Bookmarklets | MOVABLE TYPE I've found an interesting paper by Tversky and Lee about how spatial features are used to structure language.

"In perceiving a scene, figures are not just discerned and identified, they are also located. Figures are not located in an absolute way, but rather relative to other reference figures and/or a frame of reference. (...) Reference objects and reference frames serve to schematize the locations of figures. (...) How are reference objects and frames selected? Proximity, salience, and permanence are influential factors (Tversky, 1981; Tversky, Taylor, and Mainwaring, 1997)."

Referenced frames often used : natural borders, axes, side of a room, side of a piece of paper, horizontal and vertical lines (real or virtual)...