Effects of Human Culture on Perception

The Effects of Culture on Human Perception

Every person is different in their own unique way. Whether it be the way a person dresses to the way a person eats. Not only is each person different from every other person, every culture is different from one another too. Different cultures may dress different ways, speak a different language, or even have a different religion from one another. Did you ever think that different cultures see things different from the way we do? They perceive things differently? There has been a lot of research and experiments done to prove that a person's culture can have an affect on the way that person perceives certain things.

To find out myself, I found ten different people willing to participate in a study, three Asian people and seven non-Asian people. I found the Asian participants in random places such as restaurants, nail salons, and the mall. The non-Asian participants were mainly family and friends. For this experiment to see how different cultures perceive different images, I asked each person to look at a picture of an underwater scene for ten seconds. The picture was of four big fish, two small fish in the back ground, some seaweed off to the side, a underwater plant, and the sea bottom. I then asked them to close their eyes and describe the picture to me.

All of the non-Asian participants had similar descriptions of the picture. I numbered each non-Asian participant 1-7. Participant number 1's description of the underwater picture was "I saw three big fish and the sea bottom.". Participant number 2 said " I saw four big Croppy and some minnows." ( he was referring to the bigger fish as croppy, which is a fish that fishermen like to catch and the smaller fish as minnows, which are very tiny fish.). Participant number 3 described the picture as having "some big fish and a strand of seaweed.". Participant number 4 said "I saw some fish swimming.". Participant number 5 said " I saw 4 big fish and some smaller ones in the back." . Participant number 6 said " it was an underwater scene with fish.". The last non-

Asian participant said " I saw fish, a plant and sand.". Each non-Asian participant described the picture in a different way, but every one of them notice the larger fish first.

Just how every non-Asian described the picture in a similar way, so did the three Asian people that participated. I numbered each Asian participant 8-10. Participant number 8 said " I saw smaller fish, seaweed, sand, a plant, and some big fish." Asian participant number 9 described the picture as having "two small fish, bigger fish, and some sea plants.". Participant number 10 said that she saw "sand on the bottom, a sea plant, seaweed, and small fish." , she didn't even mention the bigger fish. The Asian participants seemed to notice the details