Schooling in western culture promotes context-free processing

• Type: Article in International Scientific Journal
• Date: 2008

Authors

Paulo Ventura (Author) Other; Chotiga Pattamadilok (Author) Other; Tânia Fernandes (Author) FPCEUP; Olivier Klein (Author) Other; José Morais (Author) Other; Régine Kolinsky (Author) Other

Journal

Title: Journal of Experimental Child Psychology

Vol. 100 No. 2

Pages: 79-88

ISSN: 0022-0965

Publisher: Elsevier

Indexing

ISI Web of Knowledge - 7 Citations

Scopus - 14 Citations

Scientific classification

FOS: Social sciences > Psychology

Other information

Authenticus ID: P-003-Z0M

DOI: 10.1016/j.jecp.2008.02.001

Abstract (EN): Culture has been shown to influence the way people apprehend their physical environment. Cognitive orientation is more holistic in East Asian cultures, which emphasize relationships and connectedness among objects in the field, than in Western cultures, which are more prone to focus exclusively on the object and its attributes. We investigated whether, beyond, or in conjunction with culture, literacy and/or schooling may also have an influence on this cognitive orientation. Using the Framed-Line Test both in Portugal and in Thailand, we compared literate schooled adults with two groups of unschooled adults: one of illiterates and one of ex-illiterates. As in former studies on Western people, Portuguese-schooled literates were more accurate in the absolute task than in the relative task. In contrast, Portuguese illiterates and ex-illiterates were more accurate in the relative task than in the absolute task. Such an effect of schooling was not observed in the Thai groups, all of whom performed better on the relative task. Thus, the capacity to abstract from contextual information does not stem only from passive exposure to the culture or the physical environment of Western countries. Western schooling, as part of or in addition to culture, is a crucial factor. (C) 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Language: English

Type (Professor's evaluation): Scientific

No. of pages: 10