Does mere exposure enhance positive evaluation,independent of stimulus recognition? A replication study in Japan and the USA1

Abstract: In order to examine whether the mere exposure effect, the finding that exposure to a stimulus enhances a positive evaluation of it, occurs in Japan as well as in the USA, a test was carried out using a novel auditory stimulus. Japanese and American people were asked to listen to repeatedly presented Tagalog (the native Filipino language) utterances. They were then asked to estimate their liking for each utterance and whether they recognized it as one presented during the first exposure stage. The mere exposure effect was found in both cultures. Further, it resulted from only exposure frequency, not recognition. Implications for preference and the role of culture are discussed.     

Culture and visual perception: Does perceptual inference depend on culture?1,2

Abstract: Some perceptual cues carry information about the overall pattern of an object (holistic cues), whereas others carry information about the distinct parts of an object (part cues). Drawing on recent work on culture and cognition, the authors predicted that people with European‐American cultural backgrounds would be more capable of using part cues in perceptual inference than those with Asian backgrounds. No such cross‐cultural difference was expected for the ability to use holistic cues. In two studies, participants were presented with either one of the two types of cues and asked to infer the identity of the original objects. As predicted, in the part‐cue condition European‐American participants performed better than did Japanese (Study 1) and Asian‐American participants (Study 2). Also as predicted, there was no cultural difference in the holistic‐cue condition. The results were interpreted with reference to other related studies documenting reliable cross‐cultural differences in cognition.     

Cross-cultural differences in processes underlying sequential cognitive activity

Abstract: Similarities and differences in the processes underlying performance on the Stroop Color-Word Test (Card A, 100 color words/black ink; Card B, 100 color patches; Card C, 100 color words/incongruous ink color) were investigated with Japanese ( N = 96) and Americans ( N = 96) with stimulus items read: (a) vertically, top to bottom; and (b) horizontally, left to right. Total time as well as errors, namely, those involved with the underlying processes of identification and sequential organization, were significantly longer or more frequent on Card C than on Cards A and B for both nationalities and spatial arrangements. Further, greater frequency of serial organization errors in females than in males was obtained for the Japanese group, and the opposite for the American group. The implications and directions for future research are discussed.     

Do differences in general trust explain cultural differences in dispositionism?1

Abstract: It has been suggested that Westerners are more inclined than Easterners to endorse dispositionism. To help explain what produces this cultural difference, I examined the responses of Japanese and American students to determine whether levels of general trust, which is the expectation of benign or cooperative behavior based on the goodwill of another person (Yamagishi & Yamagishi, 1994), would matter. As predicted, in accounting for either a prosocial or deviant behavior, high trusters were more likely than low trusters to show dispositionism on all three measures (dispositional attribution, trait inference, and behavioral consistency), whereas cultural differences in dispositionism almost vanished. This tendency was found regardless of the desirability of behaviors.     

Effects of stimulus eccentricity on vection reevaluated with a binocularly defined depth1

Abstract: The effects of stimulus eccentricity (central or peripheral) on vection (visually induced self‐motion perception) were investigated using a stimulus combination consisting of a static foreground and a moving background, the depths of which were defined by binocular disparity. By using these stimulus settings, the effect of stimulus eccentricity can be assessed without any artifacts in the perceived depth of the stimulus, which would covary with the stimulus eccentricity. The results of this psychophysical experiment indicated that stimulus eccentricity cannot affect the strength of vection, and that both the central and peripheral stimuli can induce self‐motion perception with equal magnitudes if the stimulus sizes are equalized. The present investigation, which used a controlled stimulus depth condition, clearly negated the idea of the peripheral dominance of vection, which has been accepted for a long time.