Spatial Awareness

Maybe I should start this with [RANT] as this is one of my pet hates (along with people who don’t know how to use indicators and/or roundabouts in the UK)!!!!

Time and time again you come across people who appear to have NO spatial awareness. Is it because they are down-right ignorant, bad mannered or simply oblivious to the world around them and the affect they have:

  • On the tube in London today it’s a well-known understanding and is even announced each time a train arrives to let people off the train before boarding … you would think that this would also be common sense i.e. you don’t start filling a glass that’s full to the brim unless you drink some first so why do people think they should either block the door or push their way on before they have space. It wasn’t even as if it was rush hour with minimal space available … once they were on there were seats to spare, but they simply barged through.
  • The amount of times I’m in a supermarket only to be confronted by a trolley which almost looks like it’s been abandoned in the middle of an aisle blocking everyone from passing yet you know the owner is a few feet away again oblivious of the problem they’re causing.
  • When you’re driving, and someone simply drifts from lane to lane or floats randomly around the road oblivious of other road users your first instincts are … Are they drunk, drugged or using a mobile but some people seem unaware of the chaos they cause around them (it’s interesting though how quickly you develop a sixth sense on what others are going to do before they zone out.
  • Walking along the road you are confronted by 2/3/4 people who insist in walking side-by-side despite the fact you cannot pass each other without someone giving way.  If I’m with family, we drop into single file to ease the passing, but NO .. they continue on oblivious of the fact that a square peg doesn’t fit into a round hole.

Part of me thinks its plain ignorance and in-courtesy, however, is there a more fundamental reason for this … If you look at the human brain and the ‘Hemispheres’ (The 2 halves you would see if looking down through the top of your head onto the cortex of your brain) there may an answer:

  • The left part of the brain is the logical brain responsible for words, logic, numbers, analysis, lists, linearity and sequence. It controls the right side of your body.
  • The right part of the brain is the creative brain and is responsible for rhythm, spatial awareness, colour, imagination, daydreaming, holistic awareness and dimension. It controls the left side of your body.

… is it that the people who have NO or little spatial awareness are ‘Left Brain Dominant’ or even that their Spatial Awareness portion of the brain is ‘Less Developed’??

[/RANT]

© Trevor Flanagan