ABSTRACT
This chapter describes implications for three different domains of spatial thinking. The first domain is the three-dimensional world around one's bodies that seem to keep track of effortlessly as we move about the world. Accessing objects in different directions from our bodies is biased in ways accounted for by the asymmetries of one's bodies and by the relation of one's bodies to the world. People keep track of the things around them by constructing a mental spatial framework derived from the body axes. The second domain is the primarily two-dimensional world that we navigate, which is thought to be captured by cognitive maps. People's memory for the plane of navigation is systematically distorted. Those distortions indicate that people remember locations relative to each other and to a reference frame. The third domain is the two-dimensional plane of diagrams and charts; the issue of interest is the way space in graphics is used to convey abstract meanings.
