In another of the spate of recent studies to probe the effect of culture on information processing in the brain, Richard Lewis of the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor showed that East Asians analyze cartoons differently than Americans do. Using culturally nonspecific cartoons, he found that East Asians first take the background context into account, whereas Americans initially concentrate on objects in the foreground. This holistic-versus-pointed focus matches the findings of other comparative studies and probably results from the different cultures’ outlooks.

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