title: Reduced distractibility in a remote culture.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  In visual processing, there are marked cultural differences in the tendency to adopt either a global or local processing style. A remote culture (the Himba) has recently been reported to have a greater local bias in visual processing than Westerners. Here we give the first evidence that a greater, and remarkable, attentional selectivity provides the basis for this local bias.
  
  
  RESULTS
  In Experiment 1, Eriksen-type flanker interference was measured in the Himba and in Western controls. In both groups, responses to the direction of a task-relevant target arrow were affected by the compatibility of task-irrelevant distractor arrows. However, the Himba showed a marked reduction in overall flanker interference compared to Westerners. The smaller interference effect in the Himba occurred despite their overall slower performance than Westerners, and was evident even at a low level of perceptual load of the displays. In Experiment 2, the attentional selectivity of the Himba was further demonstrated by showing that their attention was not even captured by a moving singleton distractor.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  We argue that the reduced distractibility in the Himba is clearly consistent with their tendency to prioritize the analysis of local details in visual processing.
authors: Department of Psychology, Goldsmiths, University of London, London, United Kingdom. j.de-fockert@gold.ac.uk
authors: Jan W
authors: JW
authors: de Fockert
authors: Serge
authors: S
authors: Caparos
authors: Karina J
authors: KJ
authors: Linnell
authors: Jules
authors: J
authors: Davidoff
mesh_terms: D000349:Africa / Q000208:ethnology; D001288:Attention / Q000502:physiology*; D003466:Cultural Characteristics; D003469:Culture; D006801:Humans; D044382:Population Groups / Q000523:psychology*; D014796:Visual Perception / Q000502:physiology*