Spatial Reasoning Skills in Tenejapan Mayans

This paper examines possible influences of language on thought in the domain of spatial reasoning. Language communities differ in their stock of reference frames (coordinate systems to reference locations and directions). English typically uses egocentrically-defined axes (“leftright”). Other languages like Tseltal lack such a system but use geocentrically-defined axes ("north-south"). We ask whether the lexical resources available in one’s language determine the availability or salience of certain spatial concepts. Does a “left-right” lexical gap translate to a conceptual gap? In three experiments, we compared Tseltal speakers’ ability to solve spatial problems requiring an egocentric frame of reference to ones requiring a geocentric frame of reference. We found that Tseltal speakers were above chance in solving the egocentric problems, demonstrating that a lexical gap does not necessarily lead to a conceptual gap. Furthermore, participants were statistically better on the egocentric version in two of the three experiments. These results speak against some current versions of linguistic relativity.