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Updated: Aug 1, 2026

Experience is Instrumental in Tuning a Link Between Language and Cognition: Evidence from 6- to 7- Month-Old Infants' Object Categorization
Published on: April 19, 2017
Linguistic and non-linguistic spatial categorization
L E Crawford1, T Regier, J Huttenlocher
1Department of Psychology, University of Chicago, 5848 S. University Avenue, Chicago 60615, USA. crawford@ccp.uchicago.edu
Abstract:
Three experiments examine the relation between linguistic and non-linguistic categorization of spatial relations. We compare linguistic and non-linguistic responses to the same spatial stimuli. Contrary to earlier claims in the literature (Hayward, W. G. & Tarr, M. J. (1995). Spatial language and spatial representation. Cognition, 55, 39-84), we find that linguistic and non-linguistic spatial categories do not correspond. Rather, they appear to have an inverse relation such that the prototypes of linguistic categories, such as 'above', are boundaries in non-linguistic spatial categorization. Evidence for this inverse relation comes from linguistic acceptability judgments and the pattern of bias in participants' reproductions of location. Our findings suggest that while linguistic and non-linguistic spatial organization rely on a common underlying structure, that structure may play different roles in the two organizational systems.
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