of tim…

I’ve done that in myself in Manhattan. I always travel there by train and would take a circuitous route by train, only to realize when driving last year that I was like a 10 minute walk away!

When I first got to MIT, some students told me how to get to CambridgeSide Galleria mall: either walk to the Keandall/MIT T (subway) station and wait 20 minutes for the free shuttle bus to the mall, or take the red line, switch to the green line in central Boston, and head out to Lechmere station. The mall is a few minutes' walk from Lechmere station.

I took the free shuttle bus once, and realized the mall is 5 to 10 minutes by foot from the MIT/Kendall T station. I don't know how you make several runs by shuttle bus to get a few things for your dorm/fraternity room and don't realize it's silly to wait for the bus. If the weather is bad, or you're coming back with a lot of things, that's one thing, but it's generally silly to wait for that shuttle bus. I knew more than one MIT student who thought it was a long way to the Galleria because of the long wait for the shuttle bus or the long T ride into Boston and back out. Of course, this was before smart phones, and I'm not even sure Yahoo maps were popular my freshman year, so these students probably never looked up the location of the Galleria a map.

Re: Learning about the navigational feats of animals

#59

Post by PeterisP »

ShawnCleverdon wrote: post #53
detritus wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I'm sure I read a year or two back that Cats have an odd sense of direction in which they don't 'join up' different paths - say, that from out of the front of a building, to that out of the back. Rings true with a cat we have in our building here which simply cannot register that the back door has access for it, so waits out front no matter how inclement the weather. Mind you, it IS a cat - so likely purposeful…

Please stop perpetuating the myth that cats are "arseholes". Cats, much like dogs, and every other non-human on the planet, have different drives and understandings than a human. Just because we aren't capable of fully understanding those drives isn't a reason to denigrate them. The next time your cat does something that is outside of your understanding, please have a little compassion.

It's not about understanding, it's about alignment of drives/intentions.

Humans who are arseholes have drives and understandings that are vey human and reasonably understandable, but they're arseholes nonetheless simply because these drives are in a bit of a conflict with what others around them would like to and they don't care much about the desires of others - just like most cats.

Re: Learning about the navigational feats of animals

#60

Post by rlander »

detritus wrote: post #27
ourmandave wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We lost our cat and months later got a call from the shelter. The neighbor down and around the corner had saved him from his dog and brought him in. They IDed him from the chip. Later at the vet, they told us cats can get lost being only a few houses away. I imagine it's a whole different perspective seeing things from one foot off the ground.

Yeah, I'm sure I read a year or two back that Cats have an odd sense of direction in which they don't 'join up' different paths - say, that from out of the front of a building, to that out of the back. Rings true with a cat we have in our building here which simply cannot register that the back door has access for it, so waits out front no matter how inclement the weather. Mind you, it IS a cat - so likely purposeful…

That’s weird. We moved to a new house and I was surprised one morning to see the cat scratching the upper balcony door, waiting to be let in, even though he’d never used that particular door until that day. He seems to always wait by the door that’s closest to the nearest awaken human, regardless if he’s ever used that entrance.
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