East is East and West is West, and the difference between them is starting to turn up even on brain scanners.
New brain research is adding high-tech evidence to what lower-tech psychology experiments have found for years: Culture can affect not just language and custom, but how people experience the world at stunningly basic levels - what they see when they look at a city street, for example, or even how they perceive a simple line in a square.
Western culture, they have found, conditions people to think of themselves as highly independent entities. And when looking at scenes, Westerners tend to focus on central objects more than on their surroundings.
In contrast, East Asian cultures stress interdependence. When Easterners take in a scene, they tend to focus more on the context as well as the object: the whole block, say, rather than the BMW parked in the foreground.
To use a camera analogy, "the Americans are more zoom and the East Asians are more panoramic," said Dr. Denise Park. "The Easterner probably sees more, and the Westerner probably sees less, but in more detail."
Such differences have turned up in experiment after experiment. For example: In one study, researchers offered people a choice among five pens: four red and one green. Easterners are likelier to choose a red pen, while Westerners more often choose the green.
In an experiment measuring how well 8-year-olds could solve puzzles, American children performed best when solving puzzles they had chosen themselves, while Asian children performed best when solving puzzles they were told their mothers had chosen for them, American children brought up in an independence-minded culture felt best when they were exercising free choice,; while the Asian children assumed that their mothers had their best interests at heart.
Researchers use the terms East and West very roughly. West tends to mean Americans and people from independence-oriented European countries or Australia. East means East Asians - mainly Japanese, Koreans, and Chinese in research so far - as well as much of the rest of the world.
Researchers point out that the differences detected by psychological experiments and brain scans are not glaring; they are subtle but detectable trends. Also, individuals within cultures vary greatly, and gender differences can arise as well.
Did Easterners actually see differently, at the level of perception, or just think differently? Based on what parts of the brain were activated during the tasks, Gabrieli believes everyone sees the same thing, but may filter it differently.
"Culture is not changing how you see the world, but rather how you think and interpret."
And that could be good news: If it changed how you saw the world, it would make the barrier higher for people to agree on what they are seeing and talk with each other, If it's in the thinking stage, even though our work suggests it's harder work to see things from a different perspective, it's much more within your reach."
The older people get, it seems, the more pronounced those cultural differences become, as if the older you are, "the more you're steeped in your own cultural mode of processing," Park said. But that does not mean such habits are immutable. Some initial psychological studies suggest that when an Easterner goes West or vice versa, habits of thought and perception quickly begin to change.
So beyond perhaps helping to defuse tensions a bit between cross-cultural roommates or spouses, does East-West brain research have applications for the real world?
It could have implications for, say, Western mental health care workers trying to help Easterners. On a broader scale, researchers say, it might be useful in business schools for students preparing to work in East-West trade, to help clarify culture gaps.
"Understanding cultural differences in the mind is really important as the world globalizes," Park said. "There can be a lot of breakdowns in communication."
译文:
东方与西方-- 不同眼光看世界
东方是东方，西方是西方，两者的差别即使在大脑扫描仪里也体现了出来。
新的大脑研究为多年前技术含量相对较低的心理实验结果增添了高科技的证据。文化不仅会影响语言和习俗，而且从最基础的层面影响人们对世界的参与度— 比如他们从城市的街道中看到了什么，或者他们如何认知一个方形中最简单的线条。
研究发现西方文化使得人们倾向于将自己看作极其独立的实体。当他们看景物时，会把注意力放在中心的物体上，而并非周围的场景。
相反，东亚文化强调相互依存。当东方人看景物时，他们会更关注环境，然后才是物体：比如说，他们会关心整个街区，而不是停在眼前的宝马车。
用相机进行类比的话，“美国人会迅速对焦而东亚人则更具全局观。” Dr. Denise Park教授说：“也许东方人看见得更多，西方人看得少，却更细致。”
这种差异在各种实验中屡次被证明。比如，在一次研究中，研究人员让人们在五支笔中做选择，分别是四支红色和一支绿色。东方人更有可能选择红色的笔，而西方人则会选择那支绿色的。
在一项测试8岁的孩子如何做出猜字游戏的实验中，美国孩子在做他们为自己选择的字谜时的表现最好，而亚洲孩子则在做母亲们为他们选择的字谜时的表现最好。美国孩子成长于强调独立思想的文化中，因此他们在做出自由选择的时候感觉最好，而亚洲孩子则会认为他们的母亲的选择总是为了他们好，一定没错的。
研究这们泛泛地使用“东方”和“西方”这两个词。西方人意指美国人和来自那些提倡独立精神的欧洲国家或者是澳洲。东方人则指东亚人，在近来的研究中主要是指日本人，韩国人和中国人。研究人员还指出心理实验和大脑扫描仪所发现的区别并非十分明显。而且，不同文化中下的个体差别也很大，根据性别差异也会产生差别。
东方人真的在认知的层面看待问题不同吗？或者仅仅是思考的方式不同呢？从执行任务时大脑最活跃的部分来看，Gabrieli 相信每个人都能看到相同的东西，但会以不同的方式过滤这些东西。
“文化不是改变你如何看见这个世界的，但却能改变你如何思考核看待这个世界的。”
那也许会是个好消息。如果它能改变你看待这个世界的方式，就会使人们达成一致看法，进行交流的门槛提高。如果是在思考阶段的话，即使我们的工作显示换一种角度看问题是困难的，至少是我们可以做到的。
似乎人的年纪越大，文化的差异也就越明显。好像人越老，“在处理问题时就越会沉浸在自身德文化模式中。” Park说道。但并不代表这些习惯是不可改变的。一些最初的心理实验显示当一个东方人去到西方，其思维习惯和认知会很快地改变。反之亦然。
以上种种也许能够帮助缓解一下跨文化结合的室友或夫妻间的矛盾。东西方人大脑的研究是否适用于真实的世界呢？
它也许能启发那些想要帮助东方人的西方的精神卫生保健工作者，或者对那些在商学院学习，想要参与东西方贸易的学生有帮助，可以帮助他们消除文化代沟。Park说，“理解文化差异对全球化来说十分重要，因为沟通中我们将会面临很多的障碍”。