Cultural Neuroscience
Cultural neuroscience explores the complex interplay between cultural factors and neurobiological systems. It draws on insights from anthropology, psychology, and neuroscience to study how cultural environment shapes human behavior and cognition. By utilizing neuroimaging techniques, researchers can observe cross-cultural variability in neural activity to understand the bidirectional relationship between culture and neurobiology.
Origins of Human Nature and Diversity
Central to cultural neuroscience are the questions of how cultural traits influence neurobiology and behavior, and conversely, how neurobiological mechanisms enable the development and transmission of cultural traits. By integrating theory and methods from multiple disciplines, researchers aim to explain mental phenomena as a product of interacting mental, neural, and genetic processes. Cultural neuroscience shares common goals with other interdisciplinary fields such as social and cognitive neuroscience, examining the role of neurobiological mechanisms in cultural transmission and the relationship between embedded culture and brain function.
Cross-Cultural Comparisons
Previous behavioral research has highlighted cultural differences in attention, perception, and understanding of self and others between East Asian and Western cultures. Neuroimaging studies have provided evidence for neurological similarities and differences in these domains. East Asians exhibit greater attentional activity in areas related to individual object processing, while Westerners show more activation in object processing regions. Furthermore, the ventromedial prefrontal cortex, involved in self-perception, shows activity in Chinese subjects when thinking about themselves and their mothers, while American subjects only activate it in self-referential thoughts.
Culture and Visual Stimuli
Cultural differences have also been observed in the ventral visual cortex. East Asians tend to focus more on background scenes in visual tasks, while Westerners are more drawn to central objects. Studies on facial processing have shown that Americans focus broadly on the entire face, while Asians focus more on specific features like the mouth, which has been attributed to cultural norms of gaze avoidance.
Plasticity and Cultural Influences
Environmental factors, such as prolonged exposure to certain skills, have been shown to influence brain structure and function. For example, London taxi drivers have enlarged gray matter in the hippocampus compared to non-taxi drivers, while jugglers have increased volume in areas associated with visuospatial processing. These findings underscore the plasticity of the brain and the role of cultural experiences in shaping neural development.
Overall, cultural neuroscience provides a framework for understanding the interplay between cultural environment and human neurobiology. By integrating perspectives from diverse disciplines, researchers aim to uncover the complex processes that shape human cognition, behavior, and well-being across cultures.