Exposure to an urban environment alters the local bias of a remote culture

Caparos, Serge; Ahmed, Lubna; Bremner, Andrew; Fockert, Jan W. de; Linnell, Karina J.; Davidoff, Jules

doi:10.1016/j.cognition.2011.08.013

Cited by 78 publications

(85 citation statements)

References 18 publications

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“…Instead, our results simply show that the analytic/holistic processing distinction cannot account for all such effects; a new factor appears to be responsible, one that involves the stimulus properties themselves. As such, our proposal opens up some interesting new possibilities for explaining various cultural effects on perception (e.g., Caparos et al, 2012;Doherty et al, 2008), effects that have previously been explained only in terms of differences in analytic/holistic processing.…”

Section: Future Directionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Cultural Differences in Visual Search for Geometric Figures

et al. 2017

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While some studies suggest cultural differences in visual processing, others do not, possibly because the complexity of their tasks draws upon high-level factors that could obscure such effects. To control for this, we examined cultural differences in visual search for geometric figures, a relatively simple task for which the underlying mechanisms are reasonably well known. We replicated earlier results showing that North Americans had a reliable search asymmetry for line length: Search for long among short lines was faster than vice versa. In contrast, Japanese participants showed no asymmetry. This difference did not appear to be affected by stimulus density. Other kinds of stimuli resulted in other patterns of asymmetry differences, suggesting that these are not due to factors such as analytic/holistic processing but are based instead on the target-detection process. In particular, our results indicate that at least some cultural differences reflect different ways of processing early-level features, possibly in response to environmental factors.

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Section: Future Directionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Cultural Differences in Visual Search for Geometric Figures

et al. 2017

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“…Perceptional overload, long term exposure to an environment, which is busy and interpreted as stressful and dangerous, may result in poorer cognitive outcomes or even social isolation (Cacioppo & Hawkley, 2009;Caparos et al, 2012;Clarke et al, 2012;Linnell, Caparos, de Fockert, & Davidoff, 2013). Not only overload but also lack of environmental stimulation could be detrimental for cognitive functions in older adults (Schooler, 1984;Wu et al, 2017).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Perception Of Life Pace In The City And Countryside Among Older People

Frydrychová¹,

Horáková²,

Vidovičová³

et al. 2017

European Proceedings of Social and Behavioural Sciences

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Life pace in cities is often commented as very busy especially by people from smaller settlements. It is not clear whether this proverbial image, a stereotype, is based on prevalent subjective views in the elderly. The purpose of this study is to examine the occurrence of stereotypes of hectic city and tranquil countryside in older persons. The sample consisted of 131 retired healthy older persons of 60-74 years of age (M=68.47, SD=3.71) with the same place of residence in the capital city of Prague, mid-sized towns or villages of the Czech Republic since their age of 40 years. The participants underwent a structured interview and evaluated life pace on 4-point scale. Data were analyzed with non-parametric methods. Our results suggest that older persons regardless their place of residence consider Prague more hectic compared to towns and countryside. Non-Praguers, especially the ones with lower education, perceive Prague significantly more hectic compared to persons living in the capital itself. Recent visitors to Prague perceive the capital as more hectic than visitors with a further off experience.Our results are in accord with the proverbial stereotypes of the pace of life in different types of settlement. As time pressure and busy environment, hectic "nature" may in long-term affect individual emotional and cognitive development even in late adulthood, these influences and their impacts need to be yet researched more in detail.

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“…The first author has previously used a similarity-matching Navon task to test individual differences in perceptual bias (Caparos et al, 2012, and other data in preparation for publication) and has found effects of medium size. With correlational designs, 65 participants are necessary to detect medium-sized effects (r values between .25 and .30; Draper & Smith, 1998).…”

Section: Participantsmentioning

confidence: 98%

“…The task was constructed by choosing three 'strongly-global' displays (yielding more than 85% global matches in the British-participant data of Caparos et al, 2012), three 'moderately global' displays (yielding between 80% and 85% global matches), and three 'weakly global' displays (yielding less than 80% global matches). According to the ambiguity-tolerance hypothesis, individual differences should be strongest with the most ambiguous 'weakly-global' displays.…”

Section: Stimuli and Proceduresmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…However, given that in western culture most individuals naturally show a global bias (local bias is rare; e.g., in Caparos et al, 2012, only 13% of the Western participants showed a preference for local figures), a parsimonious prediction is that right-oriented Westerners should show a stronger global bias. This idea is supported by findings showing that right-oriented individuals favour conformity more strongly than left-oriented individuals (e.g., Duriez, Luyten, Snauwaert, & Hutsebaut, 2002;Jost et al, 2003).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 96%

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The tree to the left, the forest to the right: Political attitude and perceptual bias

et al. 2015

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A prominent model suggests that individuals to the right of the political spectrum are more cognitively rigid and less tolerant of ambiguity than individuals to the left. On the basis of this model, we predicted that a psychological mechanism linked to the resolution of visual ambiguity--perceptual bias--would be linked to political attitude. Perceptual bias causes western individuals to favour a global interpretation when scrutinizing ambiguous hierarchical displays (e.g., alignment of trees) that can be perceived either in terms of their local elements (e.g., several trees) or in terms of their global structure (e.g., a forest). Using three tasks (based on Navon-like hierarchical figures or on the Ebbinghaus illusion), we demonstrate (1) that right-oriented Westerners present a stronger bias towards global perception than left-oriented Westerners and (2) that this stronger bias is linked to higher cognitive rigidity. This study establishes for the first time that political ideology, a high-level construct, is directly reflected in low-level perception. Right- and left-oriented individuals actually see the world differently.

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Exposure to an urban environment alters the local bias of a remote culture

Cited by 78 publications

References 18 publications

Cultural Differences in Visual Search for Geometric Figures

Cultural Differences in Visual Search for Geometric Figures

Perception Of Life Pace In The City And Countryside Among Older People

The tree to the left, the forest to the right: Political attitude and perceptual bias

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