Culture’s Influence on Perception

1. Culture’s Influence on Perception How culture affects sensing How culture affects the perception process Distinctions between high & low context The concept of face How cultural interpretations reflect other elements of culture

2. Language is a perceptual screen • Understanding our worlds is a process wherein we decode and store stimulus. • Language provides us with conceptual categories to apprehend what we experience as well as influences what it is we think and feel (sensations). • Language & Culture’s influence over what we perceive is profound. We will look at this process.

3. Our Senses and their limitations • Sensation = Sight - Hearing- Smell - Taste – Touch- Neurological process. • No two people can assume their sensations to the same stimulus is the same. Part of the difference lies in physical characteristics but another part is the result of how our culture conditions us to respond.

4. Effect of Culture on Sensing • No two people will sense things the same way and hence could make similar or different meanings out of those sensations. • Depends on the cultural conditioning of the individual. • Seeing things in your environment, in the Pacific Northwest we are attuned to different kinds of humidity, rain, drizzle, foggy wet, downpour, showers, snow, sleet, hail…

5. The Process of Perceiving • What we learn to perceive is as much related to sensation as it is to culture. • Perception is described as a three-step process • Selection • Organization • Interpretation

6. Process Step # 1: Selection • On a physiological level, our brains sort out stimuli subconsciously. • Needs often determine what it is we attend to (hunger, temperature, time). • We also learned to select certain stimuli to attend to in our environments. • Language Hearing sounds from another language that are unfamiliar to you in your language.

7. Process Step # 2: Organization • How do you categorize perceptions? According to Ludwig Wittgenstein, language provides the symbol to group perceptions of any kind together (p. 57). • Numerous categories of colors reflect a culture’s sensitivity to and amount of stimuli present within the culture. • Labeling , ie shibui one word to refer to art and individual taste.

8. Process Step # 3: Interpretation • Attaching meaning to sense data = decoding • Same stimuli can be interpreted very differently depending on the meaning you attach to it (police officer). • Be mindful of applying your cultural meanings to new cultural experiences. • How do we interpret the meaning of such diverse things as foods and religious icons?

9. People took a chance on getting a regular Jelly Belly jelly bean or one with a disgusting flavor such as booger or baby wipes • "Disgusting. I can't even describe it, " said Chelsea Ericson of Bellingham, after trying a centipede-tasting Jelly Belly jelly bean.

10. What is this expression?

11. High versus Low Context • Communication model in ch. 2 – context or environment. Edward T. Hall see context as a spectrum ranging from high to low. • Low context cultures rely on language (explicit codes) to convey information. • High context cultures are those that implicitly code their environments (extra-linguistic).

12. The concept of Face • The Chinese have conceptualized “face” in two ways: • Lien (face)- Integrity of the individual’s moral character. Losing this makes it impossible to function (with respect) in the community. Mien tzd ( image) – Western idea of reputation or prestige (status) one has achieved in life. ☻Westerners tend to engage in direct face management while Easterners tend to use an intermediary to save face.

13. Case Study: perception and food • Chinese Cuisine: Influences of Confucianism and Taoism on its development. • Balance: Fan (grains) and Chai (vegetable & meat dishes). • “the Way” – Lao-tzu. Living in accord with nature is guiding principle. • Yin and Yang reflects desire for complementary food groups/balance.

14. Yin and Yang = balance between life and nature • Yin qualities include cool, dark, moist, shady side of the hill. Foods like water plants, crustaceans, and certain beans. • Yang qualities include the warm, dry, & sunny side of the hill. Oily and hot foods, peppery hot flavoring, fatty meat, and Oil plant foods (peanuts) are yang foods. • Goal is to eat in proper amounts to have balance.

15. Yin and Yang

16. From the Intercultural Perspective • Learn to train your senses to pick up on alternative interpretations or even to pick up on sensations that we are not accustomed to experiencing and decoding. • Learn to perception check – ask for feedback if you are uncertain about your interpretation – builds community too!

17. In your own experience • Identify a food that you feel is exotic. • Why is it exotic? • What role does the food play in the culture? • Identify foods that are everyday but might be considered exotic in another culture.