What is the relationship between spatial language and abstract concepts? When people talk about abstract things that they can never see or touch, they often use spatial metaphors (e.g., alongvacation, ahighprice, aclosefriendship). According to theories of metaphorical mental representation, linguistic metaphors reflect underlying mental metaphors. Yet, behavioral experiments show that this is only one of the possible relationships between spatial metaphors in language and our spatial conceptualizations of abstract domains. In some cases, linguistic metaphors not only reflect speakers' thoughts, they also change those thoughts, such that people who use different linguistic metaphors rely on correspondingly different mental metaphors. Alternatively, spatial metaphors in language may reflect the way people conceptualize an abstract domainin some circumstances, but not in others. Finally, spatial language may reflect the way an abstract domain is typically conceptualizedby some people, but not by others. There is no single relationship between spatial language and abstract concepts. Discovering whether (and under what conditions) a linguistic metaphor corresponds to a mental metaphor can illuminate the ways in which our interactions with the physical and social environment shape our mental lives.WIREs Cogn Sci2014, 5:139–149. doi: 10.1002/wcs.1271This article is categorized under:Linguistics > Language in Mind and BrainPsychology > Perception and PsychophysicsPsychology > Language