I’m not sure if it’s a biology question, but how do people just know they’re going to hit something if they don’t veer a little to the left or the right without actually seeing it? Like not hitting a curb you can’t see but you park close to it.
In: Biology
It’s muscle memory, when you e done something for over a decade every day you become quite good at it. With that being said even pro athletes look like dumbasses every now and then
Intuition formed by practice.
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Get in a car you have no experience in and you use your visual queues formed from any experience you have.
This usually leads to you NOT hitting anything, but a large safety margin.
Time spent with the car, getting used to what your perceived boundaries and what the actual boundaries are (formed by actually getting out when you think you’re close and realizing you can park a jumbo jet in the gap, vs actually being close) from the time you spend between your physically and mental world.
Parking sensors help, too. But people like me who can only afford cars from 20 years ago and no parking sensors just need to rely on screaming kids instead.
Either way. You learn by doing.
I’ve heard a term for this a long time ago – kinesthetic projection. It’s basically the real-life version of that fantasy trope that “your sword is the extension of your arm”. Basically, humans are remarkably good at using tools, and we effectively extend (project) our understanding of how we control and are aware of our bodies (kinesthesis). This is acquired for each tool through practice and repetition.
I have no knowledge of the true mechanism but as someone who drives a car where you can’t see the corners, but I still ‘know’ where they are, I suspect it may be an extension of the proprioception system. (Which is how your mind knows where your limbs are in space without seeing them etc.)
When doing tight manoeuvring or passing through a narrow gateway etc. I definitely have a mental image of where the vehicle’s extremities are and how much ‘gap’ is left.
The human brain is a bonkers machine!
The human brain is an astoundingly good pattern recognition machine.
It’s essentially the same kind of skill as catching a ball. You don’t actively calculate the path of the ball and determine which muscles you need to move and by how much to get your hand in the right spot.
Your brain just recognizes that when I see a ball that kinda looks like that one does now, it’s going to look a certain way when it gets closer to me. Last time I moved my arm kinda like this, I ended up catching it, and if I moved kinda like that, I missed it.
Repeat that across many attempts and you’ve got a set of patterns that your brain can recognize and respond to on an automatic level.
The first time you use a hammer, you’re probably going to miss the nail. But with some practice and experience you’ll probably hit the nail most times using the hammer.
A car is essentially a big tool. You get used to the handling and the size over time. How much to turn the wheel, how much brake and throttle to use, etc.
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