What are some differences between Japanese and American visual perceptual environments, as catalogued by Miyamoto et al.
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What are some differences between Japanese and American "visual perceptual environments," as catalogued by Miyamoto et al. (attention to differences, not perceptive behaviors).
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470 Opinion TRENDS in Cognitive Sciences Vol.9 No.10 October 2005 Box 1. Attending to context and the relation between the object and the context Masuda and Nisbett showed Japanese and American subjects short video clips depicting an underwater scene with salient, focal objects (fish), as well as contextual objects, such as small animals, plants and rocks (Figure I shows a still picture from one of the video clips), and asked them to report what they saw in the clip [13]. Americans started their statements by referring to salient objects (defined as being larger, brighter and more rapidly moving) far more frequently than did Japanese subjects, whereas Japanese started their statements by referring to context information (defined as non- moving objects or objects that appeared to be in the background) almost twice as frequently as Americans did. Overall, Japanese subjects reported 60 percent more information about the context than did Americans. In a subsequent recognition task, participants were presented with objects they had seen previously, either with their original background, a novel background, or no background, and were asked to indicate whether they had previously seen the objects. Whereas Americans' performance was not affected by the background manipulation, Japanese performance was impaired when the background was novel. These results indicate that Japanese tended to perceive the object and the field as a whole and 'bind' them in perceptual memory [14]. The findings overall indicate marked differences in what is attended to by Easterners and Westerners. Figure I. A still picture from one of the animated vignettes from Masuda and Nisbett [12]. They lasted for 20 s and were shown twice before participants were asked to report what they saw. American mothers' emphasis on labeling objects extends to the prevalence of nouns in American mothers' speech in general. Tardif and her colleagues found that whereas Mandarin-speaking mothers produced more verbs than nouns, English-speaking mothers produced more nouns than verbs when talking with their toddlers [38,39]. Corresponding to the mothers' speech, Mandarin- speaking toddlers produced relatively more verbs and fewer nouns than English-speaking toddlers (see also [40]). Such language usage and communication practices can guide children's attention to either the object (noun) or to the relationship between the object and the field (verb). Some researchers have started to explore the develop- mental trends resulting from such social practices. Using the FLT [12], one recent study found that whereas 4-year-olds in both Japan and the US performed better on the relative judgment task than on the absolute judgment www.sciencedirect.com Box 2. Priming culture Independent and interdependent social orientations are obviously both familiar in all cultures. (For example, consider the difference in orientation between playing an individual sport and playing a team sport.) Khnen and Oyserman [41] primed Americans with either an interdependent or independent orientation and subsequently gave them a letter-identification task. The priming procedure consisted of having participants read a brief paragraph about an ordinary activity (e.g. a trip to a city) and instructing them to circle all the pronouns in the test. In the interdependence condition, all the pronouns in the paragraph represented the self in relation to others (e.g. 'we', 'our', 'us'), whereas in the independence condition the pronouns represented the self independent of any relationships (e.g. 'I', 'my', 'me'). In the subsequent letter identification task, a large letter made up of smaller letters was presented and the participants were asked either to identify the small letters while ignoring the large letter (i.e. an analytic task focusing on features), or to identify the large letter (i.e. a holistic task focusing on the entire stimulus object). Those who were primed with independence were quicker in identifying the small letters than the large letter, whereas those primed with interdependence identified the large letter as quickly as the small letters. Similar priming effects have also been observed among Koreans (O. Cha et al., unpublished). Using the Framed-Line Test [20], it was found that Koreans who were primed with independence performed better on the absolute task than did Koreans primed with interdependence. task, American 5-year-olds became more accurate in the absolute task than in the relative task (S. Duffy et al., unpublished). Their results seem to suggest that both Americans and Japanese show holistic perception at age 4, but American children start to diverge from Japanese children by beginning to ignore the context and focusing on salient objects around age 5. Temporary effects of culture on perception Recently, several studies have shown a direct link between temporary social orientation (i.e. independent or inter- dependent notions of relationship) and analytic versus holistic perception. One way of showing this is to 'prime' social orientation (see Box 2). Researchers have taken advantage of the fact that some people are bicultural. If people have been exposed to two different kinds of social system, they might be expected to reason and perceive either holistically or analytically, depending on the cues prompting one cultural orientation or another. Chinese students in Hong Kong, where both traditional Chinese practices and Western social practices are well represented, were first shown cultural icons belonging to one of the two cultures (e.g. the American flag vs. a Chinese dragon) [42]. In a subsequent, ostensibly unrelated task, they were found to attribute cause to context after exposure to Chinese icons and to be more likely to attribute cause to the salient actor (actually, a fish in this task) after exposure to Western icons. Peng and Knowles [43] conducted a similar experiment with Chinese Americans. Instead of being presented with different cultural icons, participants were asked to recall an experience that clearly marked their identity either as an American or as an Asian, and were then given causal attribution tasks. Those who were primed with the American identity made more attributions to properties of a physical object and fewer contextual attributions than Opinion TRENDS in Cognitive Sciences Vol.9 No.10 October 2005 did those primed with the Asian identity. These findings indicate that the relationship between culture and cogni- tion can be flexible and dynamic, at least for individuals who are bicultural. Cultural affordances: daily practices In everyday life, people are constantly exposed to parti- cular cultural practices and environments that encourage culturally specific patterns of attention. Under normal circumstances, these practices and environments contrib- ute to the 'default' patterns of perception that are charac- teristic of a given culture. But changing the environment might be expected to produce at least a temporary change in default patterns of perception. There are some recent findings supporting this speculation. As discussed above, Masuda and Nisbett [15] found with the change blindness task that American subjects detected more changes in the focal objects, whereas Japanese subjects detected more changes in the field. However, these cultural differences depended in part on the type of scenery. Three types of scenery were used: Japanese scenery (e.g. a Japanese city), American scenery (e.g. an American city), and culturally neutral scenery (e.g. a construction site). Cultural differences were most pronounced with the neutral scenery. When they were viewing the Japanese scenery, both Japanese and Amer- ican participants detected more changes in the field, whereas when they were viewing the American scenery, (a) Scenery rating task An example of the American scenes (b) No. of detected changes 471 both groups detected more changes in the focal objects. These findings suggest that the perceptual environment prompts culturally specific patterns of attention. In order to examine how cultural differences in percep- tual environments might influence patterns of attention, Miyamoto et al. took 1000 photographs of randomly selected hotels, post offices and schools in small, medium and large Japanese and American cities [44]. Based on both objective and subjective measures, they found that the Japanese perceptual environments were more complex and contained a larger number of objects than the American perceptual environments. Japanese scenes therefore might encourage perception of the overall context and American scenes a focus on the few salient objects. Miyamoto et al. showed that cultural differences in the perceptual environment actually lead to somewhat different patterns of attention. American and Japanese undergraduates were presented with either 95 Japanese or 95 American scenes, like those in Figure 3a, and asked them to rate how much they liked each scene. In a subsequent, ostensibly unrelated study, participants were given a change blindness task. As can be seen in Figure 3b, regardless of the cultural background of the participants, those who were exposed to the Japanese perceptual environment detected more changes in the field or context than did those who were exposed to the American perceptual environment. These findings indicate that the perceptual environment can afford specific patterns of attention. Change blindness task 3.5 35 2.5- 2 1.5 0.5 0 Americans An example of the Japanese scenes Japanese US scenes JP scenes TRENDS in Cognitive Sciences Figure 3. An illustration of cultural affordances. (a) Miyamoto et al. [44] first presented American and Japanese participants with either 95 Japanese or 95 American scenes and asked them to rate how much they liked each scene. In a subsequent, ostensibly unrelated study, participants were given a change blindness task. (b) Regardless of the cultural background of the participants, those who were exposed to the Japanese perceptual environment (red bars) detected more changes in the field or context than did those who were exposed to the American perceptual environment (blue bars). www.sciencedirect.com 470 Opinion TRENDS in Cognitive Sciences Vol.9 No.10 October 2005 Box 1. Attending to context and the relation between the object and the context Masuda and Nisbett showed Japanese and American subjects short video clips depicting an underwater scene with salient, focal objects (fish), as well as contextual objects, such as small animals, plants and rocks (Figure I shows a still picture from one of the video clips), and asked them to report what they saw in the clip [13]. Americans started their statements by referring to salient objects (defined as being larger, brighter and more rapidly moving) far more frequently than did Japanese subjects, whereas Japanese started their statements by referring to context information (defined as non- moving objects or objects that appeared to be in the background) almost twice as frequently as Americans did. Overall, Japanese subjects reported 60 percent more information about the context than did Americans. In a subsequent recognition task, participants were presented with objects they had seen previously, either with their original background, a novel background, or no background, and were asked to indicate whether they had previously seen the objects. Whereas Americans' performance was not affected by the background manipulation, Japanese performance was impaired when the background was novel. These results indicate that Japanese tended to perceive the object and the field as a whole and 'bind' them in perceptual memory [14]. The findings overall indicate marked differences in what is attended to by Easterners and Westerners. Figure I. A still picture from one of the animated vignettes from Masuda and Nisbett [12]. They lasted for 20 s and were shown twice before participants were asked to report what they saw. American mothers' emphasis on labeling objects extends to the prevalence of nouns in American mothers' speech in general. Tardif and her colleagues found that whereas Mandarin-speaking mothers produced more verbs than nouns, English-speaking mothers produced more nouns than verbs when talking with their toddlers [38,39]. Corresponding to the mothers' speech, Mandarin- speaking toddlers produced relatively more verbs and fewer nouns than English-speaking toddlers (see also [40]). Such language usage and communication practices can guide children's attention to either the object (noun) or to the relationship between the object and the field (verb). Some researchers have started to explore the develop- mental trends resulting from such social practices. Using the FLT [12], one recent study found that whereas 4-year-olds in both Japan and the US performed better on the relative judgment task than on the absolute judgment www.sciencedirect.com Box 2. Priming culture Independent and interdependent social orientations are obviously both familiar in all cultures. (For example, consider the difference in orientation between playing an individual sport and playing a team sport.) Khnen and Oyserman [41] primed Americans with either an interdependent or independent orientation and subsequently gave them a letter-identification task. The priming procedure consisted of having participants read a brief paragraph about an ordinary activity (e.g. a trip to a city) and instructing them to circle all the pronouns in the test. In the interdependence condition, all the pronouns in the paragraph represented the self in relation to others (e.g. 'we', 'our', 'us'), whereas in the independence condition the pronouns represented the self independent of any relationships (e.g. 'I', 'my', 'me'). In the subsequent letter identification task, a large letter made up of smaller letters was presented and the participants were asked either to identify the small letters while ignoring the large letter (i.e. an analytic task focusing on features), or to identify the large letter (i.e. a holistic task focusing on the entire stimulus object). Those who were primed with independence were quicker in identifying the small letters than the large letter, whereas those primed with interdependence identified the large letter as quickly as the small letters. Similar priming effects have also been observed among Koreans (O. Cha et al., unpublished). Using the Framed-Line Test [20], it was found that Koreans who were primed with independence performed better on the absolute task than did Koreans primed with interdependence. task, American 5-year-olds became more accurate in the absolute task than in the relative task (S. Duffy et al., unpublished). Their results seem to suggest that both Americans and Japanese show holistic perception at age 4, but American children start to diverge from Japanese children by beginning to ignore the context and focusing on salient objects around age 5. Temporary effects of culture on perception Recently, several studies have shown a direct link between temporary social orientation (i.e. independent or inter- dependent notions of relationship) and analytic versus holistic perception. One way of showing this is to 'prime' social orientation (see Box 2). Researchers have taken advantage of the fact that some people are bicultural. If people have been exposed to two different kinds of social system, they might be expected to reason and perceive either holistically or analytically, depending on the cues prompting one cultural orientation or another. Chinese students in Hong Kong, where both traditional Chinese practices and Western social practices are well represented, were first shown cultural icons belonging to one of the two cultures (e.g. the American flag vs. a Chinese dragon) [42]. In a subsequent, ostensibly unrelated task, they were found to attribute cause to context after exposure to Chinese icons and to be more likely to attribute cause to the salient actor (actually, a fish in this task) after exposure to Western icons. Peng and Knowles [43] conducted a similar experiment with Chinese Americans. Instead of being presented with different cultural icons, participants were asked to recall an experience that clearly marked their identity either as an American or as an Asian, and were then given causal attribution tasks. Those who were primed with the American identity made more attributions to properties of a physical object and fewer contextual attributions than Opinion TRENDS in Cognitive Sciences Vol.9 No.10 October 2005 did those primed with the Asian identity. These findings indicate that the relationship between culture and cogni- tion can be flexible and dynamic, at least for individuals who are bicultural. Cultural affordances: daily practices In everyday life, people are constantly exposed to parti- cular cultural practices and environments that encourage culturally specific patterns of attention. Under normal circumstances, these practices and environments contrib- ute to the 'default' patterns of perception that are charac- teristic of a given culture. But changing the environment might be expected to produce at least a temporary change in default patterns of perception. There are some recent findings supporting this speculation. As discussed above, Masuda and Nisbett [15] found with the change blindness task that American subjects detected more changes in the focal objects, whereas Japanese subjects detected more changes in the field. However, these cultural differences depended in part on the type of scenery. Three types of scenery were used: Japanese scenery (e.g. a Japanese city), American scenery (e.g. an American city), and culturally neutral scenery (e.g. a construction site). Cultural differences were most pronounced with the neutral scenery. When they were viewing the Japanese scenery, both Japanese and Amer- ican participants detected more changes in the field, whereas when they were viewing the American scenery, (a) Scenery rating task An example of the American scenes (b) No. of detected changes 471 both groups detected more changes in the focal objects. These findings suggest that the perceptual environment prompts culturally specific patterns of attention. In order to examine how cultural differences in percep- tual environments might influence patterns of attention, Miyamoto et al. took 1000 photographs of randomly selected hotels, post offices and schools in small, medium and large Japanese and American cities [44]. Based on both objective and subjective measures, they found that the Japanese perceptual environments were more complex and contained a larger number of objects than the American perceptual environments. Japanese scenes therefore might encourage perception of the overall context and American scenes a focus on the few salient objects. Miyamoto et al. showed that cultural differences in the perceptual environment actually lead to somewhat different patterns of attention. American and Japanese undergraduates were presented with either 95 Japanese or 95 American scenes, like those in Figure 3a, and asked them to rate how much they liked each scene. In a subsequent, ostensibly unrelated study, participants were given a change blindness task. As can be seen in Figure 3b, regardless of the cultural background of the participants, those who were exposed to the Japanese perceptual environment detected more changes in the field or context than did those who were exposed to the American perceptual environment. These findings indicate that the perceptual environment can afford specific patterns of attention. Change blindness task 3.5 35 2.5- 2 1.5 0.5 0 Americans An example of the Japanese scenes Japanese US scenes JP scenes TRENDS in Cognitive Sciences Figure 3. An illustration of cultural affordances. (a) Miyamoto et al. [44] first presented American and Japanese participants with either 95 Japanese or 95 American scenes and asked them to rate how much they liked each scene. In a subsequent, ostensibly unrelated study, participants were given a change blindness task. (b) Regardless of the cultural background of the participants, those who were exposed to the Japanese perceptual environment (red bars) detected more changes in the field or context than did those who were exposed to the American perceptual environment (blue bars). www.sciencedirect.com
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Japanese vs American Visual Perceptual Environments 1 Complexity and Number of Objects Japanese Perceptual Environments Miyamoto et al observed that Japanese scenes tend to be more complex and contain ... View the full answer
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