Differences in Perception

The other day I was at a family`s house with Daryl and Wakako (I have asked Daryl to take over tutoring a little girl for me), and whilst we were sitting and having dinner they had the TV on. A big fucking 40" TV that dominated the whole flippin room. I was trying desperately to concentrate on the conversation going on around the table, but this massive TV kept grabbing my attention refusing to let me concentrate on anything else going on in the room. I think Daryl was also having the same problem, but all the others had no problem whatsoever chatting away and not even acknowleding the presence of the TV. Finally, i`d had enough, and asked them (very politely of course) to turn it off - it was seriously doing my head in! That`s when Daryl explained to me that it was because I was Western, and could therefore only focus on one thing at a time, and that my attention would be seized by such a dominant feature in the room. On the news the other day there was an article discussing this difference in perception, and apparently it results from the differences in East and West ecology and economy dating back from centuries ago. It`s fascinating actually.

In ancient China, farmers developed a system of irrigated agriculture, Nisbett said. Rice farmers had to get along with each other to share water and make sure no one cheated.

Western attitudes, on the other hand, developed in ancient Greece where there were more people running individual farms, raising grapes and olives, and operating like individual businessmen.

Aristotle, for example, focused on objects. A rock sank in water because it had the property of gravity, wood floated because it had the property of floating. He would not have mentioned the water. The Chinese, though, considered all actions related to the medium in which they occurred, so they understood tides and magnetism long before the West did.

Nisbett illustrated this with a test asking Japanese and Americans to look at pictures of underwater scenes and report what they saw.

The Americans would go straight for the brightest or most rapidly moving object, he said, such as three trout swimming. The Japanese were more likely to say they saw a stream, the water was green, there were rocks on the bottom and then mention the fish.

The Japanese gave 60 percent more information on the background and twice as much about the relationship between background and foreground objects as Americans, Nisbett said.

It is beginning to make more sense to me now why, when sitting in an office with 16 other people and the person next to me is talking on the phone and I can`t focus on anything but the sound of his voice, all the other Japanese people around me are working away no doubt focusing on many things at once! I am talking serious multi-tasking. I feel truly humbled.

http://www.wired.com/culture/lifestyle/news/2005/08/68626