Are you spatially minded or not?

[Panter]

I have no spatial awareness whatsoever and my sense of direction is even worse.

Luckily my Wife is good at those sorts of things

 

[Mad at urage]

I can understand derailleur gears but have a problem visualizing how hub gears work. I know the theory but cannot visualize how the cable pull translates into changing the gears. How the hell does this all work, for example?

Hub Gears work by Magic. Open the wrong part when servicing and The Magic will fall out; in that case the only solution is to find someone who knows how to return them to The Magic Factory, where new Magic can be put in.

 

[Fiona N]

I've always assumed it was because I grew up in a family of engineers that spatial awareness and, particularly, seeing 2-D information in 3-D was just something I learnt like learning to read. It came as a bit of a shock to find that most people don't look at a contour map or an engineering drawing and see a 3-D structure.

What's really ironic though is that due to very unequal vision in my eyes, I don't see depth perception and real 3-D well at all. Those photograph stereo-pairs beloved of geography and geology classes never turn into a 3-D picture for me - I'm much better off with a map I can imagine into 3-D.

I think the flatpack furniture problem is something different though - something about organisation of the process is too often missing. The OP said about laying out all the bits, identifying what's what etc. It's amazing how often people don't start from this basis but just pick up the first item out of the box and go from there...

 

[Panter]

It's amazing how often people don't start from this basis but just pick up the first item out of the box and go from there...

 

[byegad]

Mrs byegad is exactly the same. Over the last couple of decades I've learnt:-

1. Never, ever, ever give her a map. She'll have it upside down and turned to the wrong fold in nanoseconds!

2. Never point to a thing. She looks at the end on my finger and what ever is behind it is 'What you pointed at'. She cannot picture herself standing where I am and pointing in the way I am and so work out what I'm pointing at. So I tell her what it is next to/behind/on top of etc.

3. While doing any practical job the limits of her usefulness is to hold something 'Just there.' While I attach it. I have to put in position and get her to take hold of it otherwise it gets turned over and held somewhere else.

4. Never to say 'It's on the left/right.' She will always look the wrong way!

Luckily she has some wonderful traits. Spacial awareness is NOT among them.

 

[Arch]

I think the flatpack furniture problem is something different though - something about organisation of the process is too often missing. The OP said about laying out all the bits, identifying what's what etc. It's amazing how often people don't start from this basis but just pick up the first item out of the box and go from there...

Yes, I thought that. It's just knowing how to follow instructions.

I can do flatpack (and Airfix), follow recipes etc. I'm ok at map reading, and fairly good at the van packing bit, although not so good at the abstract puzzles where you have to put odd shaped pieces into a box - I do those by trial and error. I do have trouble with left and right, but it's verbal/physical split. I will always point the correct way, but may say left when I mean right. If I'm giving directions I try to see the turn in my head, point physically, and then verbalise when I've thought about it. If I do it too quickly, I'll get it wrong. If I say left and point right, I mean right.

 

[Over The Hill]

I seem to get a lot more in the dishwasher than Mrs OTH does.

 

[summerdays]

I seem to get a lot more in the dishwasher than Mrs OTH does.

I can do that too but Mr Summerdays reckons it doesn't clean properly if there is too much in there - I leave him the joys of the dishwasher ... I have a bit of OCD with it where certain things have to go in certain places (because I've worked out where they best fit), and he refuses to follow my pattern. So if he half stacks it and I go to add more ... I have to undo what he has already put in. It's easier to ignore it and leave it to him normally .

 

[coffeejo]

I think a lot of it is practice and being shown how to do things rather than figuring them out on your own. I can pack vans etc as I have moved 14 times in 13 years so am quite well practised in that respect. On the other hand, I taught myself how to reverse with a trailer so could either do it spot on or made an utter hash of it, since my brain isn't trained to work backwards and opposite so couldn't identify what mistakes I'd made and therefore couldn't correct them. If that makes sense?