International Journal of Psychology

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1 International Journal of Psychology International Journal of Psychology, 2018 Vol. 53, No. 1, 77 81, DOI: /ijop Culture and sensory response to visual stimuli Inchan Park 1 and Yeonkoo Hong 2 1 The DNA Co., Ltd., Seoul, South Korea 2 Creative Design Institute, Sunkyunkwan University, Seoul, South Korea T his study investigated the influence of culture on people s sensory responses, such as smell, taste, sound and touch to visual stimuli. The sensory feelings of university students from four countries (Japan, South Korea, Britain and France) to six images were evaluated. The images combined real and abstract objects and were presented on a notebook computer. Overall, 280 participants (144 men and 136 women; n = 70/country) were included in the statistical analysis. The chi-square independence analysis showed differences and similarities in the sensory responses across countries. Most differences were detected in smell and taste, whereas few variations were observed for sound responses. Large variations in the response were observed for the abstract coral and butterfly images, but few differences were detected in response to the real leaf image. These variations in response were mostly found in the British and Japanese participants. Keywords: Cross-cultural; Sensory perception; Visual stimuli. Numerous cross-cultural studies have shown that culture influences the way in which people perceive and interpret visual stimuli (see Kitayama & Cohen, 2007), as culture affects people s perceptions and attitudes to images (Kitayama, Duffy, Kawamura, & Larsen, 2003; Mangan, 1978; Miyamoto, Nisbett, & Masuda, 2006), their interpretation of symbols (Griffin & Gibbs, 1993), their perspective and depth cues in images (Hudson, 1960; Segall, Campbell, & Herskovits, 1966) and image labelling or grouping (Chiu, 1972; Imai, Gentner, & Uchida, 1994; Kuwabara & Smith, 2012). Some studies have also demonstrated that adaptation to culturally characterised visual environments may lead to distinct patterns of perception (Miyamoto et al., 2006; Ueda & Komiya, 2012). However, as most studies have focused on effects of culture on cognitive aspects of perception, little information is available on whether culture influences the way in which people sense and feel visual stimuli using sound, smell, taste and touch information. Therefore, we investigated the effects of culture on people s sensory response to visual stimuli by comparing responses of people from different countries. Human perception involves not only visual characteristics but also the meaning of an object. This is because the way people see an object depends on what the object offers or affords the perceiver rather than just information about the object s visual characteristics (Gibson, 1977). The meaning of an object involves a person s experience with the object. Meaning can be affective, such as taste, when it cannot be specified by form, colour or texture but only by its sensory characteristics. An object carries sensorial meaning based on the person s sensory experience and cultural practices in an ecological context (cf. Norman, 1988). The interactions between the object and the person and how they experience the interactions may develop unique sensorial meaning to the object in each culture. Differences in an individuals perceptual set between cultures may also influence the way people sense and feel a visual object. Defined as perceptual readiness or expectation in perceiving things in a particular way, a perceptual set is driven by individual schemas and a mental framework learned from socio-cultural practices and orientations, such as customs, beliefs, rules and standards, in which individuals have grown up and lived (see Allport, 1955). People in a culture share the commonalities of a perceptual set and may filter and organise information in similar ways; thus, may exhibit a common pattern of sensory response. The effect of a perceptual set on the sensory response can be more operative with Correspondence should be addressed to Yeonkoo Hong, Creative Design Institute (CDI), Research Complex 2, Sungkyunkwan University, 2066 Seoburo, Suwon, Gyeongi do, South Korea. ( yk.hong@skku.edu). Inchan Park performed research design, data collection and writing; Yeonkoo Hong done literature review, analysis and writing. This research was partially supported by the Industrial Core Technology Development program (No ) through Korea Evaluation Institute of Industrial Technology (KEIT).

78 PARK AND HONG Figure 1. Images used as visual stimuli. [Colour figure can be viewed at wileyonlinelibrary.com]. ambiguous rather than concrete objects (e.g., Lemkau & Kronenberg, 1951).

2 78 PARK AND HONG Figure 1. Images used as visual stimuli. [Colour figure can be viewed at wileyonlinelibrary.com]. ambiguous rather than concrete objects (e.g., Lemkau & Kronenberg, 1951). Neuropsychological studies contend that culture intervenes at an early stage in the brain s sensory response to visual stimuli (e.g., Chiao et al., 2008). This is because the brain generates sensory predictions about a stimulus based not only on what the brain knows but also on how the body felt in the past while experiencing the sight, sound, smell, taste and touch of a stimulus. In other words, the human brain stores regular sensory patterns as internal representations together with feeling responses from birth and sensory predictions signalling the importance, relevance or value of a particular stimulus occur at the very moment that visual stimulation begins (Bar, 2009). Sensory predictions concerning visual objects are inseparably linked to the cultural and ecological environments where people grew up (Kim, Lewis-Peacock, Norman, & Turk-Browne, 2014). Based on prior studies, we hypothesised that the sensory response to the same visual object may vary between people from different countries. Participants METHOD Of 287 participants (undergraduate and graduate students from universities in four countries), 280 (144 males and 136 females) were included in the statistical analysis to balance the number of participants among the countries: Britain (n = 70), France (n = 70), South Korea (n = 70) and Japan (n = 70). The mean ages of the participants were as follows: British (M = 23.10, SD = 4.26), French (M = 21.24, SD = 2.47), South Korean (M = 21.71, SD = 2.34) and Japanese (M = 21.49, 3.14). University libraries provided a similar survey setting for all participants as well as a quiet and comfortable environment for them to focus on the task. Students who had lived abroad for more than 3 years were excluded to avoid any influence of their multi-cultural experience. The 3-year cut-off was a discretional choice for the study. Visual stimuli Real and abstract images of natural objects were used. Real images comprised objects, such as earth cracked from drought, tree leaves and bamboo stems, which would be easily recognised. Abstract images were inspired by coral, egg and butterfly-shaped figures, so the participants would have to guess what they were, though they resembled natural objects. Both image types included a mixture of black-and-white and coloured images. Each image was displayed in full screen mode on a 15.4 widescreen (resolution ) notebook computer. Figure 1 shows the six images used in the study. Measures Tick boxes were provided for the smell, taste, sound and touch senses. To measure sensory response, participants

3 TABLE 1 Sensory responses to six images across countries CULTURE AND SENSORY PERCEPTION 79 Leaf Earth Bamboo df = 3 Smell Taste Sound Touch Smell Taste Sound Touch Smell Taste Sound Touch British French Korean Japanese p *.044*.006* * *.075 Pearson value Coral (A) Egg (A) Butterfly (A) df = 3 Smell Taste Sound Touch Smell Taste Sound Touch Smell Taste Sound Touch British French Korean Japanese p.048*.000*.003*.000*.033*.021* *.003* * Pearson value Note: Total N = 280 (n = 70/country). *p <.05. were asked to answer the following question about each image in their native language: What sensory response did the image evoke? Please check the box to identify your sensory response. If an image evoked none of the four sensory responses, participants were told to leave all four boxes blank for that image. Thus, a score of 0 or 1 was marked for every sensory response based on the tick boxes. Viewing and answering times were controlled at 15 second for each image to provide an equivalent testing condition among the participants. The duration was arbitrary for the study based on pilot testing. RESULTS We used IBM-SPSS Statistics 20 software (IBM Corp., Armonk, NY, USA) for the statistical investigation. We conducted the chi-square independence test for each image, applying the sensory response measures as dependent variables, and nationalities as the independent factor. The results are presented in Table 1. The (A) symbol denotes the abstract images. The statistical results show that the British, French, Korean and Japanese participants exhibited differences and similarities in their sensory responses to the six images, but there was variation according to the image type. First, similarities and differences were noted in the perceptions of the real objects by the people from the four countries. The participants exhibited varying responses across countries for touch but not smell, taste or sound for the leaf image. The participants showed varying responses of smell and taste for the earth image but not for sound or touch. The smell and sound feelings differed for the bamboo image, whereas taste and touch were similar. The abstract objects elicited more similarities than difference among the participants form different countries. Participants across the countries expressed different responses for all four senses while viewing the coral (A) figure. They differed in smell and taste feelings but sound or touch in response to the egg (A) figure. They differed in smell, taste and touch feelings but not sound in response to the butterfly (A) figure. These results show that the abstract objects tended to trigger more perceptual diversity in sensory responses across countries. Furthermore, we analysed the pattern of variation between the countries for each sensory type (Figure 2). The star marking on the upper-right side of the mage name indicates significant differences among the countries. For sound, participants from the four countries differed only in response to bamboo and coral (A) images. The post hoc analysis (SR: standardised residual score) revealed that the differences were mainly due to the low sound feeling scores of the Japanese for the bamboo (z = 1.8) and coral (A) (z = 2.3) images; the others received similar scores. For touch, country differences were found for the leaf, coral (A) and butterfly (A) images but not the earth, bamboo or egg (A) images. Koreans (z = 1.8) had the highest score and Japanese (z = 1.6) had the lowest score for the touch feeling in response to the leaf image, whereas the French had a similar score with that of the Koreans and the British with that of the Japanese. The British participants showed very low scores for the touch feeling in response to the coral (A) and butterfly (A) images (z = 3.8 and z = 2.9, respectively), compared with participants from the other countries.

4 80 PARK AND HONG Figure 2. Mean sensory responses to the six images among the countries (y-axis indicates the number of participants). [Colour figure can be viewed at wileyonlinelibrary.com]. For taste, variations between the countries were observed for four of the six images. The Japanese had low scores for the earth image (z = 1.9). The British had much lower scores than the other participants for the coral (A) (z = 2.0), egg (A) (z = 2.5) and butterfly (A) (z = 2.2) images. Finally, for smell, variations between countries were extensive for five of the six images. The British scored lower than the others for the coral (A) (z = 1.9), egg (A) (z = 2.0) and butterfly (A) (z = 2.2) images. The Japanese scored lower (z = 1.7) than the others for the earth image, whereas the Koreans scored higher (z = 1.6) than the others for the bamboo image. DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION We found that people from Britain, France, Korea and Japan showed differences and similarities in their sensory responses to the same images. Most variations were in the smell and taste feeling responses (14 of the 24 response tests), whereas few variations were detected in the sound feeling responses. Large variations were found for the abstract coral and butterfly images and few variations for the real leaf image. Overall, the variations mostly occurred among the British (8 of 14 variations), followed by the Japanese (4 of 14 variations). The British had distinctively low smell and taste feeling scores for all three abstract objects and also the lowest touch feelings for the abstract coral and butterfly images. This pattern of the British was not observed for the real object images. The Japanese s low sound feeling for the real bamboo and the abstract coral and low smell and taste feelings for the real earth-crack image were also the main reasons for sensory differences among the countries. People from the four countries showed similar sound feelings for the real leaf and earth-crack images as well as the abstract egg and butterfly images (10 of 24 response tests). Similarly, cross-national differences were not observed in the touch feeling responses for the earth-crack, bamboo or abstract egg images. Despite the large deviations by the British, few differences were found among the French, Koreans and Japanese in the smell, taste or touch feelings for the abstract coral, egg and butterfly images. Although we cannot specifically explain the cross-national differences and similarities in the sensory responses to visual stimuli, we can generally discuss the results based on a theoretical framework. The British and Japanese may have perceived the abstract images differently from those of the other nationalities because of their unique perceptual sets (see Allport, 1955). Alternatively, they may have perceived the images similarly to the others, and yet had different sensorial meanings about the objects because of their unique ecological context (see Gibson, 1977). It is also plausible to infer that they had different sensory representations of the image objects from their own sensory experiences of the objects (see Bar, 2009). Among the inferences, perceptual set is a less likely reason for the present results. The British participants sound and touch feelings for the abstract images were similar to those of the other nationalities, indicating that they had already perceived the images in a similar

5 CULTURE AND SENSORY PERCEPTION 81 way to the others. Similarly, the Japanese also exhibited comparable sound and touch feelings with the other country participants for the real earth-crack image, despite their distinctively low smell and taste feelings for the image. Furthermore, the similar sound and touch feeling responses from all four countries participants for some of the real and abstract images indicate that people from the four countries perceived the images similarly but also that they shared certain cultural commonalities influencing the auditory and textual meaning or experiences ascribed to the objects. However, a key to the explanation is that the cross-national differences and similarities in the sensory perception of visual stimuli need to be understood in relation to the sensory type and the nature of the object in the images. Our results show that regional proximity does not ensure similarity in sensory perception of images, as the results often showed large disparities between Koreans and Japanese and between the British and the French despite their geographical close proximity. We also found that mere familiarity with an object in the ecological environment may not render a sensory inclination for the feeling aroused. That is because the Japanese showed the lowest sound feeling for the real bamboo and abstract coral images, and also the lowest smell and taste feelings for the real earth-crack image, although these objects were the most likely to appear in Japan among the four countries. We also need to mention our study limitations for future experiments. First, our measure of sensory response was solely quantitative for hypothesis testing. This restricted further analyses and detailed explanations about the results. Qualitative accounts will also help appropriate theoretical inferences. Second, our study did not control the images to examine any culture-specific relationships between the images and sensory perceptions. We suggest that more controlled studies with a different experimental design should follow to answer more structured questions and to highlight the presence of confounding variables. Nevertheless, as little information is available about the influence of culture on people s sensory responses to visual stimuli, our study has demonstrated how people from different countries perceive the same objects in terms of taste, smell, sound and touch feelings. Manuscript received July 2014 Revised manuscript accepted February 2016 First published online April 2016 REFERENCES Allport, F. H. (1955). Theories of perception and the concept of structure. New York, NY: Wiley. Bar, M. (2009). The proactive brain: Memory for predictions. Philosophical Transactions: Biological Sciences, 364(1521), Chiao, J., Iidaka, T., Gordon, H., Nogawa, J., Bar, M., Aminoff, E., & Ambady, N. (2008). Cultural specificity in amygdala response to fear faces. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 20(12), 8. Chiu, L. (1972). A cross-cultural comparison of cognitive styles in Chinese and American children. International Journal of Psychology, 7(4), Gibson, J. J. (1977). The theory of affordances. In R. Shaw & J. Bransford (Eds.), Perceiving, acting, and knowing: Toward an ecological psychology (pp ). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum. Griffin, R., & Gibbs, W. (1993). International icon symbols: How well are these symbols understood? In R. Braden, J. Baca, & D. Beauchamp (Eds.), Art, science and visual literacy (pp ). Blacksburg, VA: The International Visual Literacy Association. Hudson, W. (1960). Pictorial depth perception in sub-cultural groups in Africa. Journal of Social Psychology, 52, Imai, M., Gentner, D., & Uchida, N. (1994). Children s theories of word meaning: The role of shape similarity in early acquisition. Cognitive Development, 9, Kim, G., Lewis-Peacock, J., Norman, D., & Turk-Browne, N. B. (2014). Pruning of memories due to context-based prediction error. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), 111(24), Kitayama, S., & Cohen, D. (Eds.) (2007). Handbook of cultural psychology. New York, NY: Guilford Press. Kitayama, S., Duffy, S., Kawamura, T., & Larsen, J. T. (2003). Perceiving an object and its context in different cultures: A cultural look at new look. Psychological Science, 14(3), Kuwabara, M., & Smith, L. (2012). Cross-cultural differences in cognitive development: Attention to relations and objects. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 113, Lemkau, P., & Kronenberg, B. (1951). Psychodiagnostics: A diagnostic test based on perception. Berne, Switzerland: Verlag Hans Buber. Mangan, J. (1978). Cultural conventions of pictorial representation: Iconic literacy and education. Educational Communication and Technology, 26(3), Miyamoto, Y., Nisbett, R., & Masuda, T. (2006). Culture and the physical environment: Holistic versus analytic perceptual affordances. Psychological Science, 17(2), Norman, D. A. (1988). The psychology of everyday things. New York, NY: Basic Books. Segall, M., Campbell, D., & Herskovits, M. (1966). Visual perception: Personality and culture. Indianapolis, IN: Bobbs-Merrill. Ueda, Y., & Komiya, A. (2012). Cultural adaptation of visual attention: Calibration of the oculomotor control system in accordance with cultural scenes. PLoS ONE 7(11): e doi: /journal.pone

Book Review. Review of Cultural Psychology

Book Review. Review of Cultural Psychology The Journal of Social Psychology, 2010, 150(2), 231 234 Copyright Taylor & Francis Group, LLC Book Review Review of Cultural Psychology VSOC 0022-4545 The Journal of Social Psychology, Vol. 150, No. 2,