Spatial Language and Reference Frame Assignment; The Role of the Located Object

Spatial prepositions work as pointers to localize objects in space. For instance “The book is over the table” indicates that the located object (LO) is somewhere “over” the reference object (RO). To understand where the LO is people need to assign direction to space (selecting a reference frame). Three experiments are reported which investigated the reference frame conflict between LO and RO. We found that when the LO was not vertically aligned, the appropriateness for a given spatial preposition (above, below, over and under) changes. In general scenes with the LO pointing at the RO were judged less acceptable than scenes with the LO vertically oriented. These results suggest that reference frames for both LO and RO are accessed before direction can be assigned for spatial prepositions. Modifications to Multiple Frame Activation theory (Carlson-Radvansky & Irwin, 1994) are discussed.