Running head: THE YIN AND YANG OF CULTURAL NEUROSCIENCE
The Yin and Yang of Cultural Neuroscience in Design
Lisa D. Harper
University of Baltimore
IDIA 640
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THE YIN AND YANG OF CULTURAL NEUROSCIENCE
Abstract
Culture is not innate but learned. It defines the boundaries between groups of people and
touches every aspect of life. Language and social communication are innate, yet influenced by
culture. This paper focuses on the role of culture in shaping cognitive and neurological
processes: particularly, as concern differences between Westerners and East Asians. Two wellknown cultural models used in cross-cultural design studies are examined. Both are seen to be
useful, but incomplete. Of greater explanatory and predictive power is a recently proposed
theoretical framework that accounts for cultural differences and similarities in brain and
behavioral responses.
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The Yin and Yang of Cultural Neuroscience in Design
As of June 30, 2010, more than 70% percent of internet users are native speakers of some
language other than English (Internet World Stats, 2010). Nearly 30% of those users are from
East Asia (China, Japan, and Korea). Not surprisingly, website designers are increasingly
concerned with cross-cultural audiences. This is largely due to globalization and international
market forces.
Web site designers and usability professionals have, in recent years, begun to explore the
idea of culture-centered design. It is very clear that websites from other countries or cultures
vary. There are often differences in terms of color, style, use of media, layout, menus, and so on.
Designers hypothesize that some of these differences may be systematic and endemic to
particular cultures. In the past, localization for international audiences concerned adaptation
(e.g., translation) of web sites for foreign speakers. Today, a more sophisticated understanding
of culture drives designers to better understand how foreign audiences may engage and interact
with online content. The next section discusses two prominent cultural models used in crosscultural design analyses. Following, recent findings in cognitive psychology and neuroscience
are discussed. Finally, design implications are raised. Cross-cultural design is a rich area of
investigation of global consequence, but it’s a discipline still in its infancy.
Cultural Models
In 1971, cultural anthropologist Edward T. Hall published an influential book, “Beyond
Culture,” in which he discusses the effect of culture on communication. "Intelligence is ...
paying attention to the right things. The linear quality of a language inevitably results in
accentuating some things at the expense of others" (Hall, 1971, p. 87). He suggests that selective
attention is not limited to visual perception or linguistic phenomenon, but is characteristic of
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culture, as well. In Hall’s model, some information is conveyed in the message and some in the
context (situational or cultural). In high-context (HC) message, most of the information is either
in external or internal (mental) context, while very little is in the coded, linguistic part of the
message. By contrast, a low context (LC) communication encodes information more explicitly
in the message. Western cultures are considered relatively LC communicators, while Asian
cultures are considered relatively HC communicators. Hall goes on to describe properties of LC
cultures and HC cultures. For instance, in HC cultures, the sense of shared community and interdependence is strong while in LC cultures, people tend to be more individualistic with a stronger
sense of personal agency.
Social scientist, Geert Hofstede approached the study of culture quite differently. He
defined culture in terms of explicitly held beliefs and values. As such, he used survey questions
to get at cultural values and attitudes. Based on surveys from 57 countries in which IBM had
employees, he defined five dimensions of culture relating to national work value propositions:
perception of small (e.g., democratic) versus large (e.g., autocratic) power distances;
individualism versus collectivism; masculinity versus femininity; weak versus strong uncertainty
avoidance; long versus short term orientation (Hofstede, 2001). Importantly, these cultural
differences describe averages or tendencies and not characteristics of individuals. Hofstede
argued that people embody "mental programs" developed in the family and reinforced in schools
and organizations (Hofstede, 2001). These programs contain components of national culture.
Though, Hofstede and Hall may have shared many observations in common, they developed
very different models and methods – as one might expect from researchers working across
different disciplines (Cardon, 2008).
Cross-Cultural Design
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Marcus and Gould (2000) published an influential work in Interactions suggesting
cultural models be used to study cross-cultural digital design. Looking at Hofstede's five
dimensions, the authors examined a number of university websites from countries studied in
Hofstede's original analysis. This spurned a rash of activity in design analysis. In 2005, Würtz
produced an exploratory cross-cultural analysis (using elements of both Hall and Hofstede) of
various localizations of the McDonald’s website. She hypothesized that people in “high context
cultures” are more likely to adopt visual effects to convey their messages than people from “low
context cultures”. She believed the study provided support for her hypothesis, but was careful
not to draw too many conclusions from her study.
Soon after, other studies were published. Usinier & Roulin (2001), Cyr & Trevor-Smith
(2004), Callahan (2005), Kralisch, Berendt & Eisend (2005), Stengers, Baetens, Boers & Troyer
(2005) all produced studies using either models from Hofstede, Hall, or a combination. Each
study produced a number of hypotheses (e.g., “the pages making up LC websites are expected to
be consistent in their layout and color schemes, whereas pages in HC websites are expected to be
diverse”; “the relative frequency of images of [university] faculty is correlated positively with
country scores on the [Hofstede] power distance dimension”). Each hypothesis linked to either
HC / LC or a Hofstede dimension. Results were primarily analyzed in terms human-annotated
coding of website features1. Stengers et al. (2005) was the only study to not validate proposed
hypotheses. Through a follow-up survey to web masters from the sites they studied, they found
that respondents indicated “substantial receptivity to external influences toward periodic redesigns” (p. 30).
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Kralisch, Berendt, and Eisend (2005) actually looked at server logs to determine user navigation behavior.
Otherwise, they followed the same basic research method as the other authors.
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There is a significant problem with the method followed above. None of the studies
above addressed the issue of whether an LC annotator can make a fair judgment of foreign
cultural values and beliefs based on observable characteristics of website design. More to the
point, it is not possible to test such broadly defined hypotheses while factoring out other
variables. Not surprisingly, most of the hypotheses were “validated,” adding to the wealth of
pseudo-support generated by related such studies. This is not to say that the observations, or
even conclusions, about cross-cultural design were invalid. The point is that such studies do not
follow the scientific method and cannot be considered empirical evidence in support of the
underlying models.
Context in cognition
Dong and Lee (2008) carried out a focused design study by looking at how Chinese,
Korean, and American participants viewed webpages. They performed an eye-tracking study
following cognitive psychological literature of Nisbett (2001). They saw different viewing
patterns between East Asian and American subjects on a news page with a 9x9 grid layout. East
Asians tended to scan the whole page the while Westerners read from center to periphery of the
page.
Recent work in cognitive psychology has provided a very compelling argument for
contrasting the analytic thinking of Westerners to holistic thinking of those from the Far East.
In general, analytic thinking patterns are contrasted with holistic thinking in the following
manner (Nisbett, 2001):
Analytic
Holistic

"Individualistic" or "independent"

"Collectivist" or "interdependent"

Rhetoric and debate

Harmonious relations
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Atomic and logical

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Contextual and dialectic
Through careful experimentation, cognitive psychologists find cultural influences affecting:

Perception and attention – East Asians seem to be more sensitive to contextual changes
than to focal object changes. They attend to the field in which a salient object is located.
This has been validated in numerous studies including those that consider effects in
change-blindness (Masuda & Nisbett, 2006) and social versus non-social focal objects
(Masuda & Nisbett, 2001).

Categorization and reasoning – East Asians tend to categorize objects on the basis of
relationships versus taxonomic “rules” (Nisbett & Masuda, 2003). For example, a cow
may be categorized with grass versus a pig, since cows eat grass. They also look for
dialectical schemas in making judgments about the behavior of objects and individuals
(Nisbett & Masuda, 2003).
Cultural Neuroscience
There is new evidence supporting the notion that cultural values and experiences affect
and shape neurocognitive processes (Hedden, Ketay, Aron, Markus, Gabrieli, 2008; Chaio
2010). Culture influences patterns of selective attention and may even shape neural structure
(Park and Huang, 2010). Brain imaging studies confirm and are in agreement with cognitive
studies and the analytic/holistic dichotomy of mind (Goh et al., 2007; Goh & Park, 2009).
Indeed, culture may influence brain patterns even in terms of memory, emotion, and reasoning
(Gutchess & Indek, 2009).
Kitayama and Park (2010) propose a theoretical framework for understanding culturemind interaction. They distinguish between three components, or layers, of culture.
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1. Explicit shared values
2. “Cultural tasks” (conventions, routines and shared scripts for action) which are intended to
achieve culture’s primary values (e.g., equality)
3. Implicit psychological and neural tendencies that align with the culture’s values. These
tendencies align because underlying neural activities are culturally patterned and reinforced.
This framework effectively accounts for observations from the social sciences but with much
more explanatory and predictive power.
Implications for Cross-Cultural Design
Schmid-Isler (2000) made the comment that Chinese homepages tend to divide the screen
into many independently focused spaces. In contrast, “western style prefers a focused layout,
with a picture as the visual attractor and center” (p. 4; fig 1 below). This seems to be in
accordance with Dong and Lee’s assessment of cognitive reading style.
Figure 1. Nanjing (jlonline.com) and New York Times homepages (Isler-Schmid, 2000)
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Figure 2. New York Times circa Nov 2010
Yet in 2010, views of the NYT homepage show a dramatic shift (fig 2). The same
American site contains many more spaces. Clearly, other factors are at play. Culture is complex
and we have much yet to learn.
Based on research presented above, when evaluating a design for a multi-cultural
(particularly, East Asian) website, it's important to take into account:

The relative importance and role of context (e.g., image content and framing)

The manner in which people of different cultures read (e.g., layout)

Semantic categorization (e.g., menus and content categories); and,

Cultural values, as expressed in many ways
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Webpage design should be carried out according to the target audience's specific cognitive style
to the extent possible.