Culture and Perception

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Culture and Perception

• Ronald Fischer
• Social Psychology, PSYC 338

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Overview

• Perceptual sets and culture
• Types of perceptions
• Visual illusions and pictorial perceptions
• Perception of music
• Perception of time

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Two fundamental perspectives

• Nativism
• Empiricism

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Perceptual sets

• Environment shapes our perception
• We create perceptual expectations
• Increase particular interpretations (speed
  efficiency)
• Culturally functional and adaptive (mostly)

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Important Senses

• Vision
• Colour, depths
• Hearing
• Pitch, tone, mode, rhythm, etc.
• Taste
• Smell
• Touch
• Time

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The horizontal-vertical illusion
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The Sander parallelogram illusion
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What about if it was like this?
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The perspective drawing illusion
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Some early experiments

• Optical illusions (Segall, Campbell Herskovits,
  1966)
• Three samples from industrialised countries (US,
  South Africa)
• Five samples from tribes living in dense tropical
  forests (Fang, Bete, Ijaw, Dahomea, Hanunoo)
• Two samples from tribes living in open land, but
  in circular houses (Zulu, Bushmen)
• Some of these tribes (Ankole, Toro, Songe, Bete)
  were not used to two-dimensional representations
  of three dimensional objects (e.g., photographs,
  drawings, murals, paintings)

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Some explanations

• Hypotheses about cultural differences
• Carpentered world theory
• Front-horizontal foreshortening theory
• Symbolising three dimensions in two

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Carpentered world theory
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The Sander parallelogram illusion
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Front-horizontal foreshortening theory
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The perspective drawing illusion
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Symbolising three dimensions in two
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Challenges to this eco-cultural explanation

• Effect of retinal pigmentation (Pollack, 1970)
• Some support (e.g., Bornstein, 1973)
• Other factors at play
• Sensitivity to different colours (colour naming)
• Exposure to ultraviolet rays
• Dietary differences
• Age
• Education

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Implications

• Design of instructions, manuals, safety signs,
  etc.
• Education campaigns
• Use in educational settings

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Perception of Music

• Relatively neglected topic
• Western societies (incl. Psychologists)
  literate societies technology (paintings,
  photography) emphasis on visual stimuli
• Many traditional /non-Western societies oral
  traditions, music and rhythm

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Task

• Listen to the following excerpts
• Answer the following questions
• What feelings and emotions does this music arouse
  in you? Use four adjectives to describe the
  music.
• Where do you think this music is coming from?
• What is the likely function of this music? At
  what occasions is it likely to be played? Make a
  guess!

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Excerpts

• Excerpt 1
• Java, Indonesia (Gending Pahargyan Penganten,
  Monggang)
• Wedding ceremony, welcome and honor the family of
  the bride groom)
• Excerpt 2
• Serbia, Ex-Yugoslavia (Kayah Bregovic, Sto lat
  mlodej parze)
• Wedding
• Excerpt 3
• Salvador, Bahia, Brazil (Capoeira Angola, Iuna)
• Capoeira, to show respect to the 2 experienced
  capoeiristas (Mestres) currently fighting/playing
• Excerpt 4
• Bamanan people, Mali (Rokia Traore, Yèrè Uolo)
• Song in praise of a great warrior

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Musical functions (Merriam, 1964)

• Emotional expression
• Physical response
• Aesthetic enjoyment and entertainment
• Communication Symbolic representation
• Enforcing conformity to social norms
• Validating social institutions and religious
  rituals
• Enables continuity and stability of culture
• Integration of society

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Perceptions of time

• Another little experiment.
• Pace of life (Levine Norenzayan, 1999)

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Dimensions of time

• Past, present and future (Klockhohn Strodtbeck,
  1961)
• Polychronic versus monochronic (Hall)

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Summary

• Culture influences our perceptions of the
  environment we are living in through perceptual
  sets
• Cultural, ecological, biological and
  physiological influences interact
• Perception research example of the influence of
  culture and Zeitgeist on research agendas