Cargando…

Visual attention in 5-year-olds from three different cultures

Cognitive processes differ markedly between children from different cultures, with best evidence for attention to visual scenes and the activities of others. Children from urban Western cultures tend to focus on focal objects, whereas children from urban East-Asian cultures rather attend to contextu...

Descripción completa

Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Köster, Moritz, Itakura, Shoji, Yovsi, Relindis, Kärtner, Joscha
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2018
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6047771/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30011296
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0200239
_version_ 1783339984698212352
author Köster, Moritz
Itakura, Shoji
Yovsi, Relindis
Kärtner, Joscha
author_facet Köster, Moritz
Itakura, Shoji
Yovsi, Relindis
Kärtner, Joscha
author_sort Köster, Moritz
collection PubMed
description Cognitive processes differ markedly between children from different cultures, with best evidence for attention to visual scenes and the activities of others. Children from urban Western cultures tend to focus on focal objects, whereas children from urban East-Asian cultures rather attend to contextual elements of a visual scene. Regarding the attention to others’ activities, children from subsistence-based farming communities often observe several activities simultaneously, while children from urban Western contexts focus on activities sequentially. Here we assessed 144 5-year-old children from three prototypical cultural contexts (urban Germany, rural Cameroon, urban Japan) to investigate variations in attention across a variety of tasks. Attention to the elements of a visual scene was assessed in an optical illusion task, in picture descriptions and an eye-tracking paradigm. Attention to and learning from others’ activities was assessed in a parallel action task and a rule-based game. Some tasks indicated higher context-sensitive attention in urban Japan, while other findings indicated higher context-sensitive attention in urban Germany. Levels of parallel attention and learning from others’ activities were lower in rural Cameroonian children compared to the urban samples. Across tasks, the visual attention measures were unrelated. These findings substantiate that culture has a profound influence on early cognitive development, already in the preschool years. Furthermore, they raise critical questions about the early origins of cultural specificities in attention and the generalizability of attention phenomena beyond specific tasks and populations.
format Online
Article
Text
id pubmed-6047771
institution National Center for Biotechnology Information
language English
publishDate 2018
publisher Public Library of Science
record_format MEDLINE/PubMed
spelling pubmed-60477712018-07-26 Visual attention in 5-year-olds from three different cultures Köster, Moritz Itakura, Shoji Yovsi, Relindis Kärtner, Joscha PLoS One Research Article Cognitive processes differ markedly between children from different cultures, with best evidence for attention to visual scenes and the activities of others. Children from urban Western cultures tend to focus on focal objects, whereas children from urban East-Asian cultures rather attend to contextual elements of a visual scene. Regarding the attention to others’ activities, children from subsistence-based farming communities often observe several activities simultaneously, while children from urban Western contexts focus on activities sequentially. Here we assessed 144 5-year-old children from three prototypical cultural contexts (urban Germany, rural Cameroon, urban Japan) to investigate variations in attention across a variety of tasks. Attention to the elements of a visual scene was assessed in an optical illusion task, in picture descriptions and an eye-tracking paradigm. Attention to and learning from others’ activities was assessed in a parallel action task and a rule-based game. Some tasks indicated higher context-sensitive attention in urban Japan, while other findings indicated higher context-sensitive attention in urban Germany. Levels of parallel attention and learning from others’ activities were lower in rural Cameroonian children compared to the urban samples. Across tasks, the visual attention measures were unrelated. These findings substantiate that culture has a profound influence on early cognitive development, already in the preschool years. Furthermore, they raise critical questions about the early origins of cultural specificities in attention and the generalizability of attention phenomena beyond specific tasks and populations. Public Library of Science 2018-07-16 /pmc/articles/PMC6047771/ /pubmed/30011296 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0200239 Text en © 2018 Köster et al http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Köster, Moritz
Itakura, Shoji
Yovsi, Relindis
Kärtner, Joscha
Visual attention in 5-year-olds from three different cultures
title Visual attention in 5-year-olds from three different cultures
title_full Visual attention in 5-year-olds from three different cultures
title_fullStr Visual attention in 5-year-olds from three different cultures
title_full_unstemmed Visual attention in 5-year-olds from three different cultures
title_short Visual attention in 5-year-olds from three different cultures
title_sort visual attention in 5-year-olds from three different cultures
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6047771/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30011296
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0200239
work_keys_str_mv AT kostermoritz visualattentionin5yearoldsfromthreedifferentcultures
AT itakurashoji visualattentionin5yearoldsfromthreedifferentcultures
AT yovsirelindis visualattentionin5yearoldsfromthreedifferentcultures
AT kartnerjoscha visualattentionin5yearoldsfromthreedifferentcultures