Local and global processing: observations from a remote culture.
In Experiment 1, a normal adult population drawn from a remote culture (Himba) in northern Namibia made similarity matches to [Navon, D. (1977). Forest before trees: The precedence of global features in visual perception. Cognitive Psychology, 9, 353-383] hierarchical figures. The Himba showed a local bias stronger than that has been previously observed in any other non-clinical human population. However, in Experiment 2, their recognition of normal or distorted ("Thatcherized") faces did not appear to have been affected by their attention to detail as has been suggested for autistic populations. The data are consistent with a cultural/experiential origin for population differences in local processing and suggest that attention to the local and global properties of stimuli may differ for hierarchical figures and faces.
Davidoff
Jules
J
Centre for Cognition, Computation and Culture, Goldsmiths College, University of London, London, UK. j.davidoff@gold.ac.uk
Fonteneau
Elisabeth
E
Fagot
Joel
J
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D001288:Attention; D003431:Cross-Cultural Comparison; D004193:Discrimination Learning; D005006:Ethnicity / Q000523:psychology*; D005149:Facial Expression; D005260:Female; D005364:Field Dependence-Independence; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009276:Namibia; D009949:Orientation; D010364:Pattern Recognition, Visual; D010469:Perceptual Distortion; D011601:Psychophysics; D011930:Reaction Time; D012424:Rural Population; D012858:Size Perception; D012934:Social Isolation; D014171:Transients and Migrants