Across cultures, people combine reference frames to orient themselves

When walking through an unfamiliar city, we might rely on different types of directions. Head east out of the train station, take a left at the stop light, turn at the building with the mural.  

To move through complex environments and keep track of where objects are, people use reference points either in relation to their own body (for example, to their left) or based on features of their environment (next to the window, across from the door).  

As someone moves around, the body-based references, called egocentric reference frames, may change, whereas the environmental references, allocentric reference frames, stay the same. For instance, a tree on the left when walking in one direction is on the right when walking in the other direction, but the tree is always next to the mailbox.  

Different cultures use different reference frames, perhaps as a product of language. Americans, who are thought to prefer body-based references, tend to talk egocentrically. 

“We say things like, ‘You have some food on your left cheek,’” said Benjamin Pitt, a research fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study in Toulouse, in an interview with the Observer. “We would never say that you have some food on your down-river cheek or on your east cheek, but other cultures do.” 

Additionally, the physical reality of where we live influences our frames of reference. Rather than looking left and right to cross a street, people growing up in the Amazon rainforest cross rivers by looking upriver to check for hazards.

In the natural world, “There’s really no reason or very little reason to keep track of left–right spatial distinctions,” said Pitt. “Instead, there’s good reasons to keep track of allocentric spatial distinctions. It’s all about where things are in the environment, and the environment tends to not be organized with respect to our bodies.”  

People may also choose different references depending on the situation. In a 2022 study, Pitt found that the Indigenous Tsimane’ of Bolivia used allocentric references when asked to put items on a left-to-right axis, but egocentric references when placing items on a front-to-back axis.  

“Is it just that they’re flexible and they can really quickly switch from one trial to the next?” he wondered. Or, “Can they actually can combine egocentric and allocentric at the same time?”  

Pitt addressed this question in a 2025 Psychological Science article. Participants—both Tsimane’ and U.S. adults—were shown a rectangular table with four cups in each corner and a small ball in one of the cups.

They were told to take the ball, turn 180 degrees to face another table set up the same way, and put the ball back in the same cup (see figure). They repeated this over 16 trials. If participants used purely egocentric references (only thinking left/right and far/close to themselves), they would place a ball originally in the far-right corner in the far-right corner again (blue in the figure). If participants used purely allocentric references (with respect to the location of the window, for example), they would place a ball originally closest to the window in the cup closest to the window again (pink in the figure). These distinctions could be made within each subset of four cups as well.  

Both Americans and the Tsimane’ used environment-based references to determine the ball’s left–right position, but body-based references to determine its front–back position. This suggests that, even across cultures, people simultaneously integrate two reference frames.   

“The answer, according to this, is you can use both at the same time,” said Pitt. 

Pitt suspects people use different references for left–right and front–back because keeping track of left–right spatial distinctions is harder. 

“We have expressions like, ‘No, your other left,’” said Pitt. “Nobody is confusing their front from their back. Nobody’s like, ‘No, your other front.’ It’s so completely obvious, which is your front and which is your back.”  

For those more difficult left–right distinctions, people may abandon body-based references for easier environmental references. 

“You can just pick something in the environment that’s sitting there staring at you,” said Pitt. “You don’t have to worry about whether it was on your left or your right because that’s too confusing.” 

But people don’t use environment-based references for everything. It seems a combination is best, regardless of where you live. 

“If you want to move your body through the world, then you’re going to need to integrate these things,” Pitt said.  

References 

Pitt, B., Carstensen, A., Boni, I., Piantadosi, S. T., & Gibson, E. (2022). Different reference frames on different axes: Space and language in indigenous Amazonians. Science Advances, 8(47). 

Pitt, B. (2025). One action, two reference frames: Compound cognitive maps of object location. Psychological Science, 36(11), 862–873.