Different frames of reference correspond to different origin points in real space. Little research has directly approached this question in humans, perhaps because it is taken for granted that humans have fairly accurate knowledge of the geometric properties of their environment. This issue, however, has been central in the study of animal spatial cognition. The following are a few examples of the geometric power of animals' spatial representations. This demonstrates that the pigeons' representation preserved the geometric relations of the keys.
Animals can even communicate geometric information.
He suggested that the bees evaluate communicated locations in terms of spatial addresses in a cognitive map. They examined the ability of a blind child, Kelli, to learn layouts of objects by walking routes between them. With relatively little practice, Kelli was able to infer novel routes that required precise geometric knowledge about the layout. The authors concluded that to accomplish this task Kelli's spatial representation must have contained metric and geometric information. This implies that she was representing the environment in terms of an internal coordinate space rather than a set of inter-related landmarks.