Cultural differences in the visual processing of meaning: Detecting incongruities between background and foreground objects using the N400

Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience

Volumn 5, Issue 2-3, 2009, Pages 242-253

  Goto, Sharon G ^a   Ando, Yumi ^a   Huang, Carol ^a   Yee, Alicia ^a   Lewis, Richard S ^a  

^a POMONA COLLEGE   (United States)

Author keywords

Context; Culture; Event related potential; N400; Self construal; Visual semantic processing

Indexed keywords

ADOLESCENT; ADULT; ARTICLE; ASIAN; CAUCASIAN; COMPARATIVE STUDY; CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY; CULTURAL FACTOR; ELECTROENCEPHALOGRAPHY; EVOKED RESPONSE; FEMALE; HUMAN; INFORMATION PROCESSING; MALE; MENTAL FUNCTION; PHOTOSTIMULATION; PHYSIOLOGY; PSYCHOMOTOR PERFORMANCE; VISION;

ADOLESCENT; ASIAN CONTINENTAL ANCESTRY GROUP; CROSS-CULTURAL COMPARISON; CULTURE; DATA COLLECTION; ELECTROENCEPHALOGRAPHY; EUROPEAN CONTINENTAL ANCESTRY GROUP; EVOKED POTENTIALS; FEMALE; HUMANS; MALE; MENTAL PROCESSES; PHOTIC STIMULATION; PSYCHOMOTOR PERFORMANCE; VISUAL PERCEPTION; YOUNG ADULT;

EID: 77954518549     PISSN: 17495016     EISSN: 17495024     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1093/scan/nsp038     Document Type: Article

References (44)

1. Boduroglu, A., Shah, P., Nisbett, R.E. (2009). Cultural differences in allocation of attention in visual information processing. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 40, 349-60.
2. Choi, I., Nisbett, R.E. (1998). The cultural psychology of surprise: Holistic theories and recognition of contradiction. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 79, 890-905.
3. Chua, H.F., Boland, J.E., Nisbett, R.E. (2005). Cultural variation in eye movements during scene perception. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 102, 12629-33.
4. Ferree, T.C., Luu, P., Russell, G.S., Tucker, D.M. (2001). Scalp electrode impedance, infection risk, and EEG data quality. Clinical Neurophysiology, 112, 536-44.
5. Ganis, G., Kutas, M. (2003). An electrophysiological study of scene effects on object identification. Cognitive Brain Research, 16, 123-44.
6. Goh, J.O., Chee, M.W., Tan, J.C., et al. (2007). Age and culture modulate object processing and object-scene binding in the ventral visual area. Cognitive, Affective & Behavioral Neueroscience, 7,44-52.
7. Gutchess, A.H., Welsh, R.C., Boduroglu, A., Park, D.C. (2006). Cultural differences in neural function associated with object processing. Cognitive, Affective & Behavioral Neuroscience, 6, 102-9.
8. Haberstroh, S., Oyserman, D., Schwarz, N., Kuhnen, U., Ji, L.J. (2002). Is the interdependent self more sensitive to question context than the independent self?: self-construal and the observation of conversational norms. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 38, 323-9.
9. Hedden, T., Ketay, S., Aron, A., Markus, H.R., Gabrieli, J.D.E. (2008). Cultural influences on neural substrates of attentional control. Psychological Science, 19,12-7.
10. Heine, S.J., Lehman, D.R., Peng, K., Greenholtz, J. (2002). What's wrong with cross-cultural comparisons of subjective likert scales? The referencegroup effect. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 82, 903-18.
11. Heine, S.J., Norenzayan, A. (2006). Toward a psychological science for a cultural species. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 1, 251-69.
12. Helenius, P., Salmelin, R., Service, E., Connolly, J.F. (1998). Distinct time courses of word and context comprehension in the left temporal cortex. Brain, 121, 1133-42.
13. Holcomb, P.J. (1993). Semantic priming and stimulus degradation: implications for the role of the N400 in language processing. Psychophysiology, 30,47-61.
14. Holcomb, P.J., Neville, H.J. (1991). The electrophysiology of spoken sentence processing. Psychobiology, 19, 286-300.
15. Ishii, K., Reyes, J.A., Kitayama, S. (2003). Spontaneious attention to word content versus emotional tone: Differences among three cultures. Psychological Science, 14,39-46.
16. Ji, L.J., Peng, K.P., Nisbett, R.E. (2000). Culture, control, and perception of relationships in the environment. Journal of personality and social psychology, 78, 943-55.
17. Kim, H.S. (2002). We talk? Therefore we think. A cultural analysis of the effect of talking on thinking. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 83, 828-42.
18. Kitayama, S., Duffy, S., Kawamura, T., Larsen, J.T. (2003). Perceiving an object and its context in different cultures: a cultural look at new look. Psychological Science, 14(3), 201-6.
19. Kitayama, S., Duffy, S., Uchida, Y. (2007). Self as cultural mode of being. In: Kitayama, S., Cohen, D., editors. Handbook of Cultural Psychology. New York: Guilford Press, pp. 136-74.
20. Kitayama, S., Ishii, K., Imada, T., Takemura, K., Ramaswamy, J. (2006). Voluntary settlement and the spirit of independence: evidence from Japan's "Northern Frontier". Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 91, 369-84.
21. Kitayama, S., Snibbe, A.Cl, Markus, H.R., Suzuki, T. (2004). Is there any "free" choice? Self and dissonance in two cultures. Psychological Science, 15, 527-33.
22. Kuhnen, U., Hannover, B., Schubert, B. (2001). The semantic-procedural interface model of the self: The role of self-knowledge for contextdependent versus context-independent modes of thinking. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 80, 397-409.
23. Kutas, M., Hillyard, S.A. (1980). Reading senseless sentences: brain potentials reflect semantic incongruity. Science, 201, 203-5.
24. Kutas, M., Hillyard, S.A. (1984). Brain potentials during reading reflect word expectancy and semantic association. Nature, 307, 161-3.
25. Leung, K., Bond, M.H. (1984). The impact of cultural collectivism on reward allocation. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 47(4), 793-804.
26. Lewis, R.S., Goto, S.G., Kong, L. (2008). Culture and context: East Asian American and European American differences in P3 event-related potentials. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 34, 623-34.
27. Markus, H.R., Kitayama, S. (1991). Culture and the self: implications for cognition, emotion, and motivation. Psychological Review, 98, 224-53.
28. Masuda, T., Kitayama, S. (2004). Perceiver-induced constraint and attitude attribution in japan and the US: a case for the cultural dependence of the correspondence bias. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 40, 409-16.
29. Masuda, T., Nisbett, R.E. (2001). Attending holistically versus analytically: comparing the context sensitivity of Japanese and Americans. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 81, 922-34.
30. Masuda, T., Nisbett, R.E. (2006). Culture and change blindness. Cognitive Science, 30, 381-99.
31. McCarthy, G., Nobre, A.C., Bentin, S., Spencer, D.D. (1995). Languagerelated field potentials in the anterior-medial temporal lobe: I. Intracranial distribution and neural generators. Journal of Neuroscience, 15, 1080-9.
32. Miyamoto, Y., Kitayama, S. (2002). Cultural variation in correspondence bias: The critical role of attitude diagnosticity of socially constrained behavior. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 83, 1239-48.
33. Miyamoto, Y., Nisbett, R. E., Masuda, T. (2006). Culture and the physical environment-holistic versus analytic perceptual affordances. Psychological Science, 17, 113-9.
34. Morris, M.W., Peng, K. (1994). Culture and cause-American and Chinese attributions for social and physical events. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 67, 949-71.
35. Newman, A.J., Pancheva, R., Ozawa, K., Neville, H.J., Ullman, M.T. (2001). An event-related fMRI study of syntactic and semantic violations. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, 30, 339-64.
36. Nobre, A.C., McCarthy, G. (1995). Language-related field potentials in the anterior-medial temporal lobe: II. Effects of word type and semantic priming. Journal of Neuroscience, 15, 1090-8.
37. Norenzayan, A., Choi, I., Peng, K. (2007). Perception and cognition. In: Kitayama, S., Cohen, D., editors. Handbook of Cultural Psychology. New York: Guilford Press, pp. 569-94.
38. Nisbett, R.E., Peng, K.P., Choi, I., Norenzayan, A. (2001). Culture and systems of thought: Holistic versus analytic cognition. Psychological Review, 108, 291-310.
39. Oyserman, D., Coon, H.M., Kemmelmeier, M. (2002). Rethinking individualism and collectivism: Evaluation of theoretical assumptions and meta-analyses. Psychological Bulletin, 128,3-72.
40. Posner, M.I., Walker, J.A., Friedrich, F.J., Rafal, R.D. (1984). Effects of parietal injury on covert orienting of attention. Journal of Neuroscience, 4, 1863-74.
41. Ratcliff, R. (1993). Methods for dealing with reaction time outliers. Psychological Bulletin, 114, 510-32.
42. Schimmack, U., Oishi, S., Diener, E. (2005). Individualism: A valid and important dimension of cultural differences between nations. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 9,17-31.
43. Singelis, T.M. (1994). The measurement of independent and interdependent self-construals. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 20, 580-91.
44. West, W.C., Holcomb, P.J. (2002). Event-related potentials during discourse-level semantic integration of complex pictures. Cognitive Brain Research, 13, 363-75.