Pii: S0010-0277(00)00064-0

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 ®nd 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 ®ndings 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. q 2000 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.