Along with this spatial ability seems to be an ability to "visualize" maps internally, too. I can memorize routes from a quick look at Google maps, and GPS merely irritates me. I'm also the packing zen-master at our house. My DH is more or less helpless with this kind of thing, but my internal buffer has nearly zero capacity for auditory or especially numerical information. Only visual/spatial.
This. My husband & I are both that way. We drive other people nuts because we like to talk about pro's & con's and best possible directions to where we are driving. My son is the same way. Drives my mother up a WALL, when she hears us doing it. On the other hand we don't really enjoy adding up numbers in our heads, but higher level abstract math is easy. I find it hard to understand why anyone finds Ikea directions confusing. On the other hand I can't spell, have struggled with this for years and am very thankful for the spell checkers on computers.
