Cultural Psychology (Slides Milena Juana Feldkamp)
Chapter 9: Cognition and Perception
All humans share the same physiology of sensory organs & nervous systems, which
means they have the same affordances and constrains. This potentially implies that our
perception of the outside world is invariant across cultures. This assumption has long
been shared.
However, we use cognitive tools to guide our perception (attention) and makes sense of
the world and here we see that our cultural context shapes our functioning. As a result
we see variation across cultures in cognition and perception. Cultural differences are
central in this course, but this does not mean that cultures differ more than that they are
similar.
Deregowski (1972) investigated whether pictures are seen (perception) and understood
(cognition) in the same way in different cultures. Research among Mekan of Ethiopia
with little exposure of pictorial representations (at that time) and he found that they had
difficulties recognizing the animals that were drawn.
His findings suggest that perceiving perspective in drawings is in fact a specific cultural
skill, which is learned rather than automatic. He found people from several cultures
prefer split-style drawings over perspective drawings.
Split-style drawings
= Show all the important features of an object which could not normally be seen
at once from that perspective.
Perspective drawings
= Give just one view of an object.
Deregowski argued that this split-style representation is universal and is found in
European children before they are taught differently. This study indicates that history
Chapter 9: Cognition and Perception
All humans share the same physiology of sensory organs & nervous systems, which
means they have the same affordances and constrains. This potentially implies that our
perception of the outside world is invariant across cultures. This assumption has long
been shared.
However, we use cognitive tools to guide our perception (attention) and makes sense of
the world and here we see that our cultural context shapes our functioning. As a result
we see variation across cultures in cognition and perception. Cultural differences are
central in this course, but this does not mean that cultures differ more than that they are
similar.
Deregowski (1972) investigated whether pictures are seen (perception) and understood
(cognition) in the same way in different cultures. Research among Mekan of Ethiopia
with little exposure of pictorial representations (at that time) and he found that they had
difficulties recognizing the animals that were drawn.
His findings suggest that perceiving perspective in drawings is in fact a specific cultural
skill, which is learned rather than automatic. He found people from several cultures
prefer split-style drawings over perspective drawings.
Split-style drawings
= Show all the important features of an object which could not normally be seen
at once from that perspective.
Perspective drawings
= Give just one view of an object.
Deregowski argued that this split-style representation is universal and is found in
European children before they are taught differently. This study indicates that history
