You are Here: Why We Can Find Our Way to the Moon But Get Lost in the Mall

Psychologist Colin Ellard explains how, over centuries of innovation, we have lost our instinctive ability to find our way and suggests that architects and city planners need to consider human behavior when designing human environments, and we all need to recognize that we are part of, not isolated from, the space around us.

About the Author :
Colin Ellard is an experimental psychologist at the University of Waterloo, the director of its Research Laboratory for Immersive Virtual Environments, and an international expert in the psychology of navigation. The results of his research have been published in scientific journals for more than twenty years. Ellard lives in, and regularly gets lost in, Kitchener, Ontario.

Review :
"Delightfully lucid....[Ellard writes with] charm and confidence....Ellard has a knack for distilling obscure scientific theories into practical wisdom."--Jonah Lehrer, "The Times Book Review" "[O]ne of the finest science writers I've ever read....mind-expanding book....thoroughly digestible....You know you are in the hands of a good teacher when you look up from a book and your own ideas spill out like winnings from a slot machine. It's fun, pure fun."--"The Los Angeles Times ""[A] smart, deeply satisfying exploration of how creatures from insects to humans handle the complexities of physical space.....his message is well-reasoned and important." -- "The Cleveland Plain Dealer" "This delightful, dense and illuminating book by Ellard, an experimental psychologist, explores how we navigate space and hone our sense of direction, despite being paradoxically spatially primitive and overly evolved. All animals, monocellular and multicellular alike, find their way to their basic needs-heat, light and nourishment-but while ants, for example, don't get lost and amoebas are guided by an "internal toolkit," most human beings face unique difficulties. Unlike the Inuit, who have a superb sense of direction, most people find that the more sophisticated their environments, the weaker their grasp of space and direction. Ellard offers insights into how humans navigate their own homes and why they select certain spots for refuge-preferences influenced by gender, culture and history. He emphasizes the importance of orienting children to natural space as well as "virtual spaces," and his chapter on cities serves as an excellent primer on urban planning and psychogeography, the study of the precise laws and specific effects of the geographic environment on the emotions." "(July)"-- Publishers Weekly "Colin Ellard's new book, "You Are Here," is a powerful inquiry into how we humans orient ourselves in space and identify places both familiar and new. As an