TY - JOUR
T1 - Spatial language and spatial representation
T2 - A cross-linguistic comparison
AU - Munnich, Edward
AU - Landau, Barbara
AU - Dosher, Barbara Anne
N1 - Funding Information:
This research was partially supported by grant NIMH 55240 to B.L. We would like to thank those who translated materials, assisted in coding data, and helped with interpretation of results: Kippeum Kim, Meesook Kim, Masato Kobayashi, Jerome (Barney) Pagani, Melissa Schweissguth, Tim Simpson, Kazue Takeda, Ryuhei Tsuji, and Diamond Vu. This paper is based in part on work presented in the first author's Master's Thesis ( Munnich, 1997 ). Much of the work discussed in this paper was presented at the 23rd Annual Meeting of the Psychonomic Society, Philadelphia, PA, November 1997.
Copyright:
Copyright 2018 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.
PY - 2001
Y1 - 2001
N2 - We examined the relationship between spatial language and spatial memory by comparing native English, Japanese, and Korean speakers' naming of spatial locations and their spatial memory for the same set of locations. We focused on two kinds of spatial organization: axial structure of the reference object, and contact/support with respect to its surface. The results of two language (naming) tasks showed similar organization across the three language groups in terms of axial structure, but differences in organization in terms of contact/support. In contrast, the results of two memory tasks were the same across language groups for both axial structure and contact/support. Moreover, the relationship between spatial language and spatial memory in the two sets of tasks did not show a straightforward isomorphism between the two systems. We conclude that spatial language and spatial memory engage the same kinds of spatial properties, suggesting similarity in the foundations of the two systems. However, the two systems appear to be partially independent: the preservation of particular spatial properties was not mandatory across languages, nor across memory tasks, and cross-linguistic differences in spatial language did not lead to differences in the non-linguistic encoding of location. We speculate that the similarity in linguistic and non-linguistic representations of space may emerge as a functional consequence of negotiating the spatial world.
AB - We examined the relationship between spatial language and spatial memory by comparing native English, Japanese, and Korean speakers' naming of spatial locations and their spatial memory for the same set of locations. We focused on two kinds of spatial organization: axial structure of the reference object, and contact/support with respect to its surface. The results of two language (naming) tasks showed similar organization across the three language groups in terms of axial structure, but differences in organization in terms of contact/support. In contrast, the results of two memory tasks were the same across language groups for both axial structure and contact/support. Moreover, the relationship between spatial language and spatial memory in the two sets of tasks did not show a straightforward isomorphism between the two systems. We conclude that spatial language and spatial memory engage the same kinds of spatial properties, suggesting similarity in the foundations of the two systems. However, the two systems appear to be partially independent: the preservation of particular spatial properties was not mandatory across languages, nor across memory tasks, and cross-linguistic differences in spatial language did not lead to differences in the non-linguistic encoding of location. We speculate that the similarity in linguistic and non-linguistic representations of space may emerge as a functional consequence of negotiating the spatial world.
KW - Cross-linguistic comparison
KW - Spatial language
KW - Spatial representation
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U2 - 10.1016/S0010-0277(01)00127-5
DO - 10.1016/S0010-0277(01)00127-5
M3 - Article
C2 - 11483169
AN - SCOPUS:0034898842
SN - 0010-0277
VL - 81
SP - 171
EP - 208
JO - Cognition
JF - Cognition
IS - 3
ER -