Lecture 5: Cognition and perception

Question 1

analytic thinking

Answer 1

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

Question 2

holistic thinking

Answer 2

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

Question 3

How did those different thinking styles arose?

Answer 3

1) proximal causes -> socialization and ongoing social experiences

2) distal causes -> philosophical traditions

Question 4

Proximal causes of thinking styles

Answer 4

-> 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)

Question 5

Distal causes of thinking styles

Answer 5

philosophical traditions (analytical thinking -> Greek influences -> Plato; holistic thinking -> taosim, confucianism, buddism)

Question 6

Ancient Greek philosophy

Answer 6

Plato = world as collection of discrete, unchanging objects

scientific discoveries -> gravity (objects have property of gravity)

development of formal logic system, abstract rules, syllogisms

Question 7

attention in analytical thinking

Answer 7

attention on different parts of a scene

objects seperated from their background fields

field independence -> rod and frame task is manageable

Question 7

Ancient Chinese philosophy

Answer 7

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

Question 8

attention in holistic thinking

Answer 8

attention is broad and across the entire scene

objects are bound to their backgrounds

field dependence -> rod and frame task is very hard

Question 9

task: how is John feeling?

Answer 9

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

Question 10

How importance (or its lack) of context is illustrated by art?

Answer 10

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

Question 11

comparison between daily scenes while walking through cities

Answer 11

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

Question 12

dispositional attributions

Answer 12

analytical thinking -> identifying underlying attributes; considering people’s inner, stable qualities

Question 13

situational attributions

Answer 13

holistic thinking -> identifying situational influences, considering people’s changing relation with context

Question 14

fundamental attribution error

Answer 14

even if you have situational information available, people with more analytic thinking style would more more weigh on dispositional attributions

Question 15

How fundamental is fundamental attribution error?

Answer 15

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

Question 16

rule based reasoning

Answer 16

universal abstract rules and laws -> stem is going in the same way = consistent singluar feature

Question 17

associative reasoning

Answer 17

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

Question 18

law of non contradiction

Answer 18

characteristic for Greek philosophy

Western viewpoints:
emphasis on happiness

expecting future to go in predictable and linear way

Question 19

dialecticism

Answer 19

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

Question 20

analytical approach to talking

Answer 20

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

Question 21

holistic approach to talking

Answer 21

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

Question 22

performance on Raven’s Progressive Matrices depending on condition and culture

Answer 22

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

Question 23

low context culture

Answer 23

less involvement between speakers, less shared information, looseness = less rules about social interactions

focus on verbal content of the message -> explicit, direct communication

Question 24

high context culture

Answer 24

deep involvement between speakers, more shared information, tightness = clear rules for social interactions

focus on non verbal (gestures, facial, expressions, tone) -> implicit, indirect communcation

Question 25

lingusitic relativity hypthesis - strong version

Answer 25

language coerces thought -> words that are available to people determine how they think

discarded

Question 26

linguistic relativity hypothesis - weak version

Answer 26

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

Question 27

color perception

Answer 27

color spectrum is continous variable, but linguistically it is treated categorically

Question 28

cultural variation in number of color lables

Answer 28

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

Question 29

color recognition with Dugum Dani who have only 2 color terms

Answer 29

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

Question 30

Roberson et al. 2000, 2005

Answer 30

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

Question 31

odor perception

Answer 31

lack of odor terms in European languages -> little agreement between speakers -> comparison-based -> hard to find similarity if you code expressions

Question 32

relativistic orientation

Answer 32

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

Question 33

absolute orientation

Answer 33

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

Question 34

how spatial perception relates to time?

Answer 34

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

Question 35

numerical cognition

Answer 35

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

Question 36

creative thinking in individualistic mindset

Answer 36

solutions can show one’s uniqueness, generate novel ideas, breakthrough innovations

Question 37

creative thinking in collectivisitic mindset

Answer 37

solutions can fit with existing social concerns, generate useful ideas, incremental innovations