Abstract
BackgroundIn 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.Methodology/Principal FindingsIn 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/SignificanceWe argue that the reduced distractibility in the Himba is clearly consistent with their tendency to prioritize the analysis of local details in visual processing.
Highlights
Variation in distractibility is widely reported in tasks requiring selective attention
We computed compatibility effects as a function of perceptual load for each participant, by subtracting the compatible inverse efficiency from the incompatible inverse efficiency at each set size. These compatibility effects were entered in a 26264 mixed Analysis of Variance (ANOVA), with culture (Western, Himba) and exposure duration as the between subjects factors, and perceptual load as a within-subject factor
The cultural difference in distractibility was independent of perceptual load, and the Himba were already considerably less distractible than Westerners at the lowest level of load
Summary
Variation in distractibility is widely reported in tasks requiring selective attention. Several groups within the Western population are more distracted by task-irrelevant information than healthy young Western adults; these include typically developing young children [1], children with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder [2], the elderly [3,4], and schizophrenic patients [5]. Such distractibility in selective attention tasks is important and related to everyday absent-mindedness and failures of attention [6,7]. We give the first evidence that a greater, and remarkable, attentional selectivity provides the basis for this local bias
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