title: Self-construal priming modulates the scope of visual attention.
abstract: Although it is well documented that cultures influence basic cognitive processes such as attention, the underlying mechanisms remain unclear. We tested the hypothesis that self-concepts that characterize people from different cultures mediate the variation of visual attention. After being primed with self-construals that emphasize the Eastern interdependent self or the Western independent self, Chinese participants were asked to discriminate a central target letter flanked by compatible or incompatible stimuli (Experiment 1) or global/local letters in a compound stimulus (Experiment 2). Experiment 1 showed that, while responses were slower to the incompatible than to the compatible stimuli, this flanker compatibility effect was increased by the interdependent relative to the independent self-construal priming. Experiment 2 showed that the interdependent-self priming resulted in faster responses to the global than to the local targets in compound letters whereas a reverse pattern was observed in the independent-self priming condition. The results provide evidence for dynamics of the scope of visual attention as a function of self-construal priming that switches self-concept toward the interdependent or independent styles in Chinese.
authors: Peking University, Beijing, People's Republic of China.
authors: Zhicheng
authors: Z
authors: Lin
authors: Shihui
authors: S
authors: Han
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001288:Attention; D003071:Cognition; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D012649:Self Concept; D014796:Visual Perception; D055815:Young Adult