how does culture affect our perception of the world essay

On Psychology and Neuroscience

Culture’s influence on perception.

Culture plays an important role in molding us into the people we are today. It creates an environment of a shared belief, way of thinking, and method interacting among that group of people. It is dynamic and constantly changing across time. The culture you are born into will shape your eating behavior, such as what you eat, when you eat, and even how you eat. It will influence the clothes you choose to wear and the sports you play. Social norms set forth by your culture will determine how you interact with family members, friends, and strangers. Do you shake their hand when you great someone or kiss them on the cheek? It is clear that your environment shapes much of your outward behavior; but did you know that culture also influences brain function, altering the way you think about and perceive the world around you?

The words our culture uses is one such example of this phenomenon. The words our language provides impacts the way we are able to think. In a study done by Frank (2008) Pirahã speakers, a language spoken in small areas of the Amazon, were asked to count varying size groups of objects. However, there are no number words in the Pirahã language. Instead they describe amount do to relative size. Hói discribess a small number hoí describes a slightly larger number, and baágiso describes an even larger number. Thus if the groups were not directly next to each other and relatively the same size, Pirahã speakers could not say which group was larger. Counting is not important in day-to day lives and thus is not represented in their language. The researcher surmised that it was this lack of number language that impacted their perception of quantifies. In this way the words we use limits our cognition and thought. Have you ever been rendered speechless because you did not have the words to express your feelings? Have you ever come across a word in another language that does not exist in your own and are suddenly stunned at how you could have lived for so long without a word to describe that type of experience? In this way, words have a great impact on how we reason and perceive the world.

Furthermore language can also impact the way you think about space. The way one thinks about navigation and spatial knowledge changes depending on whether the language and culture encourages directions based on absolute frames of references (such as north and south) or relative frames of reference ( such as left and right). Kuuk Thaayorre, a small Aboriginal community on the western edge of Cape York in northern Australia, do not have navigational terms such as ‘left,’ ‘right,’ ‘backwards,’ or ‘forwards.’ Instead they describe direction in turns of north, south, east, and west. The Kuuk Thaayorre are much better at staying oriented in unfamiliar places compared to people who speak English. Their language forces them to think about space differently than English speakers, making them constantly aware of where north and south is relative to their current location.

Additionally, what we pay attention to and consequently the information we process is also influenced by culture. Many studies have shown Asian and Western cultures to differ in the judgment of relative and absolute sizing of objects as well as the recollection of focal objects vs background of pictures and videos (Chioa et al., 2010). People raised in Asian cultures recall background context and relative size more accurately. On the other hand, people raised in Western culture are able to more accurately perceive the absolute size of objects and remember the focal objects of images more accurately. Goh and Park (2009) found that the brains of people from Asian and Western cultures activate different areas when performing a figure-ground recognition task.

Culture is all around us, shaping our brain and behavior. Consequently, people from various cultures will process the world differently. Furthermore subcultures exist within cultures. Religions, communities, ad regional accents and customs all work to influence your cognition and perception. As  more and more research is executed, the idea of human nature dissipates and we see humanity as a group comprised of unique individuals molded by their complex and intricate culture.

Works Cited

Chiao, J. Y., Harada, T., Komeda, H., Li, Z., Mano, Y., Saito, D., … & Iidaka, T. (2010). Dynamic cultural influences on neural representations of the self. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience , 22 (1), 1-11.

Frank, M. C., Everett, D. L., Fedorenko, E., & Gibson, E. (2008). Number as a cognitive technology: Evidence from Pirahã language and cognition. Cognition , 108 (3), 819-824.

Joyner, J. (2009, June 29). Language Shapes Thought. Retrieved February 17, 2016, from http://www.outsidethebeltway.com/language_shapes_thou   ght/

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This paper is most interesting as it leaves learners to question a lot of their conceptualisations about the importance of culture and linkage to their way of thinking. Thank you for access to this work and research.

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• Neuroscience

How Culture Wires Our Brains

Cultural values may leave a greater impact on our brain more than our behaviors..

Posted January 26, 2017 | Reviewed by Ekua Hagan

Culture has been called “an amalgam of values, meanings, conventions and artifacts that constitute daily social realities” (Kitayama & Park, 2010). As a system of meaning and shared beliefs, culture provides a framework for our behavioral and affective norms.

Countless studies in cultural psychology have examined the effect of culture on all aspects of our behavior, cognition , and emotion , delineating both differences and similarities across populations.

More recently, findings in cultural neuroscience have outlined possible ways that the cultural scripts we learn during childhood and the cultural practices we observe as adults influence our brains.

First, what is cultural neuroscience?

As an interdisciplinary field of research, cultural neuroscience investigates the relationship between culture and the brain, particularly, the ways in which culture “both constructs and is constructed by the mind and its underlying brain pathways” (Kitayama & Park, 2010).

Exactly how might culture wire our brains? According to findings from cultural neuroscience, the mechanism has to do with the brain’s plasticity, or the brain’s ability to adapt to long-lasting engagement in scripted behaviors (i.e. cultural tasks ). The capacity of our brains to undergo structural changes from recurrent daily tasks has been well documented (e.g., larger hippocampi — a region that is intimately involved in spatial memory — of London taxi drivers ; increased cortical density in the motor cortex of jugglers ).

Analogously, in order to process various cultural functions with more fluency, culture appears to become “embrained” from accumulated cultural experiences in our brains. Numerous fMRI studies have shown how cultural background can influence neural activity during various cognitive functions. For instance, cross-cultural differences in brain activity among Western and East Asian participants have been revealed during tasks including visual perception, attention , arithmetic processing, and self-reflection (see Han & Humphreys, 2016 for review).

Culture and self-construal

One of the widely studied traits to interpret cross-cultural differences in behavior, cognition, and emotion is self-construal. Self-construal refers to how we perceive and understand ourselves. Western cultures promote an independent self-construal, where the self is viewed as a separate, autonomous entity and the emphasis is on the self’s independence and uniqueness. East Asian cultures, on the other hand, foster an interdependent self-construal, with a self that is more relational, harmonious and interconnected with others.

Recent cultural neuroscience studies have given a glimpse into the interaction between self-construal, culture, and the brain. In particular, research has suggested that self-construal mediates differences in brain activity across different cultures by activating a framework for various neural processes involved in cognition and emotion. In other words, because the self is formed in the context of our cultural scripts and practices, continuous engagement in cultural tasks that reflect values of independent or interdependent self-construals produces brain connections that are “culturally patterned.” This neural blueprint, according to researchers, is the foundation of the cultural construction of the self.

One way researchers have studied the influence of cultural values on neurocognitive processes is by priming participants towards independent and interdependent construals and then examining how the brain reacts to various situations afterward. Priming can be done, for example, by asking participants to read stories containing different pronouns (“we” or “us” for interdependent self-construal and “I” or “me” for independent self-construal) and asking them to think about how similar or different they are to others.

Findings have demonstrated various differences in neural activity after priming for independent or interdependent construals. For instance, priming has been shown to modulate the response to other people’s pain, as well as the degree with which we resonate with others. In another study , when participants were primed for independent construals during a gambling game, they showed more reward activation for winning money for themselves. However, when primed for interdependent construals, participants showed similar reward activation as when they had won money for a friend.

Culture also appears to influence the way the self is represented in our brains. In one experiment , Western and Chinese participants were asked to think about themselves, their mothers, or a public person. The fMRI data showed that the same parts of the brain (Medial Prefrontal Cortex) were activated when both groups thought about themselves. However, unlike with the Western participants, the MPFC was also activated among Chinese participants when they thought of their mothers. These results were interpreted as suggesting that the Chinese participants (interdependent self-construals) use the same brain area to represent both the self and their mothers, while the Western participants use the MPFC exclusively for self-representation.

Recent cultural neuroscience research is shedding light on how culture shapes our functional anatomy, biases our brains, affects our neural activity, and even influences the way we represent the self and others in our brains. Whether due to daily activities or genes , when neurons fire repeatedly in scripted ways for a prolonged time (essentially what cultural practices entail), brain pathways can be reinforced and established – all to enable a more seamless execution of cultural tasks and to “facilitate a cultural and biological adaptation” (Kitayama & Park, 2010).

Thus, as some researchers have suggested, our endorsement of particular cultural values may leave a greater imprint on our brains than on our behaviors.

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Han, S., & Humphreys, G. (2016). Self-construal: a cultural framework for brain function. Current Opinion in Psychology, 8 , 10-14.

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Kitayama, S., & Park, J. (2010). Cultural neuroscience of the self: understanding the social grounding of the brain. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, 5 (2-3), 111-129.

Maguire EA, Gadian DG, Johnsrude IS, Good CD, Ashburner J, Frackowiak RS, et al. (2000). Navigation-related structural change in the hippocampi of taxi drivers. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences , USA. 97:4398–4403.

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Park, D. C., & Huang, C. M. (2010). Culture wires the brain: A cognitive neuroscience perspective. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 5 (4), 391-400.

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Varnum, M. E., Shi, Z., Chen, A., Qiu, J., & Han, S. (2014). When “Your” reward is the same as “My” reward: Self-construal priming shifts neural responses to own vs. friends' rewards. NeuroImage, 87 , 164-169.

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Marianna Pogosyan, Ph.D. , is a lecturer in Cultural Psychology and a consultant specialising in cross-cultural transitions.

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