A study that tracked eye motions of subject shown photographs concluded that people raised in Asia took in more detail in the background and more information about the relationship between the foreground and background objects than did people raised in America, who focused largely on foreground objects. The researchers claim that this is the result of a more cooperative culture in Asia that is driven by higher population density and historical communal modes of production (shared irrigation systems for rice paddies), while western culture is more individualized.
Nisbett illustrated this with a test asking Japanese and Americans to look at pictures of underwater scenes and report what they saw.
The Americans would go straight for the brightest or most rapidly moving object, he said, such as three trout swimming. The Japanese were more likely to say they saw a stream, the water was green, there were rocks on the bottom and then mention the fish.
The Japanese gave 60 percent more information on the background and twice as much about the relationship between background and foreground objects as Americans, Nisbett said.
In the latest test, the researchers tracked the eye movement of the Chinese and Americans as they looked at pictures.
The Americans looked at the object in the foreground sooner — a leopard in the jungle for example — and they looked at it longer. The Chinese had more eye movement, especially on the background and back and forth between the main object and the background, he said.
