reduced distractibility in a remote culture减少注意力分散在一个偏远的文化.pdfVIP

Reduced Distractibility in a Remote Culture Jan W. de Fockert*, Serge Caparos, Karina J. Linnell, Jules Davidoff Department of Psychology, Goldsmiths, University of London, London, United Kingdom Abstract Background: In visual processing, there are marked cultural differences in the tendency to adopt either a global or local processing style. A remote culture (the Himba) has recently been reported to have a greater local bias in visual processing than Westerners. Here we give the first evidence that a greater, and remarkable, attentional selectivity provides the basis for this local bias. Methodology/Principal Findings: In Experiment 1, Eriksen-type flanker interference was measured in the Himba and in Western controls. In both groups, responses to the direction of a task-relevant target arrow were affected by the compatibility of task-irrelevant distractor arrows. However, the Himba showed a marked reduction in overall flanker interference compared to Westerners. The smaller interference effect in the Himba occurred despite their overall slower performance than Westerners, and was evident even at a low level of perceptual load of the displays. In Experiment 2, the attentional selectivity of the Himba was further demonstrated by showing that their attention was not even captured by a moving singleton distractor. Conclusions/Significance: We argue that the reduced distractibility in the Himba is clearly consistent with their tendency to prioritize the analysis of local details in visual processing. Citation: de Fockert JW, Caparos S, Linnell KJ, Davidoff J (2011) Reduced Distractibility in a Remote Culture. PLoS ONE 6(10): e26337. doi:10.1371/ journal.pone.0026337 Editor: Wael El-Deredy, University of Manchester, United Kingdom Received April 26, 2