Cultural effects on visual processing as a function of age

Evidence shows that Westerners are more object-focused, being more individualistic, whereas East Asians are more context-focused, being more holistic. These differences are probably due to the larger historical cultural developmental influence exerted on individuals throughout their life experiences. Such influences permeate from the larger societal forces down to the everyday inter-relational communications, even to the physical habitational environment as an outward expression of these internal thoughts. With age, therefore, there is greater experience with one's own cultural development. We sought to examine these neural correlates of cultural experience with age.

The same study previously conducted with East Asians was conducted with Westerners. In summary, we found that Westerners showed similar object, background, and binding processing regions. These regions showed reduced expression with age. The most interesting contrast, however, was that Older East Asians did not show typical object processing (as measured using our adaptation paradigm; see subsequent follow-up experiments) while Young East Asians, Young Westerners and Old Westerners all showed object processing in the lateral occipital complex (LOC). This was related to changes in attentional resources with age. Furthermore, the difference was consistent with cultural expectations because the Old Westerners showed preserved object processing engagement, reflecting the more object-focused cultural background.

This study is currently in press in Cognitive, Affective, Behavioral Neuroscience journal. CNS 2006 abstract available for download.

So now, we know that differences in experiences over lifetime lead to differences in engagement of visual processing regions, and these differences are at the neural systems level as well. The next question how these patterns of neural engagement relate to what these people are actually looking at. This is important for understanding what is the actual visual information being attended. This has implications on developmental experience as a top-down modulator of the bottom-up visual information being input into higher cognitive processes. The other aspect is how external experience interacts with biological or cognitive changes related to aging.

What processes are specific to aging only? What processes are specific to long-term experience within the external developmental environment? Can short-term training alleviate processes that decline with age? What are the long-term experiences that lead to beneficial aging neural, cognitive outcomes?

This study had since had a press release [article].