Cross-cultural differences in attention: An investigation through computational modelling

Mavritsaki, Eirini and Chua, Stephanie and Allen, Harriet A and Rentzelas, Panagiotis (2025) Cross-cultural differences in attention: An investigation through computational modelling. Brain Organoid and Systems Neuroscience Journal, 3. pp. 1-7. ISSN 2949-9216

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Abstract

Behavioural research has shown that cultural membership can shape visual perception and attentional processes. In picture perception, members of collectivist cultures are more likely to attend the whole of the perceptual field than an individual salient item. Members of individualist cultures tend to attend the most salient object in the visual field. Understanding the brain processes that underlie these differences in visual attention is very important, as attentional processes can have significant impact on learning, navigation, communication and more. This study examines the perception of saliency among collectivist and individualist cultural groups using a computational modelling approach that is based on spiking neurons, the binding spiking Search over Time and Space (b-sSoTS) model. We simulated visual search for a salient target among distracters. We successfully simulated cross-cultural differences in early visual processes by altering the coupling parameter and varying the strength of connections between representations in the model. These findings indicate that the one of the potential causes of cross-cultural differences in visual perception can be the differences in encoding the mechanisms between individualist and collectivist cultural groups This study marks the first step investigating these processes by extending the behavioural research finding with computational modelling.

Item Type: Article
Identification Number: 10.1016/j.bosn.2025.01.001
Dates:
Date
Event
17 January 2025
Accepted
21 January 2025
Published Online
Uncontrolled Keywords: Visual attention, Computational modelling, Culture, SSoTS model, Saliency
Subjects: CAH04 - psychology > CAH04-01 - psychology > CAH04-01-01 - psychology (non-specific)
Divisions: Faculty of Business, Law and Social Sciences > College of Psychology
Depositing User: Gemma Tonks
Date Deposited: 04 Feb 2025 11:09
Last Modified: 04 Feb 2025 11:13
URI: https://www.open-access.bcu.ac.uk/id/eprint/16115

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