Introduction: Many studies have shown that task performance is affected by the relation between the spatial location and the meaning of a target word. These effects have been obtained for object names that have typical positions in the physical world (Zwaan and Yaxley, 2003; Bergen et al., 2007; Seticˇ and Domijan, 2007; Estes et al., 2008) and for concepts that are metaphorically related to spatial position (Richardson et al., 2003; Meier and Robinson, 2004; Schnall and Clore, 2004; Schubert, 2005; Giessner and Schubert, 2007; Casasanto, 2009; Van Dantzig, 2009). Although these findings are consistent with a mental simulation account, at least some of the interactions between meaning and spatial location might be explained by polarity alignment. In our study (Pecher et al., 2010) we tested whether spatial congruency effects are best explained by mental simulations or by polarity alignment. ...