Cultural differences in visual attention

Implications for distraction processing

Bibliographic Data

ID5267252
AuthorsTarek Amer (0000-0002-1866-9437, Department of Psychology University of Toronto Canada, corresponding author), K W Joan Ngo (Department of Psychology University of Toronto Canada), Lynn Hasher (Department of Psychology University of Toronto Canada, corresponding author)
Year2017
Volume108
Issue2
Pages244-258
Publication date2017-05-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueBritish Journal of Psychology (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0007-1269 • E-ISSN: 2044-8295
PublisherWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1111/bjop.12194
PMID26946068
OpenAlexW2293277771
LanguageEN
Citations received7
References cited40

We investigated differences between participants of East Asian and Western descent in attention to and implicit memory for irrelevant words which participants were instructed to ignore while completing a target task (a Stroop Task in Experiment 1 and a 1-back task on pictures in Experiment 2). Implicit memory was measured using two conceptual priming tasks (category generation in Experiment 1 and general knowledge in Experiment 2). Participants of East Asian descent showed reliable implicit memory for previous distractors relative to those of Western descent with no evidence of differences on target task performance. We also found differences in a Corsi Block spatial memory task in both studies, with superior performance by the East Asian group. Our findings suggest that cultural differences in attention extend to task-irrelevant background information, and demonstrate for the first time that such information can boost performance when it becomes relevant on a subsequent task

Cognition · Cognitive psychology · Distraction · Visual attention · Child and Animal Learning Development · Neural and Behavioral Psychology Studies · Neuroscience · Psychology

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