Brain, Behavior, and Culture: Insights from Cognition, Perception, and Emotion

Recent developments in cultural neuroscience have provided insights showing that human brain function can vary along cultural lines. In the present article, we review the contributions of cultural psychology to the study and understanding of human cognitive neuroscience by focusing on three key areas of importance: cognition, perception, and emotion. We first review what is known about the influence of culture on the brain with regard to some basic cognitive processes: language, mathematics, memory, and perspective-taking/theory of mind. We then review cultural influences on the neuroscience of perception, focusing on the perception of objects, scenes, and social cues. Finally, we review the role of culture in the understanding of emotion recognition from a cognitive neuroscience perspective. Together, these three components of human behavior and brain function serve to illustrate how a unique understanding of cognitive neuroscience can be gained from the study of culture. Psychology as an empirical discipline emerged as recently as the late nineteenth century, perhaps marked by Wilhelm Wundt’s establishment of the first psychological laboratory in 1879. The consideration of culture’s influence on the mind and behavior was present even in these early days, as Wundt himself is considered one of the first cultural psychologists (see Heine 2008). Despite a series of starts and fits, however, the study of psychology across cultures as it is known today did not take hold until the latter half of the twentieth century. This is largely because of the focus on behaviorism, and later cognition, that dominated mainstream psychological thinking during much of the period between. Yet the groundwork for what are presently the foundations of cross-cultural psychology were active throughout those times, even if only on the margins of psychology – spilling over from disciplines N.O. Rule Department of Psychology, University of Toronto, 100 St. George Street, Toronto, ON M5S 3G3, Canada e-mail: [email protected] J.B. Freeman and N. Ambady (*) Department of Psychology, Tufts University, 490 Boston Avenue, Medford, MA 02155, USA e-mail: [email protected]; [email protected] S. Han and E. P€oppel (eds.), Culture and Neural Frames of Cognition and Communication, On Thinking 3, DOI 10.1007/978-3-642-15423-2_7, # Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2011 109 such as cultural anthropology (e.g., Benedict 1934) and sociolinguistics (e.g., Whorf 1956). The goals of studying psychology across cultures can be largely simplified as understanding similarities and differences between groups with culture standing as the moderating variable in between. For example, a study by Zebrowitz et al. (1993) showed that European-Americans, African-Americans, and Koreans all showed relative agreement in their perceptions of various personality and physical traits from faces belonging to all three groups. Thus, we might say that impressions of facial attractiveness, for instance, are fairly constant across cultures – a face that is found attractive in one culture is generally found attractive in another, foreign culture (see also Cunningham et al. 1995). In a second study, though, Peng et al. (1993) found that, although Americans and Koreans agreed in their perceptions of the rate of speech of American and Korean speakers – they both agreed who was speaking slowly and who was speaking quickly – they disagreed about what meaning that held. Specifically, Americans attributed higher status to individuals who spoke quickly, whereas Koreans attributed higher status to individuals who spoke slowly. Thus, their perceptions were the same but their interpretations were strikingly different. Some of the most seminal studies in cultural psychology have investigated crosscultural similarities and differences in a similar fashion. For instance, Hofstede (1980) conducted a large international survey of employees of the company IBM living in numerous cultures. From the data he collected on the workers’ selfreported values, he was able to parse a handful of critical dimensions that seemed to describe major differences between cultures, such as distinctions of individualism and collectivism. Another classic study of cultural differences is derived from Witkin and Asch’s (1948) measure of field dependence known as the rod-and-frame test. Described simply, participants are presented with a rod within a frame both of which are capable of being moved. The test requires that the participant aligns the rod to a certain angle as the frame is moved. Field independence is described as the successful capacity to orient the rod to the proper angle regardless of the position of the surrounding frame. Field dependence, in contrast, is believed to be in effect when the position of the frame influences where the participant places the rod. That is, perception of the rod’s position is relative to the field that is created by the frame. Witkin and Berry (1975) reviewed cross-cultural differences in performance on the rod-and-frame test and reported that individuals who work together collectively (such as farmers) tended to show greater field dependence than did individuals living in industrialized areas where they were more likely to live and work in a more independent or individualistic fashion. Indeed, in a more recent but influential study, Ji et al. (2000) showed a dissociation between East Asians and Westerners (Americans) on the rod-and-frame test that was reflective of overall differences in holistic versus analytic processing. Americans were found to be field-independent, able to focus on the rod while ignoring the frame. East Asians were found to be field-dependent, highly influenced by the frame’s position in judging the angle of the rod. Thus, perhaps because of differences as basic as individualism and collectivism between the two cultures (see 110 N.O. Rule et al.