culture perception

Cognitive Science 38 (2014) 76–100Copyright © 2013 Cognitive Science Society, Inc. All rights reserved.ISSN: 0364-0213 print / 1551-6709 onlineDOI: 10.1111/cogs.12051

Culture, Perception, and Artistic Visualization: AComparative Study of Children’s Drawings in Three

Siberian Cultural Groups

Kirill V. Istomin, Jaroslava Pan�akov�a, Patrick Heady

Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology

Received 17 February 2012; received in revised form 8 November 2012; accepted 13 November 2012

Abstract

In a study of three indigenous and non-indigenous cultural groups in northwestern and north-

eastern Siberia, framed line tests and a landscape drawing task were used to examine the hypothe-

ses that test-based assessments of context sensitivity and independence are correlated with the

amount of contextual information contained in drawings, and with the order in which the focal

and background objects are drawn. The results supported these hypotheses, and inspection of the

regression relationships suggested that the intergroup variations in test performance were likely to

result from differences in the attention accorded to contextual information, as revealed by the

drawings. Social and environmental explanations for the group differences in context sensitivity

are also discussed. The conclusions support the argument that cultural differences in artistic styles

and perceptual tests reflect the same underlying perceptual tendencies, and they are consistent with

the argument that these tendencies reflect corresponding differences in patterns of social and envi-

ronmental interaction.

Keywords: Analytic and holistic perception; Culture and cognition; Artistic visualization; Children’s

drawings

1. Introduction

1.1. Cross-cultural differences in object/context perception

Research on cross-cultural differences in perception and processing of (mostly visual)

stimuli and their relation to attitudes and cognition dates back to seminal works by

William Rivers (e.g., Rivers, 1905) in the first years of the 20th century and by Alexandr

Correspondence should be sent to Kirill V. Istomin, Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology, PO

Box 11 03 51, Halle an der Saale, 06017 Germany. E-mail: [email protected]

Luria (e.g., Luria, 1979) in the 1930s. Since the second half of the 1960s, much of this

research has been focused on how representatives of different cultures differ in the degree

to which they attend to focal objects in their perceptual field as opposed to attending to

the context within which the objects reside. The first studies of this topic were undertaken

by Herman Witkin and his colleagues (particularly John Berry) as part of their research

into psychological differentiation, a theoretical concept that was initially developed to

account for differences between persons in their educational success (Witkin, Dyk, Pater-

son, Goodenough, & Karp, 1962), but later applied also for explaining cross-cultural dif-

ferences in perception and thinking (e.g., Witkin, 1967; Witkin & Goodenough, 1981).

The researchers asserted that “in the perceptual domain greater differentiation showsitself in the tendency for parts of the field to be experienced as discrete from the field asa whole rather than as fused with the field, or experienced as global, which is indicativeof lesser differentiation” (Witkin & Berry, 1975: 6; see also Witkin et al., 1962; Witkin

& Goodenough, 1981). They initially suggested that progress toward greater differentia-

tion (including a shift from field dependency toward field independency) was related to

individual psychological development (Witkin & Goodenough, 1981; Witkin et al.,

1962).

Witkin and his colleagues developed two basic research tools, the Frame-and-Rod

(FRT) test and the Embedded Figure Test (EFT), that measured the subject’s ability to

abstract a part of the perceptual field from its context and so could be used to assess his

or her progress toward field independency (Witkin, 1967; Witkin & Berry, 1975; Witkin

et al., 1962). Although the connection between differentiation and psychological develop-

ment was reformulated in comparative non-evaluative perspective in the context of cross-

cultural research (Berry, 1976; Witkin & Berry, 1975), the same tests were used to assess

the differences in field dependency/independency across cultural groups. A number of

comparative studies of field dependency/independency of perception among representa-

tives of aboriginal and non-aboriginal cultural groups living in North and South Ameri-

cas, Africa, and Australia confirmed the existence of these differences (see Berry, 1976;

Witkin & Berry, 1975 for review and discussion).

Generalizing from their results, John Berry (1976) suggested that the degree of field

dependence/independence of perception among representatives of any given culture—as

well as their level of psychological differentiation in general—is determined by aspects

of socialization practice, most notably socialization toward assertion as opposed to social-

ization toward conformity, that vary greatly across cultures (e.g., Barry, Child, & Bacon,

1959). The relevant aspects of socialization practices were thought to be determined, in

their turn, by a set of closely interwoven eco-cultural and societal factors. The former

included the type of subsistence economy and the way of life (nomadic vs. sedentary),

while the later included such parameters as the degree of social role differentiation and

“tight” versus “loose” social authority and pressure. In particular, mobile hunters and

nomadic reindeer herders, who could not be expected to have significant role differentia-

tion or tight social authority, were predicted to be more field independent in comparison

to sedentary societies (Berry, 1976).

K. V. Istomin, J. Pan�akov�a, P. Heady / Cognitive Science 38 (2014) 77

After a brief lull in the 1980s and early 1990s, research interest in cross-cultural dif-

ferences in object/context perception has increased again during the last decade and

half. The main inspiration of these new studies has been the recently proposed theory

of independent and interdependent cognitive styles (Markus & Kitayama, 1991, 2003;

Nisbett, 2003; Nisbett, Peng, Choi, & Norenzayan, 2001), which, in contrast to the psy-

chological differentiation theory, was developed specifically to address cross-cultural

differences in perception and cognition. According to this theory, the underlying cause

of these differences should be sought in cultural models of the relationship between

Self and Other—and in particular the degree to which this relationship is understood in

terms of independence or of interdependence. Each of these cultural options is thought

to have its own cognitive and perceptual implications.

As with the earlier research, these recent studies have focused on the distinction

between context sensitivity and context independence, now re-christened as a contrast

between “holistic” and “analytic” perception. Many of them, however, employ a new

research instrument, the Framed Line Test (FLT, discussed in detail in section 3.1 of this

article), developed by Kitayama and colleagues in 2003. In contrast to the FRT and EFT

used in the previous studies, which tested entirely for abilities related to context indepen-

dence, the FLT measures the subjects’ performance both in a task that demands abstrac-

tion of an object from its context (the absolute task) and in a task that involves judging

an object in relation to its context (the relative task). Empirically, the research fields have

also changed, with a tendency for work in the new theoretical framework to concentrate

on the contrast between Western society (particularly the United States) and East Asian

societies (Japan, Korea, and China). It is argued that perceptual holism—and the cogni-

tive style of interdependency in general—is more likely to be found in Asian communi-

tarian cultures. Conversely, perceptual analytism—and the cognitive style of

independency—is thought to be typical for American society, in which recognition of

individual aspirations and self-agency prevail (Kitayama, Duffy, & Uchida, 2007; Markus

& Kitayama, 1991, 2003; Nisbett, 2003).

Three kinds of empirical evidence have been presented to support this view. First of

all, several studies employing the FLT have demonstrated that Americans perform more

accurately in the absolute task and less accurately in the relative task in comparison to

Eastern Asians (Duffy, Toriyama, Itakura, & Kitayama, 2009; Ji, Peng, & Nisbett, 2000;

Kitayama, Duffy, Kawamura, & Larsen, 2003; Vasilyeva, Duffy, & Huttenlocher, 2007).

It has also been demonstrated that Americans have greater activation of attention-related

brain regions while performing the relative task, while East Asians have greater activation

of these regions in the absolute task (Hedden, Ketay, Aron, Rose Markus, & Gabrieli,

2008; Ketay, Aron, & Hedden, 2009). This suggests that the relative task demanded

greater attention (due to its perceived difficulty) than the absolute task in the case of

Americans, while for East Asians the opposite was the case. However, at least one exten-

sive study that employed the same test (Zhou, Gotch, Zhou, & Liu, 2008) demonstrated

that both Americans and East Asians (Chinese) performed better in the relative task than

in the absolute task, although the mean error made by the East Asians in the relative task

was smaller than that of Americans. One explanation for this, which is consistent with

78 K. V. Istomin, J. Pan�akov�a, P. Heady / Cognitive Science 38 (2014)

the theory of independent/interdependent cognitive styles, is that although an intercultural

difference in holism/analytism will manifest itself in differences in the absolute errors

that are made in each kind of task, these differences may not always be great enough to

change the rank order of the tasks themselves.

Second, several studies demonstrated that East Asians both notice and remember

changes in contextual relations of objects in the visual field better than Americans (Masuda

& Nisbett, 2001, 2006). They also have more difficulties then Westerners in recalling a

previously seen object embedded in a novel context (Chua, Boland, & Nisbett, 2005;

Masuda & Nisbett, 2001).

Finally, one study (Chua et al., 2005) demonstrated a difference in eye movements

between Americans and Chinese while attending to a visual scene: During initial presen-

tation of a scene, Chinese made more fixations on the background and looked longer

before making the first fixation on the focal object than Americans, who, on the other

hand, fixated on the focal object for a longer time than Chinese. However, at least two

later studies (Evans, Rotello, Li, & Rayner, 2009; Rayner, Li, Williams, Cave, & Well,

2007) have failed to replicate these results, while one of them (Evans et al., 2009) also

failed to replicate the difference between East Asians and Americans in recalling previ-

ously seen objects embedded in novel contexts. More research seems to be needed in

order to clarify the possible effects of perceptual holism/analytism on visual memory and

ocular locomotion.

The cross-cultural differences in the cultural models of self and the corresponding cog-

nitive styles are usually explained by referring to social practices that prevail in a given

society, among which the design of social institutions, religion, and ideology have been

particularly mentioned (Kitayama et al., 2007; Nisbett, 2003; Nisbett et al., 2001). How-

ever, as in the earlier theoretical tradition, there has also been some interest in the impact

of eco-cultural factors. One recent study identified differences in perceptual holism/analy-

tism among nomadic pastoralists, fishermen, and sedentary agricultural groups in the

Eastern Black Sea region of Turkey—explaining them on similar lines to those proposed

by Berry (Uskul, Kitayama, & Nisbett, 2008). A third view is that differences in percep-

tion might be linked to differences in the perceptual affordances provided by the physical

environments in which the corresponding cultures exist. Thus, one recent study (Miyam-

oto, Nisbett, & Masuda, 2006) demonstrated that both Americans and Japanese noticed

more changes in the background of a culturally neutral visual scene if, before the experi-

ment, they had been asked to examine a set of photographs of street scenes taken in Japa-

nese cities. Conversely, both Americans and Japanese noticed fewer background changes

if they had been primed by comparable photographs taken in American cities.

It is important to note that the recent studies on holism/analytism have paid relatively

little attention to differences in holism/analytism between individuals as opposed to

groups, and they have been criticized for this (Berry, Poortinga, Breugelmans, Chasiotis, &

Sam, 2011; van de Vijver, Chasiotis, & Breugelmans, 2011). However, the existence of

individual differences within cultural groups has been acknowledged by the recent

researchers, and several of their theoretical works have stressed the need to study them

(e.g., Kitayama et al., 2007; Markus & Kitayama, 2003).


1.2. Perceptual holism/analytism and artistic visualization

As can be seen from this short review, although researchers differ in their views con-

cerning the factors and mechanisms that cause cross-cultural differences in object/context

perception, the existence of these differences in perceptual style is established beyond

any reasonable doubt. As emphasized both by Witkin and Berry (Berry, 1976; Witkin &

Berry, 1975) and by Kitayama and Nisbett (Kitayama et al., 2007; Nisbett, 2003), these

perceptual findings are likely to correlate with wider cognitive and behavioral differences

between the cultures concerned. One important sphere in which a link between society

and culture, on the one hand, and perceptual stimuli processing, on the other, may be

observed, is the production of visual images. Masuda, Gonzalez, Kwan, and Nisbett

(2008) have recently suggested that cultural differences in artistic styles might reflect the

same tendencies toward greater or lesser context sensitivity as are measured by psycho-

logical tests of visual perception. This is a fascinating idea because, if correct, it would

provide psychological backing for art-historical ideas about the connections between

visual styles and other aspects of sociocultural development.

To test this idea Masuda and colleagues made certain assumptions about the connec-

tion between picture contents and perceptual style. They predicted that the distance

between the bottom of the picture and the horizon line (which marks the upper border of

the background space in a landscape drawing) would be greater in images produced by

holistic (context-sensitive) individuals because they would need more space for back-

ground contextualization. Conversely, they predicted that analytic (context-independent)

individuals would produce or prefer images in which the focus of attention—whether a

person, a face, or an object—was comparatively large, allowing it to be represented in

greater detail. In order to test these conjectures, they compared masterpieces of East

Asian and Western art created between the 15th and the end of the 19th centuries, photo-

graphs and non-professional landscape drawings produced by contemporary Japanese and

Americans, and their preferences for different photographic images. The test results con-

firmed that the Asian artists, and test participants, were more likely to produce or prefer

the kinds of image predicted for holistic individuals, while the Western artists and partici-

pants gravitated toward the kinds of image predicted for analytic individuals.

Stimulating though it is, Masuda et al.’s argument is open to criticism. While previous

research has indeed shown that East Asians (including Japanese) and Westerners (includ-

ing Americans) do differ in perceptual processing, the differences in artistic styles

observed by Masuda et al. might well be related to some yet unspecified aspects of the

two societies and their cultures rather than to the differences in perceptual holism/individ-

ualism of their members. Some relevant aspects might be the different conventions of

drawing learned during formal school education, early exposure to different visual styles,

differences in the roles which visual images normally play (or played in the past) in the

societies in question (e.g., a utilitarian role as interior decoration vs. a more esthetic role

as works of art), different esthetic norms, etc. Differences in physical environments may

also have an effect (as suggested by Miyamoto et al., 2006). Miyamoto and colleagues

demonstrated an effect on perceptual processes, but it also seems possible that environmental


factors might affect visual representations directly, without affecting perception along the

way. For example, differences in landscape (flat vs. mountainous) can regularly expose

members of two cultures to qualitatively different types of vista, characterized, among

other things, by different perceived heights of the horizon. These differences might get

reflected in the images they produce even if perceptual processing is the same in both

groups.

One obvious way of showing that there really is a direct connection between percep-

tual processing and artistic style would be to demonstrate that the link between the

parameters of drawing and the level of perceptual holism/analytism also holds at individ-

ual level and that the individual-level associations are strong enough to account for the

existence of parallel intercultural differences. It should be possible to demonstrate a cor-

relation between the level of perceptual holism/analytism and the position of the horizon/

size of objects in drawings across individuals as well as across groups, and to prove that

this correlation across individuals remains even after controlling for their group member-

ship. This would provide strong evidence that the differences in drawing are due to indi-

vidual characteristics (the stimuli processing style) that are unevenly distributed between

the groups rather than due to group-level factors such as peculiarities of school educa-

tion.

We can also conjecture that differing levels of perceptual holism/analytism will have

implications for the very process of image production—that is, for the ways in which pic-

tures are drawn. Thus, individuals with more holistic perception can be expected to prefer

drawing focal objects embedded in a previously depicted context, while individuals with

more analytic perception can be expected to start their drawings with detailed representa-

tion of the focal objects and add context later if at all. This prediction follows directly

from Masuda’s theory of the connection between perceptual holism/analytism and artistic

style, and it can be tested empirically.

1.3. Aims and tasks of this study

This study aims to explore the relations between culture, perceptual holism/individual-

ism and artistic visualization taking into account the theoretical and methodological sug-

gestions discussed above. In particular, our aim is to test the theoretical claim (derived

from Masuda et al., 2008) that certain differences in freely drawn landscape pictures—namely those in the position of the horizon and the size of objects—as well as in drawingstrategies—namely the order in which foreground and background elements are drawn—a) can be observed between cultural groups and b) can be related to the differences inperceptual processing—namely the relative levels of perceptual holism/analytism—that

exist between the members of these groups. We also wish to make a new test of the theo-

retical claims by Berry (Berry, 1976; Witkin & Berry, 1975) and Uskul et al. (2008) that

the differences in perceptual processing that exist between cultural groups can be related

to ecocultural characteristics of these groups, particularly to their economy and way of

life.


To test these claims, we compare the individual levels of holism/individualism and the

landscape drawings of teenagers originating from two separate regions and three cultural

groups:

1. The indigenous and predominantly nomadic Nenets living in the Tazovsky district,

Yamal-Nenets Autonomous Province of the Russian Federation (northwestern

Siberia).

2. The incomer population (composed of ethnic Russians and others) in the same

district.

3. The indigenous, predominantly settled sea hunting and reindeer herding population

(Chukchis and Yup’ik Eskimos) in several settlements in Chukotski Autonomous

Province of the Russian Federation (northeastern Siberia).

These groups differ in their mother tongue, economic activities, and the way of life

(nomadic, sedentary, or semi-sedentary—see the next section). However, their members

share the same national identity (Russian Federation), are subjected to the same political

and administrative system and attend the same system of formal school education.

Besides that, the non-indigenous and the Nenets children in our study were born and have

grown up in similar ecological conditions. Therefore, in contrast to many previous stud-

ies, the present inquiry fits better to the “just a minimal difference” approach (Cohen,

2007) and allows more precise testing of the causal role of eco-cultural (e.g., economic

activity and way of life) and purely ecological factors in the formation of cross-cultural

differences in perceptual holism/analytism. If the predictions are fulfilled, our experimen-

tal design would also demonstrate that the cultural association between picture character-

istics and psychological measures is not limited to the familiar North American/East

Asian comparison but applies to other intercultural comparisons as well.

We use our comparison to test the following four predictions that, as the discussion

above suggests, should be true if theoretical claims under question are to be rigorously

supported:

1. The amount of contextual information in the drawings, as reflected in the position

of the horizon and the size of objects, correlates with individual levels of children’s

perceptual holism/analytism: the higher the level of perceptual holism, the smaller

the size of objects and the higher the horizon.

2. The group-level differences in drawing scores follow the same pattern as those for

the visual-processing scores, and this fact can be explained by the individual-level

relationship between the two sets of scores.

3. The members of more sedentary groups have higher levels of perceptual holism in

comparison to the nomadic pastoralists. They are also expected to include more

contextual information in their drawings.

4. Individuals from groups with higher mean levels of perceptual holism (lower mean

levels of perceptual analytism) are more likely to draw the background elements

first and add the foreground elements later. In contrast, individuals from the groups

with lower mean levels of perceptual holism (higher mean levels of perceptual ana-

lytism) are more likely to draw foreground elements first and add background later.


In the following sections, we first provide details of our study regions and groups—focusing on ecological and cultural features (e.g., ecological conditions, type of economy,

type of authority, differentiation of social roles) that previous studies have used to explain

cross-cultural differences in object/context sensitivity. Next, we describe our study, which

collected drawings from all three groups and correlated their characteristics with the

results of a test of visual perception, completed by the same individuals. Finally, we dis-

cuss our findings in order to show how far group differences—in both test results and

drawing styles—can be explained by differences in the economic and ecological circum-

stances of the three study populations.

2. Study regions and study groups

This study was performed in two geographic regions: (a) Tazovsky district, Yamal-

Nenets Autonomous Province, northwestern Siberia (the study site 1) and (b) Chukotski

Autonomous Province (Chukotka), northeastern Siberia (the study site 2) of the Russian

Federation. Two study samples—those of non-aboriginal and Nenets teenagers—were col-

lected in the study site 1, while the third study sample—that of Chukchi/Yup’ik teenagers—was collected in the study site 2.

The study site 1 (Tazovsky district) represents a typical flatland tundra. The region has

a very flat and monotonous landscape with no natural elevations higher than 10 m, but

with many natural depressions formed by a dense system of rivers and streams. Vegeta-

tion consists mainly of lichens, grasses, and sedges as well as of bushy willow stands on

the southern slopes of hills and natural depressions. Trees are absent except in several

small “islands” of coniferous forest on the banks of large rivers. Therefore, the environ-

ment normally provides vast vistas in all directions, objects can be seen from large dis-

tances, and the line of horizon is always present.

The indigenous population of the region—Nenets—are predominantly nomadic reindeer

herders and fishermen. Most of them live in small and predominantly kin-based groups

(nomadic camps) that migrate through the tundra during all or most of the year. Although

each camp has an informal leader, no traditional authority exists beyond that level. No

differentiation of social roles apart from those based on gender is evident (see Donahoe &

Istomin, 2007; Dwyer & Istomin, 2008; Istomin & Dwyer, 2010 for further details on

Nenets economy and way of life). Our observations suggest, however, that nearly all

Nenets who are currently younger than 30–35 years have been subjected to at least 6 years

of compulsory education in a boarding school. Correspondingly, all younger Nenets speak

fluent Russian and seem to be able to read and write in this language. At the moment, a

growing number of Nenets households settle in several permanent settlements that exist in

the region and find employment as hired labor, usually low paid. However, as yet this

process of sedentarization has involved only a minority of the Nenets.

The non-indigenous population of the district consists mostly of recent newcomers

who have settled there during the last 35 years, since the beginning of work to extract

the region’s gas deposits. The non-indigenous population resides mostly in permanent


settlements (where it constitutes the absolute majority of inhabitants) and, partly, in gas

drilling bases. While the majority of newcomers are ethnic Russians, this group also

includes representatives of ethnic minorities living mainly in the central and southern

parts of the country, such as Ukrainians, Tatars, and Bashkirs. All the newcomers use the

Russian language for daily communication. Many of them are employed in the gas dril-

ling industry, while the rest work in the rapidly growing sectors of services and small-

scale commerce, pre-school and school education, and administration.

The study site 2 (Providensky and Chukotski districts of the Chukotski Autonomous

Province) is a rather mountainous region with relatively diverse landscape and vegetation.

The province represents a mosaic of seashore, coastal marshes, basins, and mountain

ridges of different sizes. Areas densely overgrown with mid-size bushes of alder are inter-

mixed with areas of mountain tundra covered by grasses and sedges. Everywhere, moun-

tains form an essential part of the vista sometimes closing it and often making up the

line of the horizon.

The native population of the region consists of Chukchis and Yup’ik Eskimos. The

majority of the participants in the present study were drawn from three coastal communi-

ties: Novoe Chaplino (about 400 inhabitants), Yanrakynnot (with population of ca. 350

inhabitants), and Lorino (around 1,400 residents). About 5% of the overall population in

these communities still practice the traditional economic activities that include hunting

sea mammals (whales, seals, and walrus) and certain species of seabirds, small-scale

inland hunting as well as sea and lake fishing. Besides that, reindeer herding is present in

two of the communities (Lorino and Yanrakynnot). In contrast to the aboriginal popula-

tion of Tazovsky district, the hunters, fishermen, and reindeer herders in this study site

are settled or semi-settled, working in the tundra on seasonal duty. The absolute majority

of indigenous locals are either employed in the non-customary state-owned economy

(local school, administration, Housing Management) or officially unemployed. Kinship

ties continue to play an important role in social organization. Kin group elders have

informal authority over the members of their groups and some of them (e.g., an old expe-

rienced hunter or a wise woman—a visionary) can be highly regarded by the whole com-

munity. Division of roles is essential among hunters; here, the criteria are age,

experience, and current standing in terms of successful catch. In other spheres, acquired

social position prevails over the ascribed one. Gender and age affect social roles, space

division, behavior patterns, choices, and taboos. All the children and youngsters in the

hamlets receive formal education according to the Russian Federal standards and speak

fluent Russian. Indeed, Russian is now the mother tongue of Yup’ik children of school age.

3. Procedure, methods, and results of the study

3.1. Procedure and methods

The data for our main study were collected in February and March 2011 in Tazovsky

(study site 1), and in April and May 2011, in Chukotka (study site 2). The study sample


consisted of teenagers attending two public schools (Tazovsky boarding school and

Tazovsky secondary school) in study site 1 and three public schools belonging to the

three communities described in the previous section in study site 2. The Tazovsky board-

ing school represents the main facility providing obligatory basic school education for the

children of nomads. These children are transported there from the tundra each autumn,

once the school year begins, and live there at the state’s expense till the end of the school

year. Since the school provides classes of Nenets as mother language and has a curricu-

lum adapted to the needs of children from aboriginal families, it is attended also by many

Nenets children whose parents live permanently in the town. Nearly, all children from

non-aboriginal families, in contrast, attend the Tazovsky secondary school with Russian

as the only language of instruction. In Chukotka, the three schools involved in the

research are attended by the children from the corresponding communities. Since the

communities themselves are predominantly indigenous, most of these children are from

indigenous families. After all the cases of incomplete data were excluded, the sample

consisted of 183 cases: 81 cases of Nenets children (27 boys and 54 girls) attending the

Tazovsky boarding school (referred to below as the Nenets sample); 80 cases of non-

Nenets children (37 boys and 43 girls) attending the Tazovsky secondary school (referred

to below as the Non-indigenous sample); and 22 indigenous children (14 boys and 8

girls) attending schools in Chukotka (referred to below as the Chukchi–Yup’ik sample).

The children in the Tazovsky samples were aged between 11 and 14 (i.e., 15 was the

upper limit), while the Chukchi sample was aged between 10 and 16. The mean age for

all three samples was between 12 and 13.

In the course of the study, the children were asked to complete a questionnaire con-

taining background questions about the age and gender of the child, his/her ethnic back-

ground, and the profession of his/her parents as well as two experimental tests. In

Tazovsky, the children completed these questionnaires at school during one of their regu-

lar classes. In study site 2, the children were tested in their home environment after the

classes. The experimenter was always present during the testing, gave necessary instruc-

tions and explanations, and observed the process of performing the tests.

The tests offered to the children included a simplified version of the FLT developed

by Kitayama et al. (2003) and a landscape drawing. The FLT was used to assess the level

of perceptual holism of the children by testing their performance in two experimental

tasks. In both tasks, the children were shown a square stimulus frame with the side length

of 150 mm, within which a 50 mm vertical line was printed. The line was extended

downward from the center of the upper edge of the square. The children were also given

a set of eight smaller response frames representing squares with the side lengths of

60 mm. In the first of the tasks—the absolute task—the participants were instructed to

draw lines in each of the response frames that were of the same absolute length as the

line in the stimulus frame. In the second, relative task, the children were instructed to

draw lines whose proportions to the sizes of the response frames were the same as the

proportion of the stimulus line to the size of the stimulus frame. The children were

instructed to use only pencils while performing these tasks and to remove all the other

tools, including rulers and erasers, from their desks.


Note that in contrast to the original FLT test as developed by Kitayama and col-

leagues, we did not vary the relative sizes of the stimulus and response frames and the

children had the stimulus frame in front of their eyes while drawing lines in the response

frames. These deviations from the original variant of the test were introduced to enable

us to give the test as a part of the questionnaire and to cope with the rigid time limita-

tions that we faced: In the study site 1, we were allowed by the school administrations to

use only one regular class hour—lasting 40 min—for testing children in each of the study

units. We believe that these modifications in the standard test procedure would not affect

the general tendencies in responses, although they might make these tendencies less visi-

ble. In each test, only the lines drawn in the last four response frames were assessed as

the response, while the rest of the response frames were ignored as training ones.

The main assumption behind the FLT is that, in comparison to the individuals with

analytic processing, the individuals with holistic processing can be expected to have more

difficulty in abstracting the line from the frame as needed to perform the absolute task,

but less difficulty in considering the line in relation to the frame as needed to perform

the relative task (Kitayama et al., 2003). So, the FLT produces two scores for each indi-

vidual: the error in the absolute task, which measures difficulty with context-independent

(analytic) judgment; and the error in the relative task, which measures difficulty with con-

text-sensitive (holistic) judgment (note that in both cases the error itself is measured in

absolute terms). In our analysis, we used the difference between these two FLT scores

(the error in the absolute FLT task minus the error in the relative FLT task) as a single

continuous variable that would assess and meaningfully compare the levels of perceptual

holism/analytism of individuals and could be correlated with picture-based measurements.

Note that the value of this variable increases with the absolute task error and decreases

with the relative task error and, therefore, individuals with holistic perceptual styles will

score more highly.

The second task consisted of drawing landscape scenery on regular paper (A4 paper

format 210 mm 9 297 mm). The children were asked to draw a tundra landscape, which

would contain four compulsory elements—a human figure, a traditional dwelling (noma-

dic or hunting tent), a water area (such as river, lake, or sea), and hills or mountains as

well as additional elements children themselves would find necessary. Note that the chil-

dren were not directly instructed to draw the horizon line. Some examples of pictures

produced by children from different groups are present on Fig. 1.

The Russian text in the upper part of each picture formulates the drawing task for the

children. (“Please draw a tundra landscape keeping the sheet horizontal. Please include

four obligatory objects into the drawing: a traditional tent, waters, sopki (this can mean

both hills and mountains in Russian), and a human being. You can include any other

objects if you like.”)

To process the data, we measured the distance between the bottom of a drawing and

the horizon line (defined as the line separating the ground from everything else that lies

above it) on the left and on the right sides of each picture and took the average of these

two measurements as the mean height of the horizon. After these measurements were

taken, all the pictures were digitalized using the same size (4,665 9 3,292 pixels) and


(A1) (A2)

(A3) (A4)

(B1) (B2)

(B3) (B4)

Fig. 1. Examples of pictures produced by Chukchi/Yup’ik (A1-A4), Nenets (B1-B4), and non-indigenous

(C1-C4) children.


resolution (400 dpi). Then the sizes of human figures on the pictures were measured. To

do this, the number of pixels inside the contour of the human figures was calculated by

means of the Adobe Photoshop tool “Histogram.” If the drawing contained several human

figures, the figure with the greatest number of pixels—that is, the largest figure—was

used for the further analysis. This choice is justified, since the smaller figures could argu-

ably represent a part of background against which the bigger figure was drawn rather than

foreground elements.

In 26 drawings (18 of them drawn by non-indigenous and 8 by indigenous children),

the horizon line was missing. In these cases, we took its height as being zero and con-

cluded, therefore, that the picture did not contain any contextual information. Two rea-

sons accounted for this methodological decision. First of all, the horizon line in the

treeless tundra environment represents such a pervasive element of the visual background

that the failure to depict it represents very likely the failure to include any contextual

information. Second, our assessment of the pictures with the missing horizon line

revealed that 12 of them did not contain any other elements except those claimed by the

task as obligatory. These elements were typically drawn next to each other in the lower

part of the picture or “hanging in the air” in various parts of the paper—indicating that

(C1) (C2)

(C3) (C4)

Fig. 1. Continued.


no attempt had been made to relate the elements to a background. In three other pictures,

the only optional element included was the sun.

As with the results of the FLT, the measurements of the horizon and the size of the

human figure in each drawing have been collapsed into a single index on which the

object/context relations can be meaningfully compared across drawings. To do this, the

horizon and human figure measurements were first divided each by its own standard devi-

ation to bring them to the same scale. Then, the human figure score was subtracted from

the horizon score to form what we have called the Masuda Pictorial Index (MPI). Note

that positive values of the MPI reflect a comparatively context-based orientation, and neg-

ative values a more object-oriented approach.

Finally, to obtain comparative data on the use of the alternative drawing strategies,

two groups of children from study site 1 were selected. The groups represented separate

study units (classes) of the Tazovsky secondary school and the Tazovsky boarding school,

respectively. The group from the secondary school included 14 children, while the group

from the boarding school included 12 children. The reason for choosing exactly these

two groups was that the groups, as a pre-test survey of their members showed, were

mono-ethnic, that is, all the children in one of the groups were of indigenous background,

while all the children from the other group were of non-indigenous background. It should

be noted, however, that the non-indigenous children from the secondary school group

were about 1 year older then the indigenous children from the boarding school group

(Mages 14 and 13, respectively). Both groups were administered the two tests described

above. As the children performed the drawing task, the researcher carefully observed

the drawing strategies they adopted and counted the number of individuals who started

their drawing from background elements (the line of the horizon, surface objects far

away, sun, and clouds) and proceeded to foreground objects later as well as the

number of individuals who started from the foreground elements (the human figure, the

house, or the river/lake) and proceeded to background elements later. In each group,

the order of drawing of three randomly selected individuals was recorded by means of

a regular automatic photo camera. Fig. 2 shows examples of (a) “object first” strategies

and (b) “background first” strategies redrawn from the photographs taken during the

task.

3.2. Results

The data obtained during the study were used to test the four predictions outlined in

section 1.3 of this article. The following results were obtained:

3.2.1. Prediction 1The amount of contextual information in the drawings, as reflected in the position of

the horizon and the size of objects, correlates with individual levels of children’s percep-tual holism/analytism: the higher the level of perceptual holism, the smaller the size ofobjects and the higher the horizon.


(A1) (A2)

(A3) (A4)

(B1) (B2)

(B3) (B4)

Fig. 2. Examples of the “object first” (A1-A4) and “background first” (B1-B4) drawing strategies.


To test this prediction, we investigated the correlation between the results of the FLT

(the difference between errors in the absolute and the relative tasks) and the picture-based

scores (size of the human figure, mean height of the horizon, and the MPI) across the

whole sample as well as in each of the eco-cultural groups. Table 1 reports the correla-

tion coefficients and their statistical significance obtained for the whole sample.

As can be seen from this table, the results of the FLT correlate significantly (although

admittedly weakly) with all the three picture-based scores and the directions of the corre-

lations are consistent with our prediction. The correlation between the FLT results and

the MPI has the highest coefficient, showing that the MPI that we constructed not only

summarizes but also slightly improves the explanatory power of the picture-based mea-

sures. Overall, these results support our prediction.

3.2.2. Prediction 2The group-level differences in drawing scores follow the same pattern as those for the

visual-processing scores, and this fact can be explained by the individual-level relation-ship between the two sets of scores.

To test this prediction, we investigated how well the results of the FLT across our

sample are explained by the between-group distribution of the MPI and the within-group

correlations between the MPI and the FLT results. We chose this strategy rather than

investigating, as might seem more logical, how well the results of FLT and their

between- and within-group distributions explain the MPI, because the exploratory analysis

of our data suggested that the pictorial variables showed greater differences in standard

deviation terms than did the FLT results (see Table 3 below). If, in a linear model, two

variables exhibit similar intercategory differences but the differences in variable A are

greater in standard deviation terms than those of variable B—then the differences in vari-

able A might possibly provide a full explanation of the differences in variable B, but var-

iable B could only provide a partial explanation, at best, of the differences in variable A.

For this reason, we decided to reverse our analysis and to see whether we could use the

differences in picture measurements (summarized by the MPI) to explain the differences

in the FLT scores.

To test how well the between-group distribution of the FLT scores is explained by the

between-group distribution of the MPI (combined with the within-group MPI-FLT corre-

lations), we compared two general linear models. In the first model, the difference

between FLT task errors is predicted by group membership alone, while in the second

Table 1

Correlations between the difference of the two FLT measures and the pictorial measures

Size of the

Human Figure

Mean Height of

the Horizon

Masuda Pictorial

Index (Horizon�Human

Figure)

Difference of FLT measures

(absolute�relative)

�.170* .208** .238**

Note. *Correlation is significant at 0.05 level, **correlation is significant at 0.01 level.


model the MPI is added as a covariate. If this addition removes the between-group effect,

we can conclude that the original effect was indeed due to unmeasured intergroup differ-

ences in the MPI.

Table 2 presents and interrelates the relevant findings. The first column sets out the in-

tergroup comparisons for the MPI —with the Non-indigenous group as the base category.

The Chukchi–Yup’ik show the highest value for context-orientation, but the difference

between Nenets and Non-indigenous scores is also significant at the .001 level. The FLT

models themselves are presented in the next two columns—starting with the statistics for

the “groups-only” model. Both the overall group effect in this model and the contrasts

between the groups are significant at the .05 level. Note that the pattern of the between-

group contrasts is the same as for the MPI.

The third column sets out the results for the model that also includes the Masuda index

as an explanatory covariate. The parameter value for the MPI effect, and more particu-

larly its significance level, is perhaps the most important result here—since it derives

from pooled estimates of the within-group association between the pictorial and test vari-

ables. The fact that the association holds within, as well as between, the ethnic groups is

consistent with our prediction and fills the main gap in the earlier argument by Masuda

and colleagues (Masuda et al., 2008) by demonstrating a direct association at individual

level between pictorial style and test-based measures of cognitive orientation.

The final step is to see whether including the regression relationship with the MPI enables

the model to explain the intergroup differences in FLT scores. The results confirm that it

goes a long way toward doing so. The overall intergroup F-statistic is reduced by over 80%,

moving from significance (p = .027) to well below significance level (p = .484). The esti-

mated differences between the group values are also substantially reduced and cease to be

statistically significant. Readers can check that these changes really are due to the regression

relationship with the MPI scores, by multiplying the MPI score for the group concerned by

the Masuda regression coefficient and subtracting the product from the area value in the sec-

ond column. In each case the result is equal to the residual group effect shown in the third

column. These findings are consistent with our prediction.

Table 2

Statistics of the intergroup comparison for the MPI and of the two general linear models that predict the

difference between FLT task errors on the basis of the group membership alone (left column) and the group

membership plus MPI (right column)

Model

MPI Difference of the FLT Error Measures

Groups Only Groups Only Groups and MPI

Base number 183 183 183

Intergroup F-statistic (significance) 33.879 (<.001) 3.685 (.027) 0.729 (.484)

Regression parameters:

Masuda index (significance) – – 1.540 (.031)

Chukchi–Yup’ik (significance) 2.261 (<.001) 7.443 (.019) 3.961 (.258)

Nenets (significance) 1.395 (<.001) 4.167 (.044) 2.018 (.373)

Non-indigenous 0 0 0


However, despite being reduced by about half, the estimated intergroup differences do

not completely disappear. So, it is reasonable to ask why the regression relationship does

not explain all of the association. One technical factor, which may play a role here, con-

cerns measurement error in the MPI itself. There is bound to be some measurement error

in the picture scores, in the sense that different drawings produced by a given individual

would not have exactly the same characteristics every time—and would thus produce var-

iable estimates of the psychological preferences underlying the choice of style. The effect

of this variation will be to flatten the regression slope connecting the MPI with the FLT

score, thus leading to some under-estimation of the contribution that it makes to the area-

level FLT score. We return to this point in the overall discussion below.

3.2.3. Prediction 3The members of more sedentary groups have higher levels of perceptual holism in

comparison to the nomadic pastoralists. They are also expected to include more contex-tual information in their drawings.

To test this prediction, we used one-way ANOVAS to investigate the differences between

the three eco-cultural groups in our sample in their mean FLT results and picture-based

scores. Table 3 summarizes the results of these tests by reporting the group means and

the overall sample mean for each score, the overall standard deviation of each score, the

corresponding F-statistics and their significance levels. The final rows of the table give

significance levels for the pairwise comparisons between the three eco-cultural groups,

Table 3

Statistics of intergroup comparisons for the pictorial measures and the difference between FLT task errors

Sample N

Size of the

Human Figure

(in 1000s of Pixels)

Mean Height

of the Horizon MPI

Difference of

the FLT Measures

(Absolute�Relative)

Chuckchi–Yup’ik 22 75.9 139.6 2.16 6.79

Nenets 81 129.2 106.3 1.29 3.51

Non-indigenous 80 288.2 72.4 �.102 �.65

Overall M 183 192.3 95.5 .79 2.07

Overall SD 203.8 55.2 1.59 13.22

F-statistic (2/180 d.f.) 19.693 18.647 33.879 3.685

Significance of F-statistic <.001 <.001 <.001 .027

Significance of specific intergroup comparisons:

Chukchi–Yup’ik/Nenetst-test .234 .007 .009 .297

Tukey-HSD .458 .018 .024 .549

Chukchi–Yup’ik/Non-indigenoust-test <.001 <.001 <.001 .019

Tukey-HSD <.001 <.001 <.001 .049

Nenets/Non-indigenous

t-test <.001 <.001 <.001 .044

Tukey-HSD <.001 <.001 <.001 .108


using two different tests. The t-test is the same as that used in the regression models

shown in Table 2, while Tukey’s HSD (Honestly Significant Difference) test applies a

stricter criterion that corrects for the risk of over-reporting significant differences in the

context of multiple comparisons. (Note that some of the results for the MPI and for the

difference of FLT scores are also reported in Table 2 above).

As can be seen from this table, all the variables place the three groups in the same

order—with the Chukchi–Yup’ik children being most holistic in their perception and con-

text-oriented in their drawings and the non-indigenous children being the most analytic in

their perception and object-oriented in their drawings. Most, but not all, of the pairwise

comparisons are significant in their own right. The F-statistics confirm that the overall in-

tergroup differences are all statistically significant—at the .05 level for FLT score, and at

the .001 level for the three pictorial measures.

Although the differences between the group means on all the variables consistently put

the groups in the same order, this order does not completely coincide with our prediction.

Though the children of the partially nomadic Nenets do indeed score more highly for ana-

lytic perception, and include less context in their drawings, than do the more settled Chuk-

chi–Yup’ik group (and this difference is statistically significant in the case of the drawing

scores), the non-aboriginal children, who are arguably the most settled as far as their way of

life is concerned, demonstrate the highest levels of both perceptual analytism and object-ori-

entation in drawing in the whole sample.

3.2.4. Prediction 4Individuals from groups with higher mean levels of perceptual holism (lower mean

levels of perceptual analytism) are more likely to draw the background elements first andadd the foreground elements later. In contrast, individuals from the groups with lowermean levels of perceptual holism (higher mean levels of perceptual analytism) are morelikely to draw foreground elements first and add background later.

To test this prediction, we compared the observations of drawing strategies made in

the two groups of non-indigenous and Nenets children in Tazovsky district. These

observations showed that 8 of the 12 Nenets children (67%) in the boarding school

group used the “background first” strategy and only four children used the “objects

first” strategy. In contrast, only 4 of the 14 non-aboriginal children in the secondary

school group used the background first strategy, while 10 children (71%) used the

“object first” strategy. This suggests a difference between the groups in the preferred

strategy of drawing (Pearson chi-square test is significant at p = .05). Since, as has been

demonstrated above, the Nenets children as a group consistently demonstrated higher

perceptual holism in comparison to the non-indigenous children, these results are fully

consistent with our prediction.


4. Discussion

The data obtained in our study confirm most of our hypotheses—but not entirely in the

ways expected. The surprises have been

A. the low to moderate correlations between the FLT score and the pictorial measures,

B. the fact that the intergroup differences in the picture-based MPI scores were far lar-

ger (in standard deviation terms) than those for the FLT score, and

C. the falsification of our prediction that the partially nomadic Nenets group would

have the highest average score for analytism (context independence).

Before we can assess the overall significance of our findings, we need to account for

these surprises. We will deal with points A and B together, and then go on to consider

point C.

The weak-to-moderate correlation between the MPI and the FLT score suggests that

the MPI-picture scores are indeed associated with levels of holism/analytism—but that

either (a) the association is weak or (b) our version of the FLT is an imprecise measure

of holism/analytism. There are two reasons for considering that (b) might be correct. The

first is that any measure of a psychological variable is only an indicator of the underlying

quality, not the quality itself. The second reason is that, as explained earlier, our own ver-

sion of the FLT was a simplification of the original FLT, designed to fit easily into the

questionnaire booklets used in this study. This modified version is likely to provide less

precise results than would be obtained using the full test procedure.

In this situation, the hypothesized relationship between artistic styles and holism/analy-

tism is empirically equivalent to stating that the MPI and FLT scores are both approxi-

mate indicators of the unobservable underlying values of holism/analytism. If this

hypothesis is correct, what relationships would we expect to find between the two

observable variables? There are in fact four relevant points, which include three testable

predictions.

1. There will be some individual-level correlation between the two variables. As we

have seen, this prediction is confirmed by the findings in Tables 1 and 2 above.

2. Both variables will show similar intergroup differences (since both variables reflect

the underlying intergroup differences in holism/analytism values). This prediction is

also confirmed—by the patterns of intergroup differences shown in Tables 2 and 3.

3. The intergroup differences will be greater (in standard deviation terms) in the case

of the indicator which best represents the underlying values of holism/analytism.

As the figures in Table 3 show, the MPI measure emerges as the stronger indicator

according to this criterion.

4. The individual-level relationship between the two indicators, combined with the

intergroup differences in the stronger indicator, should be able to explain (in a sta-

tistical sense) much—but not necessarily all—of the intergroup variation in the

weaker indicator. This prediction is also confirmed: As the results in Table 2 show,

the individual-level relationship between the MPI and FLT scores explains around


50 percent of the intergroup variation in FLT scores. (If the stronger indicator cor-

responded exactly to the underlying holism/analytism values, it would explain all

of the intergroup variation in the weaker indicator. The fact that the MPI

explains about half of this variation suggests that it provides a good, but not

perfect, approximation to the underlying holism/analytism values)

The hypothesized relationship between artistic style and holism/analytism levels is thus

confirmed as strongly as it could be—given that neither indicator corresponds exactly to

the underlying values of holism/analytism.

This leaves us with the problem of explaining why the MPI provides a better indica-

tion of underlying holism/analytism levels than is given by the FLT results. We have

already identified one possible reason—namely that the simplified version of the FLT

which we used in our study could not be expected to produce a very precise assessment

of perceptual holism/individualism. This explanation would be equally compatible with

the psychological differentiation theory and the theory of independent/interdependent cog-

nitive styles. However, another potential explanation, which is specific to the cognitive

styles view, would be that cultural preferences for in- or inter-dependence lead to differ-

ent perceptual priorities (identified by the picture-based MPI), which in turn lead to dif-

ferent patterns of perceptual processing skills (assessed by the FLT). Since the picture-

based measures are closer in the causal chain to the underlying cultural distinction, it is

not surprising that they provide a sharper distinction between the different cultural

groups. If this explanation is correct, the superior performance of the MPI would remain,

even if we repeated the experiment with a more precise version of the FLT. We cannot

of course know what the results of this hypothetical experiment would be—but since the

prediction depends on the cognitive style view, the results would provide an empirical

assessment of the otherwise rather elusive distinction between that view and the earlier

psychological differentiation theory.

The fact that our prediction 3—namely that the children of nomads would have higher

analytism scores than those of sedentary populations—was refuted by our observations

(point C above) is not particularly surprising given that, in our study, the distinction

between nomadic and sedentary groups overlaps with the distinction between aboriginal

and non-aboriginal populations. Our study shows that the non-aboriginal children have

more analytic perception than the children from both aboriginal groups, which replicates

the results previously obtained by Berry (1976) and others (see Witkin & Berry, 1975 for

a review) on aboriginal and non-aboriginal populations in Australia and Northern Amer-

ica. According to Witkin and Berry (1975), this difference can be related to a higher

degree of psychological differentiation among the non-aboriginals, which, they argue, is

due to the effects of formal school education and a tendency of industrial economies to

foster socialization toward assertion. In the terms favored by Kitayama one could argue,

consistently with much ethnographic evidence, that this effect is due to the high levels of

informal cooperation found in many indigenous societies.

An alternative explanation of this difference would involve the fact that the non-

aboriginal group in our study consists mostly of recent migrants. As was mentioned,


although in a different context, by Kitayama et al. (2007), people who leave their home-

land to try their luck in frontier regions with a harsh environment and a fairly undevel-

oped infrastructure can be expected to have a rather distinctive set of personality traits.

They are likely to be less dependent psychologically on the established network of social

relationships, more ambitious, and more willing to take risks in comparison to the major-

ity of those whom they leave behind. In other words, migrants to frontier regions are

likely to be self-selected for an unusually independent and assertive sense of the self.

This would in turn affect the socialization practices they employ, leading their children

also to acquire a distinctly analytic (field independent) perceptual style—an explanation

which would be consistent with both the psychological differentiation and cognitive style

theories.

Turning to the comparison between the two indigenous groups, although the difference

between the Chukchi–Yup’ik and Nenets scores was consistent with our third prediction,

it too raises some theoretical problems. Though currently sedentary, the Chukchi–Yup’ikgroup has a history of herding and hunting and some individuals still hunt. The

arguments for high analyticity among nomads also apply to hunters (Uskul et al., 2008;

Witkin & Berry, 1975), and high levels of context independence have indeed been

reported for Yup’ik of St. Lawrence Island and Inuit subgroups in Alaska, Canada, and

Greenland (Berry, 1966, 1971). For this reason, we might have expected the Chukchi–Yup’ik children in our study to have similar analytism levels to the children of the noma-

dic Nenets—instead of which they recorded substantially more holistic scores on both the

FLT and MPI measures.

We should not make too much of this result since the number of individuals in the

Chukchi–Yup’ik sample is small—just 22 school children. What is more, there are at

least two possible explanations: the impact of sedentarization on the transmission of hunt-

ing-related attitudes and skills, and the visual affordances of the Chukotka landscape,

which, as the earlier descriptions suggest, offers richer, more diverse, and arguably more

chaotic perceptual scenes in comparison to that of the Nenets—and so would be expected

to foster more holistic visual perception among the Chukchi–Yupik group (Miyamoto

et al., 2006).

Nevertheless, since the existing literature offers conflicting predictions concerning the

respective levels of holism/analytism of the groups in our study, as well as several alter-

native explanations for the differences in perceptual processing that were actually

observed, it is clear that further research is needed in order to choose between the com-

peting theories.

5. Conclusions

The primary aim of the research presented in this article has been to investigate how

culture and society can influence both the production of visual images and test-based

measures of perceptual processing—and then to use the results to help explain cultural

differences in artistic style. To do this, we attempted to investigate directly the relation


between the levels of perceptual holism/individualism measured in frame-line tests and

particular aspects of free drawing, namely the height of the horizon line and the size of

objects, both across individuals and across groups. This approach, in our opinion, has

important advantages over the previously used approach of simply juxtaposing intergroup

differences in perceptual tests with intergroup differences in drawing style. Our approach

allows us to assess the extent to which interpersonal differences in artistic style (captured

by the characteristics of free drawing) are associated with differences in visual judgment

(captured by the FLT) and to demonstrate that this association is capable of producing

parallel sets of inter-area differences in both kinds of measure.

Consistently with the previous research (Masuda et al., 2008), our findings show that

certain characteristics of free drawings—the height of the horizon and the size of focal

figures—as well as drawing strategies (the order in which objects and background are

drawn) differ between cultural groups and that these differences are related to differences

in perceptual processing—namely the relative levels of perceptual holism/analytism that

exist between the members of these groups. Furthermore, our findings also suggest an

interpretation of the association—according to which artistic style reflects underlying cog-

nitive orientations more precisely than do the measures of visual judgment captured by

our version of the FLT.

These results are consistent with theoretical views expressed by Nisbett, Kitayama, and

colleagues that the uneven distribution of individual test scores across groups are ultimately

the product of different patterns of attention, associated with cultural differences in cogni-

tive style. Several alternative explanations for these cultural differences—focusing on such

factors as the way of life, type of subsistence economy, characteristics of the natural envi-

ronment, and aspects of social structure—are consistent with our data. Additional research

is needed to choose between these explanations. Generally, our results demonstrate that an

inquiry into relation between perceptual processing and artistic style has a great potential.

Acknowledgments

The study presented in this article was conducted for the Collaborative Research Centre

(SFB) 586 “Difference and Integration” of the German Research Foundation (project E86

coordinated by Prof. Dr. G€unther Schlee) and the framework project “Conditions and Limita-

tions of Lifestyle Plurality in Siberia” designed by Dr. Joachim Otto Habeck at the Siberian

Studies Centre at the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology in Halle, Germany

(Directors—Prof. Dr. Chris Hann and Prof. Dr. G€unther Schlee, Coordinator—Dr. Joachim

Otto Habeck). The authors thank their numerous Russian, Nenets, Chukchi, and Yup’ik col-

laborators, in particular Alexandr Liakhov, the Tyseda extended family, Antonina Yatta,

Dmitriy Sigunylik, and Vitaly Rannav. We also express our gratitude to the Department of

Education in Tazovsky District, Yamal-Nenets Autonomous Province (Director Larisa Salo-

matina), and to the administrations of the Tazovsky secondary school and Tazovsky boarding

school. We owe thanks to our colleagues Prof. Dr. Chris Hann, Prof. Dr. G€unther Schlee, andDr. Joachim Otto Habeck from the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology in Halle.


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