Abstract
Recent cross-cultural psychological research showed ample evidence that humans from different cultures are characterized by divergent cognitive processing styles. Specifically, people from Western cultures (e.g., European Americans) are characterized by an analytic cognitive style that is attuned to salient focal objects but less sensitive to contexts, whereas people engaged in East Asian cultures (e.g., Chinese, Japanese, Korean) possess a holistic cognitive style that is attuned to background and contextual information. Brain imaging research showed that cultures not only shape multiple-level cognitive processes but also induce variation of neural correlates underlying cognitive processes such as perceptual/attentional processing. The findings help to understand how cognitive processes and the underlying neural mechanisms are modulated by cultures so as to give rise to cultural specific thinking styles.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Gardner WL, Gabriel S, Lee AY (1999) “I” value freedom, but “we” value relationships: self-construal priming mirrors cultural differences in judgment. Psychol Sci 10:321-326
Goh JO, Chee MW, Tan JC, Venkatraman V, Herbrank A et al (2007) Age and culture moduldate object processing and object-scene binding in the ventral visual area. Cogn Affect Behav Neurosci 7:44-52
Han S, Northoff G (2008) Culture-sensitive neural substrates of human cognition: a transcultural neuroimaging approach. Nat Rev Neurosci 9:646-654
Hedden T, Ketay S, Aron A, Markus HR, Gabrieli DE (2008) Cultural influences on neural substrates of attentional control. Psychol Sci 19:12-17
Heinze HJ, Mangun GR, Burchert W, Hinrichs H, Scholz M et al (1994) Combined spatial and temporal imaging of brain activity during visual selective attention in humans. Nature 372:543-546
Hubel DH, Wiesel TN (1962) Receptive fields, binocular interaction and functional architecture in the cat’s visual cortex. J Physiol 160:106-154
Ji L, Peng K, Nisbett RE (2000) Culture, control, and perception of relationships in the environment. J Pers Soc Psychol 78:943-955
Kitayama S, Duffy S, Kawamura T, Larsen JT (2003) Perceiving an object and its context in different cultures: a cultural look at new look. Psychol Sci 14:201-206
Kühnen U, Oyserman D (2002) Thinking about the self influences thinking in general: cognitive consequences of salient self-concept. J Exp Soc Psychol 38:492-499
Kühnen U, Hannover B, Schubert B (2001) The semantic-procedural-interface model of the self: the role of self-knowledge for context-dependent versus context-independent models of thinking. J Pers Soc Psychol 80:397-409
Li SC (2003) Biocultural orchestration of developmental plasticity across levels: the interplay of biology and culture in shaping the mind and behavior across the life span. Psychol Rev 129:171-194
Lin Z, Han S (2009) Self-construal priming modulates the scope of visual attention. Q J Exp Psychol, Sec A 62(4):802-813
Lin Z, Lin Y, Han S (2008) Self-construal priming modulates visual activity underlying global/local perception. Biol Psychol 77:93-97
Livingstone MS, Hubel DH (1984) Anatomy and physiology of a color system in the primate visual cortex. J Neurosci 4:309-356
Markus HR, Kitayama S (1991) Culture and the self: implication for cognition, emotion and motivation. Psychol Rev 98:224-253
Markus HR, Kitayama S (2003) Culture, self, and the reality of the social. Psychol Inq 14:277-283
Masuda T, Nisbett RE (2006) Culture and change blindness. Cogn Sci 30:381-399
Miyamoto Y, Nisbett RE, Masuda T (2006) Culture and the physical environment: holistic versus analytic perceptual affordances. Psychol Sci 17:113-119
Navon D (1977) Forest before trees: the precedence of global features in visual perception. Cogn Psychol 9:353-383
Nisbett RE (2003) The geography of thought. Free Press, New York
Nisbett RE, Masuda T (2003) Culture and point of view. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 100:11164-11170
Nisbett RE, Peng K, Choi I, Norenzayan A (2001) Culture and systems of thought: holistic vs. analytic cognition. Psychol Rev 108:291-310
Puce A, Allison T, Gore JC, McCarthy G (1995) Face-sensitive regions in human extrastriate cortex studied by functional MRI. J Neurophysiol 74:1192-1199
Tootell RBH, Reppas JB, Dale AM, Look RB et al (1995) Visual motion aftereffect in human cortical area MT revealed by functional magnetic resonance imaging. Nature 375:139-141
Wexler B (2006) Brain and Culture. MIT Press, Cambridge
Acknowledgments
This work was supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China (Project 30630025).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2010 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Han, S. (2010). Cultural Differences in Thinking Styles. In: Glatzeder, B., Goel, V., Müller, A. (eds) Towards a Theory of Thinking. On Thinking. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-03129-8_19
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-03129-8_19
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-642-03128-1
Online ISBN: 978-3-642-03129-8
eBook Packages: Biomedical and Life SciencesBiomedical and Life Sciences (R0)