Week 2: Cognition & Perception

Question 1

What are two ways of categorisation between Westerners and East Asians

Answer 1

Taxonomic categorization = the grouping of items according to their perceived similarities.
–> Westerners
Thematic categorization = the grouping of items based on their causal, temporal, or spatial relationship.
–> East Asians

Question 2

Explain an experiment (rabbit, dog and carrot) to illustrate these differences in categorization

Answer 2

When faced with the following problem: which of these 3 is the least like the other two: a dog, a carrot, and a rabbit….? Westerners and East Asians tend to give different types of responses:
- Westerners: the carrot, because the rabbit and the dog are both animals.
- East Asians: the dog, because rabbits eat carrots and therefore they have a relationship.

Question 3

What are two ways of thinking that differ between people from different cultures that underlie ways people think about the world

Answer 3

Analytic thinking = Characterized by a focus on objects and their attributes. Objects are perceived as existing independently from their contexts, and they are understood in terms of their component parts. The features that make up objects are used as a basis for categorizing them, with fixed abstract concepts to predict and explain them.
–> more common in Western cultures
Holistic thinking = Characterized by a focus on the context as a whole. It is an associative way of thinking or paying attention to the relationships among objects, as well as between the objects and their surroundings. Objects are under­stood in terms of how they relate to the rest of the context. Holistic thinking also emphasizes knowledge gained through experience rather than the application of fixed abstract concepts.
–> more common in non-Western cultures

Question 4

What are two possible causes (proximal/distal) for differences in thinking styles between cultures

Answer 4

Socialization (proximal): people from different cultures are exposed to different social experiences and also to cultural products that emphasize analytically (independent; superman) or holistically (interdependent; the power rangers) perceived selves.

Philosophical traditions (distal): both thinking styles were already found to be present in ancient Greece (analytic) and Confucian China (holistic). It is not clear how they took root there though.
–> The ancient Chinese demonstrated holistic thinking in their traditions, medicine and knowledge
–> The Ancient Greek were more focused on scientific traditions and abstract principles

Question 5

Explain what is thought to be the “default” thinking style

Answer 5

Holistic thinking is found to be more prevalent in many countries and cultures and even in American babies. Therefore, it is likely that this is the ‘default’ thinking style and that analytic thinking is learned through contact with Western society and education systems.

Question 6

Explain how thinking style influences attention

Answer 6

Analytic thinkers, who perceive the world as consisting of discrete components, focus their attention on separate parts of a scene. In contrast, holistic thinkers, who perceive the world as an integrated whole, direct their attention more broadly, across an entire scene.
Similarly, East Asians see foreground objects as part of the background context, whereas Westerners focus on foreground objects, disregarding the background.

Question 7

Explain the experiment with the Rorschach test related to attention

Answer 7

European American and Chinese American participants were asked to describe what they saw in some Rorschach inkblots.
- European: tended to describe what they saw based on a single aspect of the image (a little blotch somewhere that looks like a Ferrari).
- Chinese: tended to give ‘whole-card’ responses, describing what they saw in the entire image.
–> Westerners perceive the world in analytic terms, while East Asians perceive it in holistic terms.

Question 8

Explain the experiment with the rod-and-frame test related to attention, and describe field (in)dependence

Answer 8

= A test that is comprised of a rod (line) and a surrounding frame that are both rotated in some way. The goal is to say whether the rod is pointing straight up, which can only be done by ignoring the frame’s position and just focusing on the rod. Analytic thinkers, who are high in field independence, can do this well. In contrast, holistic thinkers, high in field dependence, cannot.

Field independence = the tendency to separate objects from their background fields
Field dependence = the tendency to view objects as bound to their backgrounds

Question 9

Explain the experiment with the foreground and background test related to attention

Answer 9

American and Japanese participants viewed images of underwater scenes and described what they saw:
Japanese made about 60% more references to background images than Americans, who spoke more about a fish at the center of the images.
After this, the participants viewed additional scenes with the same central fish, but either the same or a different background as earlier. They were asked whether they had seen the fish before.
- Americans: regardless of background, recognition of the fish was pretty much the same.
- Japanese: were much more likely to recognize the fish when it had the original background.

Shows that East Asians seem to see foreground and background scenes as bound together, while Westerners seem to see them as separate.

Question 10

Explain the experiment with the eye-tracking and focus related to attention

Answer 10

Japanese and American participants wearing an eye-tracker were shown images with a central figure in the foreground surrounded by other people in the background. Each person had an emotional facial expression that was either inconsistent or consistent with the central figure. Participants were asked to identify the emotion of the central figure:
- American; The expression of background people had no impact on emotional expression judgments. They also focus more on the central figure, especially after the first second has passed.
- Japanese; Judgments of the central figure’s emotions were influenced by the background people. They also spend relatively longer focusing on parts of the background.

Shows that East Asians pay more attention to the background context than Westerners do, so different cultures are actually not seeing the same things when looking at a scene.

Question 11

Explain saccades

Answer 11

= Rapid eye movements in which the gaze shifts quickly from one fixation point to another. Research has shown that East Asians show more saccades than Americans, indicating that they scan an entire scene more thoroughly.

Question 12

Explain cultural differences in attention and artistic preferences

Answer 12

Evidence for the effects of thinking styles on people’s attention can also be found in portrait and landscape paintings. East Asian paintings emphasize the context by incorporating small figures and scenes with high horizons. They provide a more complex background by including more contextual elements (75% more). In contrast, Western paintings have relatively large central figures and low horizons. The same differences were found when kids were asked to draw a landscape.

The same applies for photography; when taking photographs, East Asians include more of the background in the frame and have smaller figures in their portraits, compared with Americans.

Question 13

Provide 2 studies (evidence) for these cultural differences in artistic preference

Answer 13

• Researchers compared actual landscapes in Japan vs the US. They found that the Japanese scenes actually contained more boundaries and edges than the American ones; the physical envi­ronment in urban areas is literally busier in Japan than in the U.S. Other research similarly finds that living in busy surroundings leads people to pay attention to the context, perhaps to facilitate exploration.
• Researchers explored how people from different cultures presented information to others. They looked at government and university websites in East Asia and North America and compared dimensions of the official portals for each site. The East Asian websites were much longer (eg. the scrollbar being smaller) than the North American sites and had many more links and words. Simply put, the East Asian websites were busier, with more information for people to navigate.

Question 14

Explain how thinking style influences attribution (understanding other people’s behavior)

Answer 14

Westerners usually make dispositional attributions when explaining other people’s behavior, while East Asians make situational attributions.
Dispositional attributions = explaining behavior in terms of someone’s underlying qualities.
Situational attribution = explaining behavior in terms of contextual factors.

Question 15

Explain the fundamental attribution error

Answer 15

= The tendency to ignore situational information while focusing on dispositional information in explaining other people’s behavior. It turned out not to be that fundamental (universal) as first thought.

Question 16

Describe a study on age and attribution done with Indian and US children of different ages

Answer 16

Children (aged 8, 11, and 15) and university students from India and the US were asked to describe a situation when someone behaved in either an expected, socially acceptable manner or a deviant, antisocial manner, and then to explain why the person had behaved that way. The reasons (dispositional or situational) people gave for these behaviors were examined:
- American; The older the participants, the more likely they were to make dispositional attributions (and to make the fundamental attribution error).
- Indian; The older the participants, the more situational attributions they made.

Shows that American adults are more likely to make the fundamental attribution error than Indian adults.

Question 17

Explain two kinds of reasoning when making decisions

Answer 17

Rule-based reasoning = making decisions based on fixed, abstract rules and laws.
Associative reasoning = making decisions based on the relationships between objects and events.

Question 18

Explain how thinking style influences tolerance of contradiction

Answer 18

The tendency for analytic thinkers to view objects as separate and internally consistent means it’s hard for them to tolerate contradiction (law of non-contradiction). In contrast, the tendency for holistic thinkers to view the world as consisting of fluid and interrelated parts leads to their belief that contradiction is natural, and they accept it in themselves and their world (dialecticism).

Question 19

Explain the perspective on change from an analytic (law of non-contradiction) perpective vs a holistic (dialecticism) perspective

Answer 19

Analytic: change occurs in linear ways, it is predictable and stable
Holistic: change is fluid, unpredictable and non-linear, even change changes.

Question 20

Explain a study done on acceptance of contradictions

Answer 20

Chinese and American students were presented with several contradictory arguments, such as:
- Argument A: a sociologist who surveyed college students from 100 universities claimed that there is high correlation among female students between smoking and being slender.
- Argument B: a biologist who studied nicotine addiction asserted that heavy doses of nicotine often lead to gaining weight.

Half of the participants received only one argument (A or B), while the other half received both. They were asked to indicate how plausible they found the argument(s) to be. Both Americans and Chinese tended to view argument A as more compelling than B when presented with 1 of them.
However, when presented with both arguments:
- Americans: were even more convinced in argument A, probably denying the contradiction by getting more confident in the better statement.
- Chinese: became less convinced in argument A and more convinced in argument B, probably because they were reminded of the fact that the world is often contradictory, making it hard for them to determine which argument was correct.

Shows that Analytic thinkers tend to reject contradiction, while holistic thinkers accept it.

Question 21

Explain two other studies providing evidence for cultural differences in acceptance of contradictions

Answer 21

• In one study, Chinese and American participants described themselves by completing a questionnaire. The Chinese were much more likely than Americans to provide statements that were apparent contradictions—such as suggesting they had both high and low self-esteem.
• In another study, Chinese and American students were shown graphs showing the past performance of certain trends (worldwide cancer death rates) and were asked to estimate what they thought would happen over the next few years. Chinese people were almost twice as likely as Americans to predict that the trend would reverse direction in the future. Americans were more likely to predict the trend would continue in the same direction as in the past. Shows that Chinese tend to have a nonlinear perspective of change, while Westerners usually have a linear perspective.

Question 22

Explain how thinking style influences talking and thinking

Answer 22

For analytic thinkers, talking is intertwined with thinking: they can focus on separate parts and describe them separately and sequentially. Holistic thinkers direct their attention to the whole and describing multiple relations at once is hard. Therefore, talking (thinking out loud) may interfere with their thinking.

Question 23

Explain an experiment done on talking and thinking in different cultures

Answer 23

European-Americans and Asian-Americans completed Raven’s Matrices (nonverbal IQ test) in 2 halves of 10 items each. Participants completed the first half without speaking. For the second half they were either asked to vocalize their thoughts while solving the items (thinking aloud), or to repeat the alphabet out loud while completing the items (articulatory suppression).
- European: did just as well when being silent as when thinking out loud, but the articulatory suppression task interfered with their thinking.
- Asian: did worse thinking aloud but were unaffected by the articulatory suppression task.

Shows that thinking out loud during a cognitive task interferes with performance of East Asians, but not Westerners. In contrast, an unrelated talking task does interfere for Westerners, but not for East Asians.

Question 24

Explain why this cultural difference between talking and thinking exists and explain the study with faces that demonstrates this

Answer 24

Holistic thinking involves an attention to the whole and the perception of how various parts are interrelated. Because speaking is a sequential task, holistic thinkers may find it hard to express themselves out loud. When you speak, one idea follows another, so you can’t describe multiple things at the same time. In contrast, analytic thinkers focus on separate parts, so speaking aloud is easier. Each part can be described separately and sequentially.

Study:
Participants in one study viewed photos and were asked to describe each face they saw. After describing the faces they saw, participants looked at another set of faces and were asked to indicate which ones they had seen before. Interestingly, people were better able to recognize the faces they had previously seen if they had not tried to describe them before. Apparently, their spoken descriptions interfered with their ability to process the face as a whole, causing them to have poorer recall.

Question 25

Explain cultural differences in explicit vs implicit communication in regards to talking and thinking and two kinds of cultures

Answer 25

Communication is more than just explicit verbal expression: it also includes implicit nonverbal cues (facial expressions). There are cultural differences in the degree to which communication relies on explicit or more implicit cues:
- High-context cultures (East Asia): people are deeply involved with one another, and they share information that guides their behavior –> they can be less explicit.
- Low-context culture (North America): less involvement among individuals, and therefore less shared information to guide behavior –> they have to communicate in more explicit details.

Question 26

Explain a study on ignoring the word/tone proving the differences in explicit and implicit communication

Answer 26

Japanese and American participants listened to words that were either pleasant (grateful) or unpleasant (complaint), accompanied by either a pleasant-sounding tone or an unpleasant-sounding tone. Sometimes the tone matched the word (grateful with pleasant tone; complaint with unpleasant tone) and other times it was the opposite. They were instructed to say whether the word was pleasant or unpleasant (ignore the tone) or say whether the tone was pleasant or unpleasant (ignore the word).
- Americans: had a harder time making judgments about the tone than about the words.
- Japanese: had a harder time making judgments about the words than about the tone.

Shows that Americans habitually focus on the meaning of what is said (explicit) than on the tone in which it is spoken (implicit). The opposite is the case for Japanese.

Question 27

Explain the Whorfian hypothesis of linguistic relativity

Answer 27

= A theory explaining the connection between cognition and language. It has 2 forms:
- Strong form: language determines how people think; we are unable to do much thinking on a topic if we don’t have the relevant words available to us.
–> This version has been almost universally rejected because much thought occurs outside of language (infants show evidence for quite complex thinking before being able to speak).
- Weak form: language influences how people think (using politically correct words).
–> Research has found that language influences: (1) color perception, (2) odor perception, (3) perceptions of agency, (4) spatial perception, and (5) numerical cognition.

Question 28

Explain how language influences color perception

Answer 28

Color is a perceptually continuous variable with endless hues of the rainbow. However, linguistically it is discrete: we have specific words for certain ranges of light wavelengths within the color spectrum.

Number of labels
There is cultural variation in the number of color labels that languages have. All languages have at least 2 words (roughly corresponding to black and white) but not all languages have more. However, there is a potential indication for universalism: as the number of distinctions (labels) increases, similar colors are added to the spectrum (languages with 3 color words usually have red next to black and white).

Perceiving colors
Languages differ in some or even most of their color lexicons. Different categories affect people’s categorical perception of colors.
- Categorical perception = perceiving stimuli as belonging to separate and discrete categories, even though they may gradually differ from each other along a continuum.

Question 29

Explain a study done on language and perceiving color in people from different cultures

Answer 29

Berinmo and English-speakers were shown a target chip and 2 other chips and were asked which was more similar to the target. Both chips were equally distant in hue from the target but either fell into different color categories or in the same:
English boundaries: both chips fall into 2 different color categories for English speakers (blue and green), but in the same color category for the Berinmo speakers (Nol).
- English: more likely to choose the chip that is in the same color category as the target (Chip 1).
- Berinmo: equally likely to choose either chip –> both are in the same color category as the target.
Berinmo boundaries: the opposite is the case. Now the Berinmo distinguish between the 2 chips, while the English do not. Therefore, the English are now equally likely to choose either chip, while the Berinmo choose the first chip most often.

The researchers also included triads of color chips based on the color categories of the Berinmo and the Himba. English speakers, Berinmo speakers, and Himba speakers viewed several such triads and indicated which chip was more similar in color to the target chip. There was some evidence that people from the different cultures made different choices. The English speakers were most likely to make judgments in line with categorical perception for stimuli that crossed the blue-green boundary. In contrast, the Berinmo speakers were most likely to show evidence for categorical perception when they discriminated between two stimuli that crossed the nol-wor boundary. Likewise, the Himba speakers were most likely to discriminate between colors that crossed the dumbu—burou boundary. Thus, color perception is influenced by the terms for color categories in the language of a culture (evidence for categorical perception).

Question 30

Explain how language influences odor perception

Answer 30

The English language is relatively impoverished in the descriptions of odors. The Jahai (a group of nomadic hunter-gatherers) have a much larger vocabulary of olfaction words and research has found that they are better in recognizing different odors (perhaps because of this). In contrast, Americans were found to be better at describing colors (and they have more color words than the Jahai). This can be seen as evidence for the influence of language on odor perception.
Further, when a language has odor terms, it has been found that people tend to agree more on its description, compared to languages that do not have terms for odors (so usually make use of comparisons).

Question 31

Explain how language influences perceptions of agency

Answer 31

In English, it is common to attribute behavior directly to someone taking an action (active construction; Justin broke the vase), whether it is intentional or unintentional. However, other languages (eg. Spanish) are more likely to use passive constructions (the vase broke) when behavior is unintentional.

Question 32

Explain a study done on language and perceptions of agency

Answer 32

English and Spanish speakers watched videos showing people involved in some actions, like breaking a vase, either by acting intentionally or unintentionally. Later, the participants saw pictures of different people and were asked to recall which one broke the vase.
- Intentional: English and Spanish speakers were equally accurate, because the languages do not differ on describing intentional agency.
- Unintentional: English speakers were more accurate than Spanish speakers, because the latter usually do not encode agency for unintentional behavior (they use passive constructions).

Shows that active vs. passive construction differences between languages influence perceptions of agency.

Question 33

Explain how language influences spatial perception

Answer 33

Spatial descriptions can vary a great deal between languages. Some languages use a relativistic orientation (egocentric perception), while others use an absolute orientation (geocentric perception).

Relativistic orientation = indicating locations with words relative to the speakers (left, front).
Absolute orientation = indicating locations with words independent of the speaker (North, South).

Question 34

Explain an experiment done on language and spatial perception

Answer 34

Dutch (relativistic orientation) and Guugu Yimithirr (absolute orientation) speakers were shown a row of figures of a cow, a pig, and a person on a table. The table was against the north wall, so participants were facing the north. They were then asked to go to a different room with a similar scene, but against the south wall. They were told to arrange the figures to create the same scene as in the first room.
- Dutch: arranged the scene based on their own position relative to the figures.
- Guugu Yimithirr: arranged the scene using cardinal (compass) directions, so the scene was turned around.

Shows that spatial references in a language (relativistic vs. absolute) influences how people perceive and remember things.

Question 35

Explain how language influences numerical cognition and The Piranha

Answer 35

Mathematical principles exist outside of culture, regardless of our ability to understand them. However, our ability to reason with numbers very much reflects our cultural experiences. Without words for specific numbers, people seem to be unable to understand the associated concepts.

The Piranha = A tribe that has a number system that contains only 1, 2, and ‘many’. It has been studied to investigate numerical cognition. In all kinds of different tasks they completed, their number of errors increased with the magnitude of the numbers they were asked to estimate.

Question 36

What were the main findings of the study of numerical cognition

Answer 36

• Absence of number words limited Piraha’s ability to perform a variety of numerical tasks.
• Piraha participants have estimation skills, they know 12 is larger than 8 but they can not distinguish between 8 and 9 (= rough quantity estimation skills)
• Support for linguistic determinism
• Language and numerical thinking are closely related.

Question 37

Explain the main point of the article on “Culture and the Physical Environment”

Answer 37

Culturally characteristic environments may afford distinctive patterns of perception.
Westerner’s perceptions tend to focus on salient foreground objects (analytic perception), whereas Asians are more inclined to focus on contexts (holistic perception). This is (at least partly) caused by the relatively complex environments of Asians, which afford more holistic perception.

Question 38

Explain the first study and the second study that were featured in the article on “Culture and the Physical Environment”

Answer 38

Study 1: Complexity of the environments
American and East Asian students were shown multiple pictures of US or Japanese environments (schools and hotels) and asked to rate their complexity and ambiguity. US scenes were rated to be less complex and ambiguous than the Japanese scenes.
The number of objects in the scenes was also analyzed with a computerized program, also showing that Japanese scenes had a much larger number of objects than the American scenes.
–> Shows that the Japanese environment is more ambiguous and contains more elements than the American environment.

Study 2: Patterns of attention
Participants were presented with either American or Japanese scenes and then asked to do an attentional task. When primed with Japanese environments, both Japanese and American participants attended more to contextual information than they did when primed with American scenes.
–> Shows that the Japanese environment affords more holistic perception than the American environment.