Orientation (mental)

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The mental orientation is a cognitive ability that allows the subject, time, space and respect to his person - to orient - in its environment. Are sub-areas of orientation skills

  1. Orientation to the time (see also time perception )
  2. Orientation to the room (see also spatial orientation )
  3. Awareness of one's own person (see identity ) and their relationships ( situation awareness , orientation in the social network )

If the ability to orientate is missing partially or completely, temporarily or for a long time, one speaks of disorientation , disorientation , confusion (see below).

Perception, orientation and action planning

Perceptual information builds up awareness for orientation and updates it. Learned constants of orientation are stored in the memory as part of world knowledge . They are used in the imagination , the planning and the spatiotemporal inference. Orientation arises as an achievement of the subject. It is a knowledge that the subject gains actively, acting in dealing with the environment and which only has its function in this context.

Orientation is the action- and meaning-related, human view of the world . It is characteristic of subjects that for them it is not perception as a depiction of the world that is important, but rather perception with regard to the conditions for action and offers for action. So the world is not “in itself”, but rather the world “for me” (and others) as a subject. It is not about "features", surfaces and structures, objects and people etc. per se, but about relationships as offers for human action.

Brain areas involved

The exact regions in the brain that are involved in orientation, are still unknown, but both lesions of the brain stem and the cerebral hemispheres were made as the cause of disorientation. It is concluded that these two areas work together to maintain awareness. It is assumed that the ability to recognize spatial-geometrical relationships is primarily located in the right hemisphere.

Development of mental orientation

In adult healthy people, all partial abilities of the faculty of orientation are present. Infants have perception, but not yet complete orientation; it has to be learned to a large extent.

Impairment of orientation, loss of orientation

An inconsistent orientation is also referred to as a disorientation , a lack of orientation as disorientation . It primarily affects the temporal, then the situational and local, and finally the autopsychic orientation. Orientation disorders can be found, for example, in connection with disorders of consciousness , memory disorders , psychoses , organic psychosyndrome , dementia or perceptual disorders ( ICD-10 code R41 - Other symptoms that affect cognition and awareness ). Severe orientation disorders such as sleepwalking and other psychogenic orientation disorders are assigned to the symptom complex F44 Dissociative disorders (conversion disorders) . Disorientation also occurs as an acute transient psychotic disorder (ICD-10 F23) or as a reaction to severe stress and adjustment disorders (F43).

Loss of orientation is part of the confusion and occurs in diseases in which the memory function has failed, e.g. B. Korsakow's syndrome , carbon monoxide poisoning or Alzheimer's disease . Impairment and temporary loss of orientation can be caused by toxins in the body. These conditions are known as intoxication and delirium . Other causes are sleep deprivation , problems with regulating body temperature , malnutrition , and increased intracranial pressure . It can also appear as a by-product of other mental illnesses. Loss of orientation typically takes place first in time, then in space and finally in identity. Among other things, people with Alzheimer's dementia lose their orientation. In neglect , part of one's physical identity is lost.

Animal kingdom

The Sociobiology describes features of the orientation behavior of animals that helps them find their way in their environment.

In some animals will be discussed among experts whether they have a reference to the identity known as the mirror test passed individual test animals of all great apes , also among other magpies and Asian elephants .

swell

  1. ^ Pschyrembel, Medical Dictionary, 257th edition, 1993

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