Sailing: Cognition, Action, Communication

Sailing involves ways of thinking about space that are not normally required (or even acquired) in everyday life. Movement in this domain is based on a combination of external forces and internal (human) intentions that impose various kinds of directionality, affecting local action as well as global planning. Sailing terminology is spatial to a high extent, and involves a range of concepts that have received little attention in the spatial cognition literature. We explore the area by focusing on the core features of cognition, action, and communication, and suggest a range of promising future areas of research in this domain as a showcase of the fascinating flexibility of human spatial cognition.