Lecture 5: Cognition and perception Flashcards
analytic thinking
most likely to group animals together -> taxonomic categorization -> perceived similarity of attributes
objects exist independently of their context
abstract rules explain and predict object behavior
related to independent self = people defined by inner, fixed attributes and abstract qualities
holistic thinking
most likely to group objects based on relationships (rabbit goes with carrot) -> thematic categorization -> causal, temporal, spatial relationship
objects are perceived in terms of how they relate to context
knowledge about behavior of objects is based on experience
related to interdependent self = people are defined by their relationships with others and context dependent roles
How did those different thinking styles arose?
1) proximal causes -> socialization and ongoing social experiences
2) distal causes -> philosophical traditions
Proximal causes of thinking styles
-> first words (holistic thinking -> verbs; analytical thinking -> features)
-> describing one’s day (holistic thinking -> who did I meet?; analytical thinking -> talking about “me”)
-> superheroes (holistic thinking -> Power Rangers; analytical thinking -> Superman)
Distal causes of thinking styles
philosophical traditions (analytical thinking -> Greek influences -> Plato; holistic thinking -> taosim, confucianism, buddism)
Ancient Greek philosophy
Plato = world as collection of discrete, unchanging objects
scientific discoveries -> gravity (objects have property of gravity)
development of formal logic system, abstract rules, syllogisms
attention in analytical thinking
attention on different parts of a scene
objects seperated from their background fields
field independence -> rod and frame task is manageable
Ancient Chinese philosophy
Confucius = world consists of continually interacting substances
scientific discoveries -> magnetism, moon influence on the tides (continuously interacting substances)
emphasis on harmony and importance of change, interconnectedness
attention in holistic thinking
attention is broad and across the entire scene
objects are bound to their backgrounds
field dependence -> rod and frame task is very hard
task: how is John feeling?
John is always happy, but his friends in the background can be either happy or sad
American participants -> John is independent self -> either happy or not
Japanese participants -> context taken into account
also paying attention to different aspects of the scene -> making more saccades -> more systematic scanning of the entire scene
How importance (or its lack) of context is illustrated by art?
Western art -> portraits highlight central figure, background is often non existant; horizon is lower - less space to highlight context
Eastern art -> portraits often include more people + context is relevant to characters - horizon is higher - various elements and their relationship can be highlighted
also how children draw the world
comparison between daily scenes while walking through cities
reading
Japanese scenes - more complex, more elements, more cluttered - more holistic way of seeing the world
both Americans and Japanese primed with Japanese scenes attended more contextual information than those primed with American scenes
dispositional attributions
analytical thinking -> identifying underlying attributes; considering people’s inner, stable qualities
situational attributions
holistic thinking -> identifying situational influences, considering people’s changing relation with context
fundamental attribution error
even if you have situational information available, people with more analytic thinking style would more more weigh on dispositional attributions
How fundamental is fundamental attribution error?
Indian and American participants
at young age, there is not much difference
difference stands out for adults -> Americans show fundamental attribution error, whereas Indians show reverse fundamental attribution error -> weighing situation factors much more
rule based reasoning
universal abstract rules and laws -> stem is going in the same way = consistent singluar feature
associative reasoning
considering relationships among objects and events -> looking at features on average = more similar to group 1 (center of the flower looks more similar) - reasoning by association
law of non contradiction
characteristic for Greek philosophy
Western viewpoints:
emphasis on happiness
expecting future to go in predictable and linear way
dialecticism
Lao Tzu teaching (yin-yang -> underlies balance) = contradicting ideas can co-exist
Eatern viewpoint
in cultural context: more comfortable reporting feeling both good and bad
nothing is fixed -> if one would be happy all the time, you would miss out a lot
change is fluid, unpredictable, non linear
analytical approach to talking
focusing on seperate parts, each part can be described seperately and sequentially
talking is interwined with thinking
interactive teaching style -> highlights importance of discussion + debates
holistic approach to talking
attention to the whole, not easy to describe multiple relations at once
talking may interfere with thinking -> more appreciation of silence
Japanese mothers speak less to their young children -> more nonverbal communication
performance on Raven’s Progressive Matrices depending on condition and culture
condition -> thinking aloud (describing one’s decisions step by step), atriculatory suppression (reciting alphabet out loud)
European Americans -> struggle in articulatory suppression -> using talking to think
Asian Americans -> struggle in thinking aloud condition -> seeing task as complete part -> sequential thinking is hard
low context culture
less involvement between speakers, less shared information, looseness = less rules about social interactions
focus on verbal content of the message -> explicit, direct communication
high context culture
deep involvement between speakers, more shared information, tightness = clear rules for social interactions
focus on non verbal (gestures, facial, expressions, tone) -> implicit, indirect communcation
lingusitic relativity hypthesis - strong version
language coerces thought -> words that are available to people determine how they think
discarded
linguistic relativity hypothesis - weak version
language influences thought
words that are available to people influence how they think
1) color perception
2) odor perception
3) spatial perception
4) numerical cognition
color perception
color spectrum is continous variable, but linguistically it is treated categorically
cultural variation in number of color lables
language differ in how many color labels they have
but they tend to differ in systematic way! -> as color terms increase across languages, distinctions are similar -> focal points are similar
color recognition with Dugum Dani who have only 2 color terms
Rosch Heider (1972) -> remembered colors in similar ways despite very different color terms -> taken as evidence against Whorf hypothesis
but then Roberson et al (2000) conducted replication in more sophisticated way showcasing that there is cultural variation in learning and remembering colors
Roberson et al. 2000, 2005
studied English speakers and Berinmo (people from Papua New Guinea)
asking people to which of 2 color option the target chip is more similar to
2 color options were in equal distance on color spectrum from target chip
English language -> distinction between green and blue -> more likely to categorize two sea green colors together = language influences perception
the same procedure for colors which are not differentiated in English → Berinmo did distinguish between them, English speakers didnt
odor perception
lack of odor terms in European languages -> little agreement between speakers -> comparison-based -> hard to find similarity if you code expressions
relativistic orientation
locations are indicated with words relative to the speaker (left, right, front, back) -> egocentric perception
Dutch people were more likely to replicate object sequence relative to themselves
absolute orientation
locations are indicated with words independent of the speaker (North, South) -> geocentric perception
Australia native group -> were more likely to put things back in the same order relative to the North and South
how spatial perception relates to time?
talking about time
English -> horizontal -> left to right
Arabic -> horizontal -> right to left
Pormpuraaw -> absolute -> East, West
affecting how pictures were put in the sequence
numerical cognition
if your language doesn’t make a distinction between 4,5,6,7 etc. - when you asked to replicate it the number of more than 4 objects, participants won’t do it correctly - it is not relevant for them
creative thinking in individualistic mindset
solutions can show one’s uniqueness, generate novel ideas, breakthrough innovations
creative thinking in collectivisitic mindset
solutions can fit with existing social concerns, generate useful ideas, incremental innovations
