This study investigates how integrated egocentric and environmental reference frames influence direction determination and cardinal direction judgments in L1 speakers of Mongolian and Mandarin. The results show that in direction determination, Mandarin participants’ integrated frame of reference is “front-north, back-south, left-west, and right-east.” By contrast, Mongolian participants use two modes of integrated spatial representation: “front-south, back-north, left-east, and right-west” and “front-north, back-south, left-west, and right-east”. This behavior points to influences from the participants’ dominant and non-dominant languages. Mongolian and Mandarin participants showed a north advantage in cardinal direction judgment tasks with a “front-north” response configuration. Whereas Mandarin participants consistently showed a north advantage effect, Mongolian participants showed a south advantage effect in the “front-south” configuration. This suggests that in addition to the long-recognized difference in north-south/east-west axis preference, a north-south axis specification where south was the normative direction instead of north can result from cultural and linguistic influence. The results corroborate the idea that language affects the integration of spatial reference frames, lending support to linguistic relativism.

中文翻译：

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基于不同语言空间参考系集成的主向判断

本研究调查了综合的自我中心和环境参考框架如何影响蒙古语和普通话母语使用者的方向确定和基本方向判断。结果表明，在方向判断中，普通话参与者的综合参照系是“前北、后南、左西、右东”。相比之下，蒙古族参与者使用两种综合空间表征模式：“前南、后北、左东、右西”和“前北、后南、左西、右东” 。这种行为表明了参与者的主导语言和非主导语言的影响。蒙古语和普通话参与者在具有“前北”响应配置的基本方向判断任务中表现出北方优势。普通话参与者始终表现出北方优势效应，而蒙古语参与者在“前南”配置中表现出南方优势效应。这表明，除了长期以来公认的南北/东西轴偏好差异之外，以南而不是北为规范方向的南北轴规范可能是由于文化和语言的影响而产生的。结果证实了语言影响空间参考系整合的观点，为语言相对论提供了支持。