This book presents recent research on the role of space as a mechanism in language use and learning. Experimental psychologists, computer scientists, robotocists, linguists, and researchers in child language consider the nature and applications of this research and its implications for understanding the processes involved in language acquisition.

"Spatial Cognition" brings together psychology, computer science, linguistics and geography, discussing how people think about space (our internal cognitive maps and spatial perception) and how we communicate about space, for instance giving route directions or using spatial metaphors. The technological applications adding dynamism to the area include computer interfaces, educational software, multimedia, and in-car navigation systems. On the experimental level, themes as varied as gender differences in orientation and of course, wholly unrelated the role of the hippocampus in rodent navigation are described. Much detailed analysis and computational modeling of the structure of short term memory (STM) is discussed. The papers were presented at the 1998 annual meeting of the Cognitive Science Society of Ireland, Mind III. (Series B)

Languages differ in how they describe space, and such differences between languages can be used to explore the relation between language and thought. This 2003 book shows that even in a core cognitive domain like spatial thinking, language influences how people think, memorize and reason about spatial relations and directions. After outlining a typology of spatial coordinate systems in language and cognition, it is shown that not all languages use all types, and that non-linguistic cognition mirrors the systems available in the local language. The book reports on collaborative, interdisciplinary research, involving anthropologists, linguists and psychologists, conducted in many languages and cultures around the world, which establishes this robust correlation. The overall results suggest that thinking in the cognitive sciences underestimates the transformative power of language on thinking. The book will be of interest to linguists, psychologists, anthropologists and philosophers, and especially to students of spatial cognition.

Spatial language - that is, the way languages structure the spatial domain – is an important area of research, offering insights into one of the most central areas of human cognition. In this collection, a team of leading scholars review the spatial domain across a wide variety of languages. Contrary to existing assumptions, they show that there is great variation in the way space is conceptually structured across languages, thus substantiating the controversial question of how far the foundations of human cognition are innate. Grammars of Space is a supplement to the psychological information provided in its companion volume, Space in Language and Cognition. It represents a new kind of work in linguistics, 'Semantic Typology', which asks what are the semantic parameters used to structure particular semantic fields. Comprehensive and informative, it will be essential reading for those working on comparative linguistics, spatial cognition, and the interface between them.