Why not try " South-up maps"

The Kangnido map, a Chinese-influenced Korean map from 1402 (Credit: Wikipedia)

BBC 中文網（繁體） 都分享了 1 條連結。

......心理學上的一種著名偏見表明，大多數人有上北下南的觀念。賓夕法尼亞州蓋茨堡學院（Gettysberg College）的心理學家布萊恩·邁耶（Brian Meier）發現人們在無意識中國會把褒義詞與「上」聯繫起來，而非與「下」聯繫起來。所以，他想知道，「北=上」和「好=上」是否會影響人們對不同地區價值的判斷。

當向人出示一幅假想的城市地圖，並問他們想居住在哪個位置時，他們當然更有可能會選擇北部。問另一組人，假想的不同社會階層會住在哪個位置，他們的回答是富人住在北邊，窮人住在南邊。

不難想像，人們較少在意地圖上靠「下」的國家或地區所發生的事情。

好消息是邁耶的實驗中，「北」與「好」的關係被輕鬆消除了——只需把地圖倒過來。所以，假如我們把地圖倒過來看，可能世界就會更加公平一點。網上很容易找到南方朝上的地圖。這也是莫特洛克大力推崇的一件事：「作為一個澳大利亞人，我覺得人們應該多做一些這樣的事。」

即使沒有其他的作用，這也一定會讓世界再次變得新鮮又神秘。地球上留給我們這代人的探險地點已經很少了，我們只能——按照馬塞爾·普魯斯特（Marcel Proust）的說法——再次審視我們的地球，但這次要用不同的眼光。

地球上留給我們這代人的探險地點已經很少了，我們只能——按照馬塞爾·普魯斯特（Marcel Proust）的說法——再次審視我們的地球，但這次要用不同的眼光。
請訪問 BBC Future 閱讀 英文原文。http://www.bbc.com/…/20160614-maps-have-north-at-the-top-bu…

A well-known bias in psychology reveals that most people think of north as being ‘up’ and south, ‘down’. Brian Meier, a psychologist at Gettysberg College in Pennsylvania, has also found that people unconsciously process positive words as if they were higher in space than negative ones. So he wondered whether these two things, north = up and good = up affect the value that people put on different areas on a map.

It isn’t too much of a stretch to think that people are less likely to care about countries that are ‘lower’ than them

Sure enough, when shown a map of a hypothetical city and asked where they would like to live, people were significantly more likely to choose an area in the north of the city. And when another group of people were asked where fictitious people of different social status would live, they plotted them on the map with the richest in the north and poorest in the south.

It isn’t too much of a stretch to think that people are less likely to care what happens in countries or regions that are ‘lower’ than them on the map or globe.

The good news is that in Meier’s experiments the relationship between ‘north’ and ‘good’ was eliminated by one simple thing – turning the map upside down. So perhaps the world might get a little fairer if we just took a look at it another way up now and again. South-up maps are easily available online. It is also something that Mortlock is very much in favour of: “As an Australian, I think it should be done more often,” he says.

If nothing else, it’s a sure-fire way to make the world seem fresh, and unexplored, once more. With so few earthbound discoveries left for our generation to make, all we can do is – to paraphrase Marcel Proust – look again at the world we’ve got, but this time, through different eyes.

現代地圖為什麼是「上北下南」？ - BBC 主页

為什麼幾乎所有的現代地圖都是北方朝上？地圖是如何開始採用這一傳統的？這對我們的世界觀產生什麼意想不到的影響？

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