Consider IMAGE:

It’s a fact that everybody understands the same idea by recalling totally different memories that help interpret our current experience. The smell of a burning fire may trigger a pleasant memory of a BBQ in one person, reminding another of a tragic loss.

"…you will have learned personally the extent to which experience (love, fear or hope) is filtered through ‘already seen’ images."
Umberto Ecco

SPATIALITY: The use of fully dimensional space is one of the defining characteristics of virtual reality, especially in the context of transcultural software development. In real life space can be physical, but it can also be metaphorical. For example:

• HEIGHT is used to indicate 'more' of something (metaphorically, when no real height or quantity is involved, such as a high temperature or a high note). Thrones are higher than commoners' seats to show social power. Large architectural spaces are generally felt to invoke awe, while small ones may be oppressive or cozy, depending on other factors.

• PROXIMITY and ALIGNMENT in 2D are used to show which options belong together. People in social situations use proximity to show how intimate they want to be with others in the space. Orientation is also used, facing someone or turning away from them.

• Using different length lenses (telephoto, wide-angle, etc;) creates different kinds of perspective, so the way scenes are shown alters the viewer's perception. A distant telephoto shot could give the feeling that a character is being observed from afar, while a closer wide-angle on the same subject may suggest the character is aware of it.

“It may be that all human beings have the same perception of space at the biological level of perception. But certainly every society uses space differently, technologically and artistically.”
J David Bolter 1986, Turing's Man - p80.

Bolter's 'may be' is important; the two opposing schools of thought can be characterized as:

• The perception of space is a culturally influenced phenomenon.
• Space is perceived identically, as a universal human phenomenon.

Do we perceive space according to universal optical and perceptual principles on which social and environmental conditioning has no effect; or do we acquire some aspects of our perceptual system from external influences, or by how it's represented? If the very perception of space is culturally determined, a new set of variables enters the equation. What is common between us?