What we found was that people do really walk in circles. So that has been like a myth, if you want to, for a long time. People reported on it in all kinds of stories, in television shows, in books, but no one really ever measured whether it is true, whether people really walk in circles if they get lost. And that's what we did. So we sent people into the desert, we sent people into a big forest area and we measured their walking trajectories with GPS and, in fact, they did walk in circles.

 

The research focused on nine people: 6 walking in a forest, and 3 in the Saharan desert in Tunisia. The people all tended to go in circles and all veer off a straight line.

 

When we started the study we didn't really believe that people really walk in circles. So, what we thought was that people would do something random, like, if they don't know their way, they maybe all of a sudden go left and sometimes they all of a sudden turn right and just by chance they might end up in the same place again. I don't think they walked in circles but they actually did something completely random. And that's actually what we found in the desert. In the desert, people who walked there pretty much did something random, they didn't walk in circles they just went generally in the same direction, but then left, right, left, right. So then we went to the forest to get more data and there people actually did walk in circles and so we were really surprised that people did walk in circles.

 

With a blindfold on and ear plugs, people did all kinds of things.

 

With the blindfolded walking, there were no overall patterns. People did all sorts of things. There was one person who always walked in circles to the left. Then someone else sometimes went to the left; sometimes went to the right; sometimes did a kind of a zigzag course. So it's really hard to find a common denominator.

 

A young woman who took part in the experiment says it was difficult to sense direction wearing a blindfold.

 

So at one point I noticed that the sun, I mean, you feel a bit of where the warmth is, but I couldn't make any sense of it. I mean you just feel it changing and you can't make any sense out of it.

 

While the sample size is small, and further studies will be needed, the researchers say the findings can be used to help map how the human brain sorts sensory stimuli from sight and hearing to help guide people. And the lead researcher says if you’re headed to remote areas, don’t trust your senses; take a GPS and a compass.