Complex Cognition (Subject) / Task 1 (Lesson)

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• What is Culture? Culture – defined by characteristics & knowledge of a particular group of people including language, customs, habits, modes of dress, beliefs & philosophies Cultural Syndrome  Cultural Universitality  Cultural Relativism 
• Cultural Syndromes (Triandis) ->  dimensions of cultural variation:  Pattern of shared attitudes, beliefs, categorisations, self-definitions, norms, role definitions & values among those that speak a particular language during a specific historical period and in a definable geographic region -> E.g. tightness/ complexity/ collectivism/ individualism/ active-passive/…
• Cultural Universitality – phenomena believed common to humankind (e.g. language) Poses question of how cultures shape it
• Cultural relativism  – don’t assume a process/ strategy/ capacity is present in all cultures  -In general culture shapes how people attend to their environment, perceive, memorise & learn and thus judge & make decisions
• Cross-Cultural Studies Perception - Hudson: “pictorial literacy” isn’t provided by schooling per se but by informal instruction and habitual exposure to pictures -The way in which people interpret two-dimensional pictures of three-dimensional scenes vary between cultures -People interpret cues according to the ways in which they have interpreted these cues in the past g learn to perceive in ways we need to perceive g can lead to false interpretation -One’s eco-cultural environment shapes one’s field dependence (= the degree to which the perception of an object is affected by contextual factors)
• Cross Cultural Studies Memory -Free recall – African children are less likely to look for clusters in a list of words than are American but when instructed to do so performance did not differ g no substantially different cognition Visuospatial memory – environmental pressure selectively enhances certain strategies (e.g. aboriginal vs white Aussie kids)
• Cross Cultural Studies Categorisation -  Develops to more sophisticated grouping with age and schooling (seems to apply cross-culturally) -  Differential exposure has dramatic effects on basic cognitive sorting tasks
• Cross Cultural Studies Reasoning P  Non-literate farmers struggle with the logic of syllogism as they have difficulties accepting the premises §  Refuse to treat them as truly general (especially when they contradict own experiences) §  Tend to rearrange them so conclusions can be formed from own knowledge Differences may be a consequence of differences in holistic vs. analytical processing of information rather than just schooling
• Cross Cultural Studies Counting P  Counting systems vary across cultures but the developmental pattern is similar Simpler counting system in china let’s those kids learn quicker
• Social interdependence/ social orientation hypothesis ð  – social orientation (independence vs interdependence) can account for cultural differences in cognitive styles with the former promoting holistic thinking and the latter promoting analytic thinking ð  The social orientation itself originates from ecology, socialisation, financial wealth and historical & human-made threats associated with social tightness §  Support: compare people living in same culture with only difference being their social orientation §  Support: also priming of interdependence can lead to holistic thinking while priming of independence leads to analytic thinking ð  Different social practices in turn lead to perceptual differences (especially differences in what is attended to) ð  SO: social & ancient economic structure - social practice - attention & perception - cognition ð  WHY? Different worldview of Greeks (logic, stable world view, discrete objects like atoms) vs. Chinese (never formulised logic, world is constantly changing, matter as continuous substances)
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• East Asians Social Situation P  High context – eastern self is interdependent and literally dependent on the context §  Live in complex social networks where context is important for functioning §  Emphasis on relationship Self-critical orientation
• East Asians Attention and Perception More likely to detect covariation between to arbitrary objects  Field Dependent 
• East Asians Attention and Perception More likely to detect covariation between to arbitrary objects  Field Dependent 
• East Asians Attention and Perception More likely to detect covariation between to arbitrary Objects Field Dependent Change Blindness  Affordances in the enviroment  Aethetics  Change vs. Stability
• Field Dependent have difficulty to make a separation between an object and the field in which it appears (e.g. rod & frame test g more influenced by position of the frame)
• Change Blindness P  more likely to perceive changes in relationship & environmental changes while Americans are more likely to detect changes in objects
• Affordances in the environment East and West P  both found it easier to detect objects in Western environments while finding it easier to detect field changes in eastern environments
• East Asians  Aesthetics broad perspective with high horizons as opposed to Americans
• East Asians Change vs. Stability see more change than Americans (bigger picture seems less stable)
• East Asians Cognition Holistic  Casual Attribution and Prediction  Logic vs. dialetics  Categorisation
• Holistic thinking East P  – likely to attend broad perceptual & conceptual field in which a salient object is located Notice relationships
• Casual attribution & prediction East P  – explain events in reference to interaction between object & field §  Understand concept of regression to the mean (e.g. athlete performance) §  More likely to result in correct analysis
• Logic vs. dialectics East P  more comfortable with apparent contradictions (e.g. more comfortable with a product with mixed reviews) §  More likely to give middle way solutions §  Unrelated to attention & perception!
•  Categorisation East – group things based on family resemblance rather than category membership
• Social Situation West P  Low context – western self is independent and largely unconnected §  Social world is hardly constraining so have ability to focus on object and their goals §  Independent action Positive self-regard – maintain positive self-view
• Cognition West P  Analytic  P  Intention to find rules that govern the behaviour of objects P  Casual attribution & prediction  P  Logic vs. dialectics P  Categorisation
• Analytic thinking inclined to attend some focal object (often exclusively) Step by step
•  Casual attribution & prediction West explain events in reference to properties of objects
•  Logic vs. dialectics West one has to be correct/wrong
•  Categorisation West P  classify on basis of rule-based category membership Unlike Asians value future more than past
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• Beyond East and West g  Working class more holistic (more interdependent) while middle class more analytic Voluntary settlement hypothesis
•  Voluntary settlement hypothesis g  frontiers attracted people with more independent orientation and fostered those norms g  More recently settled states are more individualistic g  Also religious cultures differ in aspects of cognition
• Effects of schooling and literacy on cognition P  Schooling provides practice in thinking about abstract topics in a decontextualized way P  Unschooled literacy doesn’t produce general cognitive effects but more localised/ task-specific contextualised ones P  Schooling affects the skill with which respondents can explain/ justify their responses (not the responses per se) g also only sometimes P  Culture sets boundaries & possibilities for cognitive tasks that are practiced & strengthened
• Situated Cognition g  Theoretical thought  g  Practical thought  Academic skills not optimal in everyday situations
• Theoretical Thought divorced from meaningful context (e.g. school)
•  Practical thought familiar & involved in purposive activities of daily life (more flexible and less rule based)
• Cultural Learning g  Human cultural artefacts & practices accumulate modifications over time based on the Ratchet effect (= individual inventions are copied by the group) g  Need imitative & normative conformity in order to engage in cultural learning as well as instructions by adults to support the process of faithful transmission g  Outside the human species there’s nothing like cumulative cultural evolution g  Westerns have more explicit instruction while Easterns have more guided participation
• Brain Activity P  Different neural networks underlie the cultural differences in social cognitive & affective processes P  East Asians: higher activity in left inferior parietal cortex, left middle occipital & left superior parietal cortex §  Higher activity in brain regions involved in inference of other minds, social perception & self-control/emotional regulation P  Westerns: higher activity in right lingual gyrus, right inferior parietal cortex & precuneus §  Enhanced activity in areas of self-reflection, own emotional responses & empathy for other’s emotional states
• Application Importance of Culture for Framing Advertising P  Method: 2 different advertisements (ethical vs. unethical) are evaluated by four different cultural groups in Indonesia P  Results: §  Brand attitude is strongest predictor for purchase intent §  Universal path: the ethicality of the ad strongly influences the likability of the ad which in turn influences attitude towards advertiser & brand (THUS: ethicality of ad g likability of ad g attitude towards advertiser g attitude towards brand g purchase intent) §  Culturally conservative groups have lower purchase intent when they don’t like the ad §  Non-conservative groups/ individuals usually follow the universal path

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