03 May 2007

Culture scul(p)tures brains

Actually, given what has been uncovered in the last few years about brain development, this is no surprise; but it's good to have hard evidence.
“These are the first studies to show that culture is sculpting the brain,” said Park, principal investigator on the study. “The effect is seen not so much in structural changes, but at the level of perception.”
Scientists have known for decades that East Asians and Westerners process visual information differently. An analysis published in 1972 noted that East Asians are more likely to pay attention to the context and relationships in a picture than are Westerners, who more often notice physical features or groupings of similar subjects.

In a sense, I guess, it means that culture really does inscribe itself into the lives and being of humans. Culture really is part of who we are at very fundamental levels. It reinforces the idea that we approach all sorts of things with a variety of a prioris and even what we notice is culturally influenced. The limits of objectivity are, for individuals, circumscribed by some cultural stuff. We need each other across cultures to arrive at fuller truth and healthy self-criticism. I think that is part of the point of the picture in the latter parts of the Revelation to John of the wealth of the nations being brought into the new Jerusalem: and we are appreciating more and more nowadays just how much knowledge, information and ideas are wealth, aren't we?
ScienceDaily: Culture Sculpts Neural Response To Visual Stimuli, New Research Indicates

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