It all depends on how you look at it
If you've ever thought that other people think differently from you, you might right. Well, actually they might be right and you might be wrong, but how you both reached your conclusions may be the results of how people process information.
Researchers from the University of London in the UK set out to study differences in how British and Chinese people recognise people and the world around them.
For example, while most British people look at a person’s eyes when they are talking to them, Chinese people are much less likely to make eye contact. 'This can leave the British person feeling uncomfortable and distrustful,' says Dr David Kelly who worked on the study. "On the other hand, the Chinese person would consider eye contact to be potentially disrespectful and impolite.'
That knowledge is nothing new. However, the study show suggests that this particular cultural contrast is underpinned by the different ways Westerners (British) and Easterners (Chinese) ‘process' visual information. While adults from Western cultures process information analytically by focusing on key features, adults from the East process information in a more holistic style, which also takes context and situation into account.
In terms of eye contact for example, this means that when a Westerner processes a person's face they will typically fixate on the key feature of the face, usually the eyes. An Easterner, in contrast, will largely avoid the eyes (hence the lack of eye contact) and take in information from a wider area below the eyes and around the nose. The research also showed that people acted in the same ways when looking at other unfamiliar stimuli, such as animal faces.
These ways of taking in information, though, only start as an individual becomes older. Both British and Chinese children showed only minimal or no differences in processing strategies at the youngest age groups of five and six years year olds, but the different ways of processing visual information had emerged by the age of 12.
While the mechanisms by which these different strategies emerge between age five and 12 is at present unknown, researchers believe the findingswith help contribute to smoothing cross-cultural relations.