What Simon "knows" about cultural differences: The influence of cultural orientation and traffic directionality on spatial compatibility effects

Abstract

Previous research has suggested that culture influences perception and attention. These studies have typically involved comparisons of Westerners with East Asians, motivated by assumed differences in the cultures' self-concept or position on the individualism-collectivism spectrum. However, other potentially important sources of cultural variance have been neglected, such as differences in traffic directionality shaped by the urban spatial environment (i.e., left-hand vs. right-hand traffic). Thus, existing research may potentially place too much emphasis on self-concepts or the individualism-collectivism dimension in explaining observed cultural differences in cognition. The present study investigated spatial cognition using a Simon task and tested participants from four nations (Australia, China, Germany, and Malaysia) that differ in both cultural orientation (collectivistic vs. individualistic) and traffic directionality (left-hand vs. right-hand traffic). The task used two possible reference frames underlying the Simon effect: a body-centered one based on global stimulus position relative to the screen's center versus an object-centered one based on local stimulus position relative to a context object. As expected, all groups showed a reliable Simon effect for both spatial reference frames. However, the global Simon effect was larger in participants from countries with left-hand traffic. In contrast, the local Simon effect was modulated by differences in cultural orientation, with larger effects in participants from collectivistic cultures. This pattern suggests that both sources of cultural variation, viz. cultural orientation and traffic directionality, contribute to differences in spatial cognition in distinct ways.

Keywords: Cultural orientation; Culture; Simon effect; Spatial cognition; Spatial compatibility; Spatial reference frames; Traffic directionality.

Fig. 1

Stimulus setup in both Display Size conditions. Left: One stick-figure manikin is presented at one of the 16 spatial positions distributed equally around the screen’s center (1-manikin display). Right: A perceptual group of nine identical stick-figure manikins is presented, in a way that a majority of manikins is located on one side of the screen. Note that faint manikins serve only to illustrate the possible positions (see text for further details)

Fig. 2

Reaction times are shown as a violin plot with box plots for the four countries as a function Screen Position Compatibility, and Ball Position Compatibility separately for Display Size (1-manikin [top row] vs. 9-manikin display [bottom row]). The countries were analyzed in regard of the traffic directionality (left-hand traffic [Australia, Malaysia] vs. right-hand traffic [China, Germany]) and cultural orientation (collectivism [China, Malaysia] vs. individualism [Australia, Germany]). The box shows the interquartile range with the central bar depicting the median and the whiskers showing 1.5 x the interquartile range from the first and third quartiles, respectively

Fig. 3

Simon effects by country and Display Size (1-manikin [top row] vs. 9-manikin display [bottom row]); Simon effects indicate the difference between incompatible and compatible trials, based on the global, self-centered reference frame of the screen’s center (global Simon effect, left column) and the local, object-centered reference frame of the manikin (local Simon effect, right column). The box shows the interquartile range with the central bar depicting the median and the whiskers showing 1.5 x the interquartile range from the first and third quartiles, respectively