Previous studies have indicated cross cultural differences in conscious processes, such that Asians have a global preference and Westerners a more analytical one. We investigated whether these biases also apply to unconscious knowledge. In Experiment 1, Japanese and UK participants memorized strings of large (global) letters made out of small…

There is substantial evidence that populations in the Western world exhibit a local bias compared to East Asian populations that is widely ascribed to a difference between individualistic and collectivist societies. However, we report that traditional Himba--a remote interdependent society--exhibit a strong local bias compared to both Japanese and…

The cognitive and psychomotor processes involved in working with the modern Japanese version of the abacus were investigated by distracting expert abacus operators in various ways. (Author/MV)