Brain and Culture

According to Gazzaniga, author of Who’s in Charge, “social organization affects cognitive processes indirectly by focusing our attention on different parts of the environment and directly by making some social communications patterns more acceptable than others.” Researchers flashed pictures of simple scenes to Americans and to East Asians and then asked them what they recalled. The East-Asian participants tended to pay attention to the entire overall scene while the American participants tended to recall main items in the picture. This appeared to reflect some cultural differences. Asians are more likely to see themselves as an interwoven part of a big picture, whereas Americans tend to see themselves as having more individual power.