People who get lost in the wilderness often react strangely, driven by fear. Canadian researchers are trying to better understand their behavior to increase the chances of finding them!
Do you like walks in the forest? A walk in nature is good for the body and mind. But it’s a lot less fun when you get lost; it can be very risky!
When you lose yourself in nature, the risks are real. Cold weather, lack of water or food can pose dangers. The longer you stay lost, the greater these risks become. The rescuers’ goal is therefore to find lost people as quickly as possible. The problem is that search areas are generally very large.
Two Canadian psychologists from the University of Alberta have been studying orientation (or disorientation!) behavior for several years. Their goal is to better understand how lost people behave in order to maximize the chances of finding them. To do this, they create typical profiles of people and associated behavioral patterns.
What did they discover? The first reflex is flight, the desire to move. The intense stress of the situation reduces our ability to think and sometimes drives us to absurd reactions guided by fear. Amidst these irrational behaviors, they found that people were generally attracted to “boundaries,” the edge of the forest, the edge of a lake, a path. A first path to integration into research!
They then isolated specific trends based on people’s characteristics. Age, for example, is crucial: adults do not behave like children. Children or older people tend to exercise less than healthy adults. In addition, physical condition is also a decisive factor. Just like mental health. Autistic people tend to seek refuge in structures such as sheds or dense bushes.
Your sense of direction and knowledge of the region also influence your reaction. The activity carried out at the time of getting lost can also play a role. Hikers, for example, tend to run until they are exhausted. The goal is therefore to collect all this information about the lost person in order to be able to carry out the search more specifically.
If you are now used to walking regularly in the forest, the best solution is to develop your orientation skills and undergo survival training to learn the right actions!