article #1: Masuda and Nisbett

Question 1

research question

Answer 1

the researchers wanted to see “whether East asians attend to… context more than Americans do”

Question 2

Nisbett et al.’s cognitive and perceptual orientations

Answer 2

• Holistic
• Analytic

Question 3

overall hypotheses

Answer 3

a) East Asians would attend to field info more than americans (and recall more field info)
b) East Asians’ perception of objects would be more “bound” to the context they were initially encountered than the Americans (objects would be seen and remembered in relation to their original context)

Question 4

study 1 hypothesis

Answer 4

• expected Japanese would notice more field info than Americans, and would site more relationships btwn the objects and the background
• expected accuracy of Japanese would be hurt more by seeing objects on a novel background, and helped by seeing them on the original background

Question 5

Study 2 hypothesis

Answer 5

• expected Japanese to be more vulnerable to background changes than Americans, because for Japanese the object is bound to the background
• in terms of reaction time, thought that japanese would bind objects to the background spontaneously, and make judements much faster when viewing objects they’ve already seen on their original background

Question 6

study 1: independent variables

Answer 6

• culture of participants
• type of background objects are placed on
• whether it’s a new “novel” object, or one they had been shown earlier

Question 7

study 1: dependent variables

Answer 7

first part of study (recall task):
- attention to the field vs the object
- attention to relationships between objects

Second part of study (recognition task)
- accuracy of memory of the fish they’ve already seen (and if the background impacts it)

Question 8

impact of background size hypothesis

Answer 8

anticipatee that salient backgrounds might cause binding btwn object and field even less for Americans, but their recognition accuracy would be less harmed by novel backgrounds than Japanese

Question 9

study 2: independent variables

Answer 9

• culture of participants
• type of background objects are placed on
• whether it’s a new “novel” object, or one they had been shown earlier

Question 10

study 2: dependent variables

Answer 10

• accuracy of recognition
• reaction time for judgements

Question 12

Study 1 results

Answer 12

• initial comments of Japanese more likely to refer to field than Americans
• Japanses reported more info about the field
• Japanese made more statements abt relationships btwn object and field than americans
• Japanese recognized prev seen objects more accurately when they saw them w original background

Question 13

study 2 results

Answer 13

accuracy of recognition:
- japanese and americans made more errors when background was novel, but japanese made more errors in novel background condition

reaction time:
- americans spent much more time judging objects than Japanese
- Japanese were faster when judging prev. seen objects on original backgrounds
- americans were faster at judging previously seen objects on new backgrounds than new objects, while Japanese were not

Question 14

implications

Answer 14

1. Japanese may see far more of the world than americans
2. East Asians may find it difficult to separate objects from context
3. these studies provide evidence that attentional differences may be an important factor contributing to cultural differences in higher cognitive mechanisms. these findings help explain cultural differences in causal attribution an interpersonal perception