The spatial sense enables humans to orient themselves spatially. This orientation ability is an interaction of different sensory organs and can be trained to a certain extent. Poor spatial orientation does not necessarily have to be associated with disease value.
What is spatial orientation?
The spatial sense enables humans to orient themselves spatially. This orientation ability is an interaction of different sensory organs and can be trained to a certain extent. Man’s various sensory perceptions connect him to his environment and ultimately to the world. As instances of perception, humans are given the visual, the auditory, the haptic-tactile, the depth-sensitive, the gustatory and the olfactory perception. Like the sense of equilibrium, the sense of space is basically not designated as a separate perceptual instance. Nevertheless, it is the spatial sense that enables humans to orient themselves in space and thus, from an evolutionary-biological point of view, contributes a great deal to the survivability of the human species. In its basic features, the spatial orientation ability is innate to humans. However, unlike the visual sense or the auditory sense, for example, the spatial sense is only fully developed through active movement in space. Different sensory perceptions come together in the spatial sense. In addition to vision and hearing, the sense of balance and the sense of muscle (depth sensitivity) play an overriding role in orientation in space. The quality of the sense of orientation also depends on memory and attention. In many animal species, many other sensory perceptions play into the sense of space, such as the sense of flow in fish or the sense of magnetism in birds.
Function and task
Spatial orientation, or the sense of space, is innate to some degree in its individual sensory qualities. Humans are among the eye-controlled creatures. The visual sense is given to him from birth and also helps him to orient himself in space, for example, by letting him recognize characteristic landmarks. In order to recognize these landmarks, he is at the same time dependent on a more or less good memory for orientation. In addition, he needs a certain amount of attention to register landmarks at all. In order to know about the position of his own body in space, man has a sense of muscle and a sense of balance. The sense of balance informs him when he is off balance or where up and down are. The muscle sense gives permanent feedback about the position of one’s joints. All these abilities and sensory perceptions are crucial for orientation in space. Although the individual abilities are innate, memory and attention training, for example, can significantly improve spatial sense. In addition, the interaction of the individual abilities and sensory perceptions is essential for orientation. This interaction is learned and develops only with active movement in space. Thus, small-scale orientation matures through movement in the first years of life. Large-scale orientation continues to develop until maturity and corresponds roughly to geographic orientation. The basis of orientation is the close interaction of visual impressions, equilibrium impressions and perceptions of the muscular sense, which mainly take place in the brain stem and cerebellum. The small-scale orientation thus corresponds above all to the own spatial position perception. Normally, humans are not aware of their own spatial position. Large-scale orientation, unlike spatial position orientation, is predominantly conscious. This type of orientation includes orientation to landscape or cardinal directions or orientation in road traffic. This part of spatial sense involves conscious thought and is largely shaped by experience.
Diseases and complaints
Orientation on the basis of the spatial sense, for example, causes discomfort in the case of contradictory sensory messages, such as overly rapid turns. As soon as the interaction of the senses is subject to disturbances, feelings of confusion and disorientation set in. Frequently, dizziness and nausea also occur. In healthy people, these complaints are particularly characteristic of unusual spatial movements such as flying or diving. During these movements, the sense of sight and balance often do not adjust smoothly.In diving, for example, the unusual perception that people have of distances and proportions under water plays a role. The visual part of the spatial sense can thus no longer be interpreted in the way that humans are actually used to. The spatial sense must therefore first adjust to unusual movements in space through training. Once this has been done, vertigo and dizziness usually no longer occur. Since there can be significant differences in orientation ability between individuals, poor spatial sense is not automatically associated with disease. In fact, people’s ability to orient themselves in space has been characterized by decline over the past century, especially within Western society. For example, when people are transported almost exclusively in vehicles during childhood and rarely move actively in space, their spatial sense is rudimentary. This relationship has favored the regression of spatial sense in recent decades. However, a rudimentary sense of space can certainly also be caused by diseases. This is especially the case with diseases of the involved sensory organs. Disease value can also be present in the case of disturbed processing of the individual sensory stimuli within the brain, for example in the context of neurological diseases or nerve conduction disorders.
