Cultural effects on computational metrics of spatial and temporal context

Nicholas D Wright,Chen Song,Geraint Rees,Rebecca P Lawson,Jan Grohn

doi:10.1038/s41598-018-20200-y

Abstract

The concept of “prediction error” - the difference between what occurred and was expected - is key to understanding the cognitive processes of human decision making. Expectations have to be learned so the concept of prediction error critically depends on context, specifically the temporal context of probabilistically related events and their changes across time (i.e. volatility). While past research suggests context differently affects some cognitive processes in East Asian and Western individuals, it is currently unknown whether this extends to computationally-grounded measures of learning and prediction error. Here we compared Chinese and British nationals in an associative learning task that quantifies behavioural effects of prediction error, and—through a hierarchical Bayesian learning model—also captures how individuals learn about probabilistic relationships and their volatility. For comparison, we also administered a psychophysical task, the tilt illusion, to assess cultural differences in susceptibility to spatial context. We found no cultural differences in the effect of spatial context on perception. In the domain of temporal context there was no effect of culture on sensitivity to prediction error, or learning about volatility, but some suggestion that Chinese individuals may learn more readily about probabilistic relationships.

Highlights

Neuroscience has made substantial advances in understanding the processes by which humans perceive and respond to the environment
Many psychological studies indicate that people from East Asian cultures, being more holistic “big picture” thinkers, are more inclined to expect change to occur across time, and
The rate at which probabilistic relationships change over time is a form of temporal context that humans learn about in order to determine when a prediction error indicates that prior beliefs should be revised[17,18,19,20,21,22]

Summary

Introduction

Neuroscience has made substantial advances in understanding the processes by which humans perceive and respond to the environment. South Koreans report less surprise than Americans after unexpected outcomes in vignettes[8]; and in the U.S, people born in East Asia report less pleasure and surprise at an unexpected gift than those U.S born[9] Whether these subjective reports of cross-cultural differences apply to the objectively measured behavioural and computational aspects of prediction errors is unknown. The rate at which probabilistic relationships change over time (i.e. volatility) is a form of temporal context that humans learn about in order to determine when a prediction error indicates that prior beliefs should be revised[17,18,19,20,21,22] (e.g. faster belief updating when conditions are estimated to be volatile). Despite the fact there are established computational models that capture how humans learn to build expectations under conditions of environmental change[17,18,19,20,21,22], no studies have examined cross-cultural differences in these mechanisms computationally

Methods

Results

Conclusion