Can you see circles or rectangles? And does the answer depend on where you grew up? | Anil Seth
DO people of different cultures and environments see the world differently? Two recent studies have a difference in this decades -continuing controversy. The answer may be more complicated, more interesting, which suggests the study.
One study, led by Ivan Kroben at London College of Economics, He asked how People look from different cultures to an optical illusion known as Coffer. They discovered that people in the United Kingdom and the United States have seen it mainly, in the form of rectangles – while people from rural societies in Namibia usually see this in another way: as circuits that contain.
To explain these differences, Kroupin and his colleagues like a hypothesis that has been raised more than 60 years ago and has argued about them since then. The idea is that people in Western industrial countries (these days known as “Gharib” – L. Western, educated, industrial, rich and democratic – An increasingly doubtful summary) He sees things in a specific way because they are generally exposed to very “carpenter” environments, with many straight lines, and the right angles – common visual features in Western engineering. On the contrary, people inhabit non-“non-strange” societies-such as those in the Namibia countryside-with fewer sharp lines and angular geometric shapes, so their visual capabilities will be controlled differently.
The study argues that the inclination of the rural Namibians to see circles instead of rectangles in the illusion of Coffer is that its environments dominated by structures such as round huts instead of corner environments. They copy this conclusion with similar results from many other visual illusions, all of which are supposed to take advantage of the basic brain mechanisms involved in visual perception. So far, it is very good for cognitive psychologists across cultures, and the hypothesis of “The Carpenter”.
The second study, by Dorsa Amir and Chaz Firestone, takes a heavy hammer for this hypothesis, but for the most known illusion: Muller Wayer and illusion. It seems that two lines of equal length are different lengths due to the context provided by the internal direction, compared to the external arrow heads. It is a very strong illusion. I saw him on thousands of occasions working every time for me.
There are many explanations about the cause of Müller-Lyer. One of the most popular is that the arrow heads are explained by the brain as signs about the three -dimensional depth, and therefore our brains implicitly explain the illusion that it represents an object of a kind, with the right corners and straight lines. This interpretation is accurately proportional to the hypothesis of the “Al-Najjar World”-and indeed a lot of early support for this hypothesis depends on the cultural variation that appears on how to realize the illusion of Müller-Lyer.
In their studies, Amir and Porton carefully and dismantling this interpretation convincingly. They point out that non-human animals suffer from illusion, as shown in a set of studies in which animals are trained (including bathroom, bathroom and bearded teenage) over a longer preference than two lines, then presented with the Müller-Lyer image. They show that it works without straight lines, the touch as well as vision. They notice that he worked even for people who were blind until recently, and they point out Amazing experience Where nine children were shown, blind from birth due to the doves of the dense eye lens, immediately after removing the eye lens surgically. It was not only that these children had not seen very carpenter environments – they have never seen anything. After absorbing their analysis, it is quite clear that the illusion of Müller-Lyer is not due to the cultural exposure to the carpentry.
Why the contradiction? There are many possibilities. Perhaps there are reasons that make the contrast of culture expected for Coffer but not Müller-Lyer (one of the possibilities here is that Coffer’s illusion depends on how to pay attention to things, instead of the basic aspects of perception). There may also be systematic differences in perceptions between cultures, but the hypothesis of the “Najjar World” is not the correct interpretation. It should also be noted that Kroupin’s study has some potential weaknesses. For example, participants in the United Kingdom/United States and Namibi have been subjected to delusions using very different ways. In general, the jury is still outside and – the favorite world of Pont – “more research is needed.”
The idea that people from different cultures differ in how to try things is definitely reasonable. There is a lot of evidence that with the growth of our brains growth, at least somewhat, with the advantages of our environments. Just as we all differ in our visible properties from the outside – the height, body shape, etc. – we will all differ inside as well. The author Anaïs Nin said in the Talmud quote: “We do not see things as they are, we see them as we are.”
For me, there is an important impact on this line of thought is that it is possible that there are great differences in perception inside “Groups” as well between they. This is likely to be determined, but these “groups” are specific, whether they are different cultures or as a contradiction between “nervous” and “nervous” people. I believe that paying more attention to cognitive diversity within the group will help us explain the differences that we find between groups better, and prepare us with the tools needed to resist dependence on simple stereotypes as explanations.
More research is needed here as well. But it is on the way. in Cognitive censusIt is a project led by my research collection at the University of Sussex with Professor Fiona McFireson at the University of Glasgow, we study how perception differs in a large sample of about 40,000 people from more than 100 countries.
Our experience does not include visual illusion or only two, but more than 50 different experiences are achieved in many different aspects of perception. When we finish data analysis, we hope to provide a uniquely detailed picture of how people try to their world, in cultures and in them. We will also open data publicly to other researchers to explore new ideas in this important field.
One critical vision lies behind all these questions. How do things look not like.
Each of us, it may seem as if we see the world exactly as it is; As if our senses are transparent windows through the world that flow directly in our minds. But how things are completely different. There is no doubt that the objective world exists, but the world that we always experience is an active building, and it is a type of “controlled hallucinations” in which the brain uses sensory signals to modernize and calibrate the best explanation for what is going on. What we experience is this interpretation, not a “reading” of sensory information.
For me, this is the main insight that lies behind any demanding cognitive diversity. When we take it on board completely, it encourages modesty that affects the need for our own ways. We live in cognitive resonance rooms, just as we do on social media, and the first step to escape from any echo room is to realize that you are in one.
