About this Research Topic
Human perception and cognition may depend on cultural or social backgrounds. For example, cognitive neuroscientists argue that East Asians perceive the world "holistically" in that they tend to attend to the context and background in a given perceptual world. In contrast, Westerners are suggested to perceive the world "analytically"; they attend rather to the salient and focal objects in the same perceptual world. These trends may extend to more abstract forms of cognition: e.g. East Asians may perceive their "self" as context-dependent while Westerners may perceive their "self" as context-independent. Some brain imaging studies indicate that some of these differences may be correlated with different neuronal activations.
We believe that understanding how different groups of people perceive, recognize, or even feel differently is beneficial for the improvement of human communication in our societies. To achieve this goal, we have to further accumulate the empirical data for East-West or cultural differences under various experimental conditions which cover not only the perceptual and cognitive domains but also the emotional domain such as joy and grief. We should also clarify how these differences emerge and develop in our everyday life as well as whether genetic factors contribute at all to forming these differences. Finally, we should detect neuronal substrates underlying the perceptual-cognitive-emotional differences in different groups of people by the use of brain imaging techniques such as fMRI.
This Research Topic is interested in empirical data using diverse experimental set-ups to substantiate the perceptual-cognitive-emotional differences between the East and the West. Second, to gain more insights into how these differences develop, we need research that compare groups of people with different backgrounds (e.g. urban vs rural) within the same ethnic society as well as studies that compare genetically close but socially distant groups of people (e.g. Japanese vs Chinese or Germans vs US-Americans). Third, we encourage studies with infants with different genetic backgrounds (e.g. Japanese and Caucasian children in Japan) that will provide information as to whether genetic factors play roles to form these differences. Lastly, we welcome brain imaging data with e.g. fMRI to gain insights into possible neuronal mechanisms underlying different expressions of perception-cognition-emotion across different groups of people.
Prof. Michael Nitsche is at the scientific advisory boards of Neuroelectrics, and NeuroDevice.
We believe that understanding how different groups of people perceive, recognize, or even feel differently is beneficial for the improvement of human communication in our societies. To achieve this goal, we have to further accumulate the empirical data for East-West or cultural differences under various experimental conditions which cover not only the perceptual and cognitive domains but also the emotional domain such as joy and grief. We should also clarify how these differences emerge and develop in our everyday life as well as whether genetic factors contribute at all to forming these differences. Finally, we should detect neuronal substrates underlying the perceptual-cognitive-emotional differences in different groups of people by the use of brain imaging techniques such as fMRI.
This Research Topic is interested in empirical data using diverse experimental set-ups to substantiate the perceptual-cognitive-emotional differences between the East and the West. Second, to gain more insights into how these differences develop, we need research that compare groups of people with different backgrounds (e.g. urban vs rural) within the same ethnic society as well as studies that compare genetically close but socially distant groups of people (e.g. Japanese vs Chinese or Germans vs US-Americans). Third, we encourage studies with infants with different genetic backgrounds (e.g. Japanese and Caucasian children in Japan) that will provide information as to whether genetic factors play roles to form these differences. Lastly, we welcome brain imaging data with e.g. fMRI to gain insights into possible neuronal mechanisms underlying different expressions of perception-cognition-emotion across different groups of people.
Prof. Michael Nitsche is at the scientific advisory boards of Neuroelectrics, and NeuroDevice.
Keywords: cognitive neuroscience, psychology, neuroimaging, Culture, human cognition, social conditions, East-West differences, holistic perception, analytic perception, emotion
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