1. 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

2. 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.

3. 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)

4. 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

5. 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)

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

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

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

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

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

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

12. 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)

13. 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)

14. 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)

17. 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

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

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

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

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

24. 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)

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

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

27. 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)

28. 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.

29. 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

30. 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

31. Thank you