COE Postdoctoral Fellow Workshop with Professor Cook: Feb 17, 2005 Culture and Attention: Comparing the Context Sensitivity between East Asians and Westerners Takahiko Masuda, Ph.D COE Postdoctoral Fellow Hokkaido University Japan

Culture? Culture: A dominant symbolic meaning system (e.g. worldview) sustained and transmitted over generations by members of a given society, which then shape the member’s psychological processes.

East Asians’ Attention Westerner's Attention East Asians’ Attention Worldview: Things exist by themselves and can be defined by their attributes (context independent, object-oriented). Worldview: Things are inter-related. Various factors are involved in an event (context dependent, context-sensitive). (Nisbett, 2003; Nisbett, Peng, Choi, & Norenzayan, 2001)

Cultural Variations in Socio-Cognitive Processes Westerners East Asians Self Concept Markus & Kitayama, 1991 Independent The self – an entity detached from others and context Interdependent The self – relational & contextual existence Thinking Style Nisbett, Choi, Peng, Norenzayan, 2001; Nisbett, 2003 Analytic Object oriented ways of thinking Holistic Context oriented ways of Causal Attribution Morris & Peng, 1994 Lee, Hallahan, Herzog, 1999 Focus on Internal Factors Focus on both Internal and External Factors Attitude Inference Choi & Nisbett, 1998 Masuda & Kitayama, 2004 Miyamoto & Kitayama, 2003 Strong Correspondence Inference Weak Correspondence Inference

Culture and Attention：The Self-Report Task The Michigan Fish Test North Americans basically referred to the attributes of the target fish, whereas the Japanese referred to the background and contextual information as well as the target fish attributes. (Masuda & Nisbett, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 2001)

Culture and Attention： The Recognition Task The Michigan Animal Test (Masuda & Nisbett, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 2001)

Culture and Attention： The Change Detection Task The Flicker Paradigm (Rensink et al, 1997) (Masuda & Nisbett, under review; Nisbett & Masuda, PNAS, 2003)

Culture and Attention: Interpreting emotional expressions (Masuda, Mesquita, Ellsworth, Leu, Tanida & van de Veerdonk ; under review)

(Masuda, Mesquita, Ellsworth, Leu, Tanida & van de Veerdonk ; under review)

(Masuda, Mesquita, Ellsworth, Leu, Tanida & van de Veerdonk ; under review)

(Masuda, Mesquita, Ellsworth, Leu, Tanida & van de Veerdonk ; under review)

Culture and Attention: Interpreting emotional expressions The Japanese took into account the background figures’ facial expressions when judging the central figure’s emotion. (e.g. If the background figure looks happy, the degree of happiness of the central figure seems to be intensified). However, North Americans weren’t influenced by changes in the background figures’ facial expressions. Question: To what extent do people allocate their attention to the context information? Question: When, if at all, can we observe cultural variation in the allocation of attention? (Masuda, Mesquita, Ellsworth, Leu, Tanida & van de Veerdonk ; under review)

Westerners’ Attention East Asians’ Attention Culture and Attention: Interpreting emotional expressions Westerners’ Attention East Asians’ Attention (Masuda, Mesquita, Ellsworth, Leu, Tanida & van de Veerdonk ; under review)

Culture and Attention: Comparing East Asians’ and Westeners’ Esthetics East Asian fine arts in general emphasize the object as well as its Context. For example, the East Asian perspective includes: *The bird’s eye technique *The scroll technique *The concept of ‘Space’ Western fine arts in general emphasize the objects by themselves. For example, the Western perspective and portraits includes: *Drawing close objects large and far objects small. *Stabilizing the viewer’s stand point. *Utilizing the rule of covertures. *Excluding or darkening backgrounds (Masuda, Gonzalez, Kwan, & Nisbett; under review)

DV1: The Location of Horizon in Scenery Pictures Western Perspectives The size of objects Horizon Foreground-------------------------Background Flattening East Asian Perspectives 3D 2D Bird’s eye Horizon

DV2: The ratio of face/The entire frame Depth of Field Western Portraits Foreground---------------------------Background East Asian Portraits Foreground---------------------------Background

Comparing East Asians’ and Westeners’ Esthetics Study 1: Research on World’s Masterpieces Metropolitan Museum, NY, USA Landscape = 365 Portraits = 210 People = 110 National Museum in Tokyo, Kyoto, Taiwan, and Korea Landscape = 218 Portraits = 151 People = 291 (Masuda, Gonzalez, Kwan, & Nisbett; in preparation)

Comparing East Asians’ and Westeners’ Esthetics Study 2: Research on Students’ Drawings Example 1: American, female

Comparing East Asians’ and Westeners’ Esthetics Study 2: Research on Students’ Drawings Example 2: East Asian (Hong Kong), female

Comparing East Asians’ and Westeners’ Esthetics Study 3: Research on Students’ Portraits Americans East Asians The # of additional objects (%) The Location of the horizon (%) Drawings Drawings (Masuda, Gonzalez, Kwan, & Nisbett; in preparation)

Culture and Esthetic Preference: Study 3: Research on Students’ Portraits American Examples

Culture and Esthetic Preference: Study 3: Research on Students’ Portraits East Asian Examples

Culture and Esthetic Preference: Study 3: Research on Students’ Portraits Americans East Asians The ratio of the face to the frame (%) Laboratory Sitting Model Laboratory Standing Model Atrium Sitting Model Atrium Standing Model (Masuda, Gonzalez, Kwan, & Nisbett; in preparation)

Culture and Attention: Comparing East Asians’ and Westeners’ Esthetics Summary Overall, the location of horizon drawn by East Asian artists was significantly higher than those drawn by Western artists. In addition, the ratio of the face against the entire frame in East Asian paintings was significantly smaller than those in Western paintings. The results of the picture-drawing task and picture-taking task replicated the findings of the national masterpiece study. It suggests that even contemporary members of East Asian and Western cultures hold their traditional ways of capturing images.

Cultural Variations in Attention: Summary Westerners East Asians FISH Report Main Fish Main Fish as well as Context ANIMAL Recognition The Background effect was weak Influenced by the changes in background Flicker Paradigm Find changes in Focal objects Emotion Eye Movement Consistent Judgment Center 95% After 1 sec somewhat goes to the context Influenced by the background Center 85% After 1sec-->Goes to the Context Information Esthetics Object-Oriented (Western Perspectives, Portraits) Context-Oriented (East Asian Perspectives, Portraits with context) RFT Ji et al, 2000 Attending to the rod Attending to the frame FLT Kitayama et al. 2003 Absolute＞Relative Absolute＜Relative

Collaborators Culture & Cognition Richard E. Nisbett, University of Michigan Shinobu Kitayama, University of Michigan Culture & Emotion Phoebe Ellsworth, University of Michigan Batja Mesquita, Wake Forest University Culture & Esthetics Richard Gonzalez, University of Michigan Special Thanks: The Center of Cultural and Ecological Foundation of the Mind, Hokkaido University, Japan

Thank you