153 research outputs found
The cultural fabric of human causal cognition
Causal cognition emerges early in development and confers an important advantage for survival. But does this mean that it is universal in humans? Our cross-disciplinary review suggests a broad evolutionary basis for core components of causal cognition but also underlines the essential role of culturally transmitted content as being uniquely human. The multiple ways in which both content and the key mechanisms of cultural transmission generate cultural diversity suggest that causal cognition in humans is not only colored by their specific cultural background but also shaped more fundamentally by the very fact that humans are a cultural species.acceptedVersio
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How Relative is the Relative Frame of Reference?Front and back in Norwegian, Farsi, German, and Japanese
Across languages, people differ in which of the three basicframes of reference (FoRs) they prefer when describingspatial relations: absolute, intrinsic, or relative. But how muchvariation is there with regard to the relative FoR, which isanchored in the observer and occurs as one of three variants?Is the reflection variant canonical, as assumed by manyscholars? And how are objects in a person’s back referred to:by turning towards the objects? Results from two studies, onewith speakers of Norwegian and Farsi, the other with speakersof German and Japanese, reveal that reflection is notcanonical, but that translation and even rotation are used aswell. In addition, turning towards objects arranged in aperson’s back is very rare; what people use instead is abackward projection strategy that goes without rotation
The Cultural Constitution of Cognition: Taking the Anthropological Perspective
To what extent is cognition affected by culture? And how might cognitive science profit from an intensified collaboration with anthropology in exploring this issue? In order to answer these questions, we will first give a brief description of different perspectives on cognition, one that prevails in most cognitive sciences – particularly in cognitive psychology – and one in anthropology. Three basic assumptions of cognitive science regarding the separability of content and process, the context-independence of processing, and the culture-independence of processing will then be discussed. We argue that these assumptions need to be questioned and scrutinized cross-culturally. A thorough examination of these issues would profit considerably from collaboration with anthropologists, not only by enabling deeper insight into the cultures under scrutiny, but also by synergistic effects that would allow for a more comprehensive understanding of human cognition
Causal Asymmetry Across Cultures: Assigning Causal Roles in Symmetric Physical Settings
Causal cognition in the physical domain has been treated for a long time as if it were (1) objective and (2) independent of culture. Despite some evidence to the contrary, however, these implicit assumptions have been rarely ever explored systematically. While the pervasive tendency of people to consider one of two equally important entities as more important for bringing about an effect (as reported by White, 2006) meanwhile provides one type of counter-evidence for the first assumption, respective findings remained mute to the second. In order to scrutinize how robust such tendencies are across cultures – and, if not, on which aspects of culture they may depend – we asked German and Tongan participants to assign prime causality in nine symmetric settings. For most settings, strong asymmetries in both cultures were found, but not always in the same direction, depending on the task content and by virtue of the multifaceted character of “culture.” This indicates that causal asymmetries, while indeed being a robust phenomenon across cultures, are also modulated by task-specific properties (such as figure–ground relations), and are subject to cultural influences
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Variability in the Alignment of Number and Space Across Languages and Tasks
While the domains of space and number appear to be linked in human brains and minds, their conceptualization still differs across languages and cultures. For instance, frames of reference for spatial descriptions vary according to task, context, and cultural background, and the features of the mental number line depend on formal education and writing direction. To shed more light on the influence of culture/language and task on such conceptualizations, we conducted a large-scale survey with speakers of five languages that differ in writing systems, preferences for spatial and temporal representations, and/or composition of number words. Here, we report data obtained from tasks on ordered arrangements, including numbers, letters, and written text. Comparing these data across tasks, domains, and languages indicates that, even within a single domain, representations may differ depending on task characteristics, and that the degree of cross-domain alignment varies with domains and culture
Theory, the Final Frontier? A Corpus-Based Analysis of the Role of Theory in Psychological Articles
Contemporary psychology regards itself as an empirical science, at least in most of its subfields. Theory building and development are often considered critical to the sciences, but the extent to which psychology can be cast in this way is under debate. According to those advocating a strong role of theory, studies should be designed to test hypotheses derived from theories (theory-driven) and ideally should yield findings that stimulate hypothesis formation and theory building (theory-generating). The alternative position values empirical findings over theories as the lasting legacy of science. To investigate which role theory actually plays in current research practice, we analyse references to theory in the complete set of 2,046 articles accepted for publication in Frontiers of Psychology in 2015. This sample of articles, while not representative in the strictest sense, covers a broad range of sub-disciplines, both basic and applied, and a broad range of article types, including research articles, reviews, hypothesis & theory, and commentaries. For the titles, keyword lists, and abstracts in this sample, we conducted a text search for terms related to empiricism and theory, assessed the frequency and scope of usage for six theory-related terms, and analyzed their distribution over different article types and subsections of the journal. The results indicate substantially lower frequencies of theoretical than empirical terms, with references to a specific (named) theory in less than 10% of the sample and references to any of even the most frequently mentioned theories in less than 0.5% of the sample. In conclusion, we discuss possible limitations of our study and the prospect of theoretical advancement
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