title: Cultural influences on neural substrates of attentional control.
abstract: Behavioral research has shown that people from Western cultural contexts perform better on tasks emphasizing independent (absolute) dimensions than on tasks emphasizing interdependent (relative) dimensions, whereas the reverse is true for people from East Asian contexts. We assessed functional magnetic resonance imaging responses during performance of simple visuospatial tasks in which participants made absolute judgments (ignoring visual context) or relative judgments (taking visual context into account). In each group, activation in frontal and parietal brain regions known to be associated with attentional control was greater during culturally nonpreferred judgments than during culturally preferred judgments. Also, within each group, activation differences in these regions correlated strongly with scores on questionnaires measuring individual differences in culture-typical identity. Thus, the cultural background of an individual and the degree to which the individual endorses cultural values moderate activation in brain networks engaged during even simple visual and attentional tasks.
authors.affiliation: McGovern Institute for Brain Research, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA. hedden@mit.edu
authors.forename: Trey
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Hedden
authors.forename: Sarah
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Ketay
authors.forename: Arthur
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Aron
authors.forename: Hazel Rose
authors.initials: HR
authors.lastname: Markus
authors.forename: John D E
authors.initials: JD
authors.lastname: Gabrieli
mesh_terms: D000069:Acculturation; D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D001213:Asian / Q000523:psychology*; D001288:Attention / Q000502:physiology*; D001921:Brain / Q000502:physiology*; D003431:Cross-Cultural Comparison; D004193:Discrimination Learning / Q000502:physiology; D005260:Female; D005364:Field Dependence-Independence; D005625:Frontal Lobe / Q000502:physiology; D006801:Humans; D007091:Image Processing, Computer-Assisted; D021621:Imaging, Three-Dimensional; D007600:Judgment; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D008297:Male; D009949:Orientation / Q000502:physiology; D010101:Oxygen Consumption / Q000502:physiology; D010296:Parietal Lobe / Q000503:physiopathology; D010364:Pattern Recognition, Visual / Q000502:physiology*; D012858:Size Perception; D012945:Social Values; D044465:White People / Q000523:psychology*