David Hockney
Nichols Canyon, 1980
Acrylic on canvas - 213.3 x 152.4 cm

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
Welcome

Thanks for finding us! We are a cognitive neuroscience research laboratory dedicated to investigate the individuals' inability to orient in an environment, a condition that is commonly known as topographical disorientation or topographagnosia.

We recently discovered that such a condition may occur despite the lack of any apparent brain damage or other cognitive impairments, and result in a lifelong difficulty that may severely affect an individual's daily life. We refer to this very selective difficulty as developmental topographical disorientation since most likely the requisite orientation skills have never been developed.

We believe that many people may be affected by developmental topographical disorientation than currently known. Therefore, we created this website in order to find out more about people having difficulties in orienting, shed more light on this problem and develop rehabilitation treatments that may help people to build up orientation skills.

If you get lost easily and want to find out more about your lack of orientation skills, please explore this website. You will find useful information about how people orient and the research that we have done so far on this topic. Also, you may want to join our forum and meet other people with orientation issues similar to yours. Please visit our page "Test Your Skills" in order to have a complete assessment of your orientation skills. Your contribution is fundamental to our discovering more about this problem and learning how we can help everyone to find their way. Thanks.

Giuseppe Iaria

Lost and Found
by David Hollies

The first few times
Being lost was frightening
Stark, pregnant
With the drama of change
Then, I didn’t know
That everywhere is nowhere
Like the feeling when a ocean wave
Boils you in the sand
But as time goes by
Each occurrence of lostness is quieter
Falling from notice
Like the sound of trains
When you live near the tracks
Until one day
When a friend asks
“How often do you get lost?”
And I strain to recall a single instance
It was then that I realized
Being lost only has meaning
When contrasted with
Knowing where you are
A presumption that slipped out of my life
As quietly as smoke up a chimney
For now I live in a less anchored place
Where being lost is irrelevant
For now, only when there is a need
Do I discover where I am
No alarm, no fear
Just an unconscious check-in
Like glancing in the rear-view mirror.