North is Up, South is Down?

“Our perceptual world is part of our way of thinking” Joseph P. Simmons.

I’ve just come across a very interesting paper, via a MapHist posting this morning, subject: –‘Map orientation and distance perception’, reviewing a short article in the March/April 2010 Yale Alumni Magazine. The article relates to a paper by Simmons and Nelson, titled ‘On Southbound Ease and Northbound Fees: Literal Consequences of the Metaphoric Link Between Vertical Position and Cardinal Direction.’

The aim of the marketing study was to find out if consumers were influenced consciously or sub-consciously by relationship between cardinal direction and vertical position (i.e., “north is up”):
* People believe that it will take longer to travel north than south.
* It will cost more to ship to a northern than to a southern location.
* A moving company will charge more for northward than for southward movement.
* People have greater intention to visit stores advertised to be south (versus north) of a reference point especially when ease of travel is important.

The study suggests that a lifetime of using maps which traditionally show north at the top, has an influence on the way many people think about distances and directions.

We talk about going up north and down south, but do we really think it is harder to go up? I remember ‘when I was just a boy’ travelling ‘down’ from Scotland to visit my grandparents in Yorkshire. On the day we were leaving my granddad commented on how it would take much longer for us to go back home, as it was uphill all the way!

Nowadays, in the digital mapping age, the association between north and up may be less clear. More people are using route-finders on the intranet, sat-navs in their cars and website store finders which use close up/large scale mapping that seem to gives less of a sense of place, but greater emphasis on how to get from here to there.

Any comments please.

“I always like going south. Somehow … it feels like going downhill.” - Treebeard, Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers.

On Southbound Ease and Northbound Fees (917 kb pdf) in the Journal of Marketing Research Vol. XLVI (December 2009), 715–724.
Upside Down Map of California on Amazon.
Upside Down Atlas of Great Britain on Amazon.