Week 2: Cognition & Perception Flashcards
(38 cards)
What are two ways of categorisation between Westerners and East Asians
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
Explain an experiment (rabbit, dog and carrot) to illustrate these differences in categorization
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.
What are two ways of thinking that differ between people from different cultures that underlie ways people think about the world
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
What are two possible causes (proximal/distal) for differences in thinking styles between cultures
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
Explain what is thought to be the “default” thinking style
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.
Explain how thinking style influences attention
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.
Explain the experiment with the Rorschach test related to attention
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.
Explain the experiment with the rod-and-frame test related to attention, and describe field (in)dependence
= 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
Explain the experiment with the foreground and background test related to attention
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.
Explain the experiment with the eye-tracking and focus related to attention
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.
Explain saccades
= 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.
Explain cultural differences in attention and artistic preferences
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.
Provide 2 studies (evidence) for these cultural differences in artistic preference
- 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.
Explain how thinking style influences attribution (understanding other people’s behavior)
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.
Explain the fundamental attribution error
= 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.
Describe a study on age and attribution done with Indian and US children of different ages
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.
Explain two kinds of reasoning when making decisions
Rule-based reasoning = making decisions based on fixed, abstract rules and laws.
Associative reasoning = making decisions based on the relationships between objects and events.
Explain how thinking style influences tolerance of contradiction
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).
Explain the perspective on change from an analytic (law of non-contradiction) perpective vs a holistic (dialecticism) perspective
Analytic: change occurs in linear ways, it is predictable and stable
Holistic: change is fluid, unpredictable and non-linear, even change changes.
Explain a study done on acceptance of contradictions
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.
Explain two other studies providing evidence for cultural differences in acceptance of contradictions
- 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.
Explain how thinking style influences talking and thinking
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.
Explain an experiment done on talking and thinking in different cultures
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.
Explain why this cultural difference between talking and thinking exists and explain the study with faces that demonstrates this
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.
