Culture, control, and perception of relationships in the environment.

TLDR

East Asian cognition is viewed as holistic, attending to the field as a whole, while Western cognition is object‑focused and control‑oriented, and the origins of these perceptual differences are discussed. The study compared East Asian (mostly Chinese) and American participants on detection of covariation and field dependence. Chinese participants reported stronger event association, greater sensitivity to covariation differences, and higher confidence; these differences disappeared when participants believed they had control over the task, whereas Americans performed better on the Rod‑and‑Frame Test, indicating less field dependence, and their performance and confidence improved with manual control, a pattern not seen in Asian participants.

Abstract

East Asian cognition has been held to be relatively holistic; that is, attention is paid to the field as a whole. Western cognition, in contrast, has been held to be object focused and control oriented. In this study East Asians (mostly Chinese) and Americans were compared on detection of covariation and field dependence. The results showed the following: (a) Chinese participants reported stronger association between events, were more responsive to differences in covariation, and were more confident about their covariation judgments; (b) these cultural differences disappeared when participants believed they had some control over the covariation judgment task; (c) American participants made fewer mistakes on the Rod-and-Frame Test, indicating that they were less field dependent; (d) American performance and confidence, but not that of Asians, increased when participants were given manual control of the test. Possible origins of the perceptual differences are discussed.