I never read the research about this but examples are http://anthroweb.ucsd.edu/~jhaviland/Publications/ETHOSw.Dia... and http://pubman.mpdl.mpg.de/pubman/item/escidoc:66622:3/compon... (very interesting stuff!).
Edit: I would highly recommend reading the 2nd paper (which includes some practical experiments testing how Guugu Yithimirr speakers thought about and remembered spatial positions and orientations). It's astonishing.