Cultures differ in attentional focus 1 :

1. Cultural Differences in Flanker Task Interference Peter Millar1, Berna Uzundag2, Aysecan Boduroglu3, Angela Gutchess1, & Robert Sekuler1 1Brandeis University, Waltham, MA, USA 2Koc University, Istanbul, Turkey 3Bogazici University, Istanbul, Turkey No cultural differences in RT distribution Motivation and prediction Differences in speed-accuracy curves Cultures differ in attentional focus1: -Independent, Western cultures focus on central objects -Interdependent, Eastern cultures focus on surroundings -East Asians detect expanding visual changes better than Americans, but detect shrinking changes worse2 Turkish culture shares Eastern and Western influences: -Compared to Americans, Turks should have more similarities to East Asians, i.e. wider breadth of attention Do cultural differences in attentional focus extend to differences in visual interference at far distances? -Tested with modified Eriksen Flanker Task3 -Manipulated distance between target and flanker -Prediction: Turks will be more susceptible than Americans to interference at far distances Americans exhibit steeper speed-accuracy slope than Turks in Near Incompatible trials (above), but not in other trial types (below) No main effect or interactions of Culture (all ps > .25) No cultural difference in RT for any trial type (all ps > .50) Failing to find the expected cultural difference in RT, we analyzed accuracy rates between cultures: Manipulation of flanker distance 1400 ms 1500 ms 1650 ms 1850 ms 3850 ms Cultural differences in accuracy 100 Control trials *p < .05 0.5° 1.5° * * 50 Near Compatible trials 50 Far Compatible trials 7.0° 11.0° Near Incompatible trials are unique 50 Near Incompatible trials 50 Far Incompatible trials Priorities differ between Americans and Turks: -Speed-accuracy curves suggest that on Near Incompatible trials, Americans need more time after stimulus presentation than Turks to respond accurately -According to RT distribution, Americans are not slowing down to improve accuracy -Compared to Turks, Americans may prioritize speed over accuracy, despite difficulty Why are Near Incompatible trials more difficult for Americans than Turks? 1) Americans may mistake incompatible flankers for targets at near distances: -In errors on Useful Field of View task, Americans are more likely to confuse neighboring positions, whereas East Asians make more random errors4 2) Americans may treat near letters as multiple items, while Turks group them as a gestalt: -Possibly a result of cultural differences between focal and contextual attention -Turkish advantage might disappear if incompatible stimuli pop out, limiting grouping American and Turkish subjects Culture x Compatibility interaction, p < .02: -Americans’ accuracy more impacted by incompatible trials than Turks’ -Difference driven by Near Incompatible trials (p < .03) What is happening in Near Incompatible condition? -Turks are more accurate, but no slower, than Americans -Inconsistent with Speed-Accuracy Trade-off -We produced speed-accuracy curves to explore how accuracy rates change as a function of RT: [1] Varnum, M. E. W., Grossmann, I., Kitayama, S., & Nisbett, R. E. (2010). The origin of cultural differences in cognition: The social orientation hypothesis. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 19 (1), 9–13. [2] Boduroglu, A., Shah, P., & Nisbett, R.E. (2009). Cultural differences in allocation of attention in visual information processing. Journal of Cross Cultural Psychology, 40 (3), 349-360. [3] Eriksen, B.A. & Eriksen, C.W. (1974). Effects of noise letters upon identification of a target letter in a nonsearch task. Perception & Psychophysics, 16 (1), 143-149. [4] Boduroglu, A., Lan, X., & Shah, P. (2008). Cultural differences in functional field of view. Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the Psychonomics Society. This research was supported in part by a National Science Foundation grant (BCS-1147707) awarded to A.G. and by a GEBİP TUBA grant awarded to A.B. Contact: pmillar@brandeis.edu