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Cultural Look  1 

 

5/25/02 

 

Perceiving an Object and its Context in Different Cultures: 

A Cultural Look at New Look 

 

Shinobu Kitayama 

Kyoto University 

 

Sean Duffy 

University of Chicago 

 

Tadashi Kawamura 

Kyoto University 

 

and  

 

Jeff T. Larsen 

Princeton University 

 

3980 words 

Running head: Cultural Look 
 

We thank members of the cultural psychology labs at both Kyoto University and the 

University of Chicago for comments on an earlier draft. Address correspondence to 

Shinobu Kitayama, Faculty of Integrated Human Studies, Kyoto University. Yoshida, 

Sakyo-ku, Kyoto 606-8501 Japan. E-mail may be sent to kitayama@hi.h.kyoto-u.ac.jp.  

 

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Abstract 

 

In 2 studies, a newly devised test (Framed Line Test) was used to examine the hypothesis 

that individuals engaging in Asian cultures are more capable of incorporating, but those 

engaging in North American cultures are more capable of ignoring, contextual 

information. Participants were presented with a square frame of varying size, within 

which was printed a vertical line of varying length. Participants were then shown 

another square frame of the same or different size and asked to draw a line that was 

identical to the first line in terms of either absolute length (absolute task) or proportion to 

the height of the pertinent frames (relative task). In support of the hypothesis, whereas 

Japanese were more accurate in the relative task, Americans were more accurate in the 

absolute task. Moreover, when engaging in another culture, individuals showed a 

cognitive characteristic that resembled the one common in the host culture.    (148 words) 

 

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Perceiving an Object and its Context in Different Cultures: 

A Cultural Look at New Look 

 

 

Although perception depends on sensory input, it also involves a variety of 

“top-down” processes that are automatically recruited to actively construct a conscious 

percept from the input. According to this thesis, called New Look in the 1950s, percepts 

are significantly modified by expectation, value, emotion, need, and other factors that are 

“endogenous” to the perceiver (Bruner, 1957; Bruner & Goodman, 1947;). “Exogenous” 

factors, such as physical properties of the impinging stimulus, cannot account, in full, for 

the emerging percept. Although initial demonstrations evoked a considerable controversy 

and skepticism (e.g., Postman, Bronson, & Gropper, 1953), the basic idea has proved quite 

viable (Erdelyi, 1974; Niedenthal & Kitayama, 1994; Zajonc, 1980), and has since taken a 

strong hold in the mainstream of cognitive and social psychology (Higgins & Bargh, 

1987). 

For a large part, however, this literature has so far ignored culture. This 

omission is both surprising and unfortunate. As a pool of ideational resources (e.g., lay 

theories, images, scripts, and worldviews) that are embodied in public narratives, 

practices and institutions of given geographic regions, historical periods, and groups, 

whether ethnic, religious, or otherwise (Kitayama, 2002), culture may be expected to be 

one, perhaps the most fundamental source of each person’s values, expectations, and 

needs. The purpose of the current work, then, was to take a renewed look at the New 

Look from a cultural point of view. 

Culture and Cognition 

An important lead on this point has already been made by a number of recent 

studies that focus on cultural variation in cognitive processes, which as a whole suggest 

that different cultures foster and encourage quite different modes of cognitive processing 

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(Kitayama, 2000; Markus & Kitayama, 1991; Nisbett, Peng, Choi, & Norenzayan, 2001). 

In particular, people engaging in North American cultures (North Americans, in short) 

are assumed to be relatively more attuned to a focal object and hence to be less sensitive 

to context. North Americans are thus described as analytic (Nisbett et al., 2001) or 

field-independent (Witkin & Berry, 1975) in cognitive style. Conversely, those engaging in 

Asian cultures (Asians, in short) are hypothesized to be attuned more to contextual 

information—namely, information that surrounds the focal object. Asians are thus 

described as holistic or field-dependent in cognitive style. These culturally divergent 

cognitive characteristics have been examined with several different measures such as 

attitude attribution (e.g., Masuda & Kitayama, 2002; Miyamoto & Kitayama, in press), 

performance in a rod and frame task (Ji, Peng, & Nisbett, 2000; Witkin & Berry, 1975), a 

Stroop interference effect (Kitayama & Ishii, 2002; Ishii, Reyes, & Kitayama, in press), 

and context-dependent memory (Masuda & Nisbett, 2001). A reasonable conjecture from 

this emerging literature is that the cross-culturally divergent modes of cognitive 

processing must be differentially advantageous, depending on the demands of a 

particular task.   

Specifically, some tasks require ignoring contextual information when making a 

judgment about a focal object. For example, a judgment about another person may often 

be tainted by wrong stereotypes associated with a group of which she is a member. In 

these circumstances, it is necessary to discount any such stereotypes. Such tasks may be 

called absolute tasks in that the focal judgment must be made in terms that are 

uninfluenced or unchanged by any contextual information. In these tasks, performance 

should be better for North Americans than for Asians. Using a rod and frame test (RFT; 

Witkin & Berry, 1975), Ji and colleagues (2000) have recently provided evidence for this 

prediction. Participants were presented with a tilted frame in which a rotating line was 

placed at the center. The participants’ task was to rotate the line so that it was orthogonal 

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to the earth surface (or it was aligned to the direction of gravity) while ignoring the frame. 

Ji et al. (2000) found that Americans were more accurate in line alignment (hence 

indicating their superior ability to ignore contextual information) than Chinese. This 

evidence is noteworthy because the RFT has no obvious social elements. 

In contrast, some other tasks require incorporating contextual information. For 

example, a judgment about another person often benefits from attention duly given to the 

specific social situation in which she behaves. These tasks may be called relative tasks in 

that the focal judgment must be made in terms that change in accordance with the nature 

of relevant context. We may expect that Asians with contextual sensitivity would have an 

advantage. Unlike the evidence for the absolute task, evidence for this prediction comes 

exclusively from social domains. Thus, it is well known that North Americans often fail to 

give proper weight to significant contextual information in drawing a judgment about a 

focal person. This bias, called the fundamental attribution error, is typically substantially 

weaker in Asian cultures (e.g., Miyamoto & Kitayama, in press; Morris & Peng, 1994). 

Present Research 

The available evidence indicates that there is substantial cognitive difference 

across cultures (Nisbett et al., 2001). Furthermore, this difference can be demonstrated 

with tasks that are both obviously social (e.g., Miyamoto & Kitayama, in press) and those 

that are minimally social (e.g., Ji et al., 2000). Nevertheless, there still exist some 

significant limitations that have hampered the further development of theory on cultural 

variation in cognitive competences.   

First, with an important exception of Ji et al. (2000), virtually no existent studies 

evaluate performance against any objective criterion. This makes it difficult to draw any 

conclusions on the normative status of cognitive biases that are suggested in the 

literature. Second, in all existent studies that examine relative tasks (e.g., attitude 

attribution), participants are never instructed to use contextual information and, 

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therefore, it is uncertain whether the cross-cultural difference was due to Asians’ greater 

propensity to attend to the context, their greater competence to incorporate information 

in the context, or both. Third, though Ji and colleagues’ (2000) RFT findings suggest that 

North Americans’ greater ability to ignore context extends from social to nonsocial tasks, 

it is not clear whether Asians’ greater ability to incorporate context extends to nonsocial 

tasks. Fourth and, perhaps, most important, in all the existent studies, very different 

domains such as line alignment and social perception are used in defining the two 

theoretical types of tasks. This makes it impossible to draw any meaningful comparison 

between performance in an absolute task and performance in a relative task.   

In an effort to address these limitations inherent in the current evidence, we 

developed a new test called the framed line test (FLT). The FLT is specifically designed to 

assess both the ability to incorporate and the ability to ignore contextual information 

within a single domain that is arguably nonsocial. Further, within the FLT, this 

assessment can be made in reference to an objective standard of performance. Specifically, 

participants are presented with a square frame of varying size, within which is printed a 

vertical line of varying length. The participants are then shown another square frame of 

the same or different size and asked to draw a line that is identical to the first line in 

terms of either absolute length (absolute task) or proportion to the height of the pertinent 

squares (relative task). 

In the absolute task, the participants have to ignore both the first frame (when 

assessing the length of the line) and the second frame (when reproducing the line). Hence, 

the performance in this task should be better for North Americans than for Asians. In the 

relative task, the participants have to incorporate the height information of the 

surrounding frame in both encoding and reproducing the line. Hence, the performance in 

this task should be better for Asians than for North Americans. Moreover, one major 

advantage of the FLT is to allow an assessment of the relative ease or difficulty of the two 

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tasks. It was predicted that whereas for Asians, accuracy should be higher for the relative 

task than for the absolute task, for North Americans the reverse should be the case. 

 

 

STUDY 1. FLT IN JAPAN AND THE US 

 

Method 

Participants 

Twenty undergraduates at Kyoto University, Japan (8 males and 12 females), 

and 20 undergraduates at the University of Chicago, the US(9 males and 11 females), 

volunteered to participate in the study. All Japanese undergraduates were native 

Japanese and all American undergraduates were of European decent. 

Materials and Procedure 

 

Upon arrival in a lab, participants were explained that they would perform 

simple cognitive tasks. They were given both the absolute and the relative tasks in a 

counter-balanced order. They received specific instructions for each task right before they 

performed it. In both tasks, they were shown a square frame. Within the frame, a vertical 

line was printed. The line was extended downward from the upper center of the square 

(see Figure 1-A). The participants were then moved to a different table placed in the 

opposite corner of the lab (so as to ensure that iconic memory played no role), shown a 

second square frame that was either larger, smaller or equal in size to the first frame, and 

instructed to draw a line in it. In the absolute task, the participants were instructed to 

draw a line in the second frame so that it would be the same absolute length as the line in 

the first frame (Figure 1-B). In the relative task, the participants were instructed to draw 

a line that had the same proportion to the second frame as the line in the original frame 

(Figure 1-C). Care was taken to ensure that the participants understood the respective 

tasks by using concrete examples such as the ones given in Figures 1-A through 1-C. 

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Five different combinations of frames and a line were prepared such that in 2 of 

the combinations the first frame was smaller than the second and in 2 of the 

combinations the former was larger than the latter. Furthermore, in half of the cases, the 

first line was longer than one half of the height of the first square and in the remaining 

half, it was shorter than half of its height. Finally, in the remaining one combination, the 

first and the second frame were identical in size. This last case is of interest because the 

correct response would be identical in both the relative and the absolute judgment. See 

Table 1 for specifications of the square size and the line length of the combinations used 

in Study 1. The five combinations were presented in a random order. The same set of 

target stimuli were used in both the relative and absolute tasks. 

Results and Discussion 

 

An inspection of data showed that both over-estimation and under-estimation 

happened to a nearly equal extent in all the five stimulus combinations. Accordingly, in 

order to assess the performance in the two tasks, the lines drawn by the participants 

were measured and the absolute difference between the lines drawn by the participants 

and the correct length of the lines were calculated. Because the absolute size of error was 

somewhat larger for longer lines, we also analyzed the percent of the error relative to the 

correct line length. The results were no different. This was the case in both Studies 1 and 

2. We therefore discuss only the results for absolute error. 

The mean error scores (in mm) for the two tasks are summarized in Table 1. 

These means were submitted to an Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) with one 

between-subject variable (culture of participants [Japanese vs. Americans]) and two 

within-subject variables (task [absolute vs. relative] and stimulus version [the five 

combinations noted above]). A preliminary analysis had shown that effects do not depend 

on either gender of the participants or the order by which the two tasks were given.   

As predicted, an interaction between culture and task proved significant, F(1, 38) 

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Cultural Look  9 

 

= 24.41, p < .0001. The pertinent means are plotted in Figure 2. As predicted, Japanese 

performed the relative task significantly more accurately than the absolute task (Ms = 

4.52 vs. 6.05), t(38) = 2.56, p < .02. In contrast, Americans performed the absolute task 

more accurately than the relative task (Ms = 3.71 vs. 6.35), t(38) = 4.57, p < .01. Moreover, 

the performance in the absolute task was significantly better for Americans than for 

Japanese, t(38) = 3.92, p < .01. But the reverse was true for the performance in the 

relative task, t(38) = 3.06, p < .01. The pattern was more pronounced for some 

combinations than for others as indicated by a significant main effect of version and a 

significant interaction between version and task, F(4, 152) = 8.95, p < .001 and F(4, 152) = 

9.44, p < .001. Importantly, however, the pattern in Figure 2 emerged, albeit to a varying 

degree, over all the five combinations.

 

Remember when the two frames are identical in 

size, the correct length for the relative and the absolute tasks is identical. Curiously, even 

here, the same pattern emerged. Specifically, performance for Japanese was significantly 

better in the relative task than in the absolute task, t(38) = 2.53, p < .02, but this 

difference was considerably attenuated for Americans, t < 1. We return to this issue later. 

 

STUDY 2. VARIABILITY AND MALLEABILITY OF FLT PERFORMANCE 

 

Study 2 sought to replicate Study 1 and, further, to extend it by testing both 

Americans and Japanese in both Japan and the United States. This effort was motivated 

by a concern with the variability and malleability of cross-cultural variations. If, for 

example, the cross-cultural difference is both relatively uniform within each culture and 

relatively stable and trait-like over time, then the cross-cultural variation should be 

entirely a function of the cultural origins of each participant: Americans (or Japanese) 

should show a prototypically American (or Japanese) pattern more or less uniformly 

regardless of where they are tested. If, however, the cognitive abilities at issue are both 

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variable and malleable, there ought to be a considerable variation as a function of both 

the cultural origins of participants and the specific location in which they are tested. 

Specifically, participants in a foreign culture would show a pattern of cognitive biases 

that resembles the pattern typical in the host culture.   

Method 

Participants 

Four groups of individuals (Total N = 111) volunteered for the study. Japanese in 

Japan were 32 undergraduates (20 males and 12 females) at Kyoto University, Japan. 

They were tested by a Japanese experimenter. Instructions were given in Japanese. 

Americans in Japan were 18 exchange students (8 males and 10 females)—all 

Americans—who were temporarily staying in Kansai Institute for Foreign Languages. 

They had stayed in Japan for four months at most and their Japanese proficiency was 

quite limited. They were tested by a Japanese experimenter. Instructions were given in 

English. Americans in the US are 40 undergraduates (21 males and 19 females) at the 

University of Chicago, and Japanese in the US are 21 Japanese undergraduates (13 

males and 8 females) who were temporarily studying at the University of Chicago. These 

Japanese stayed at the University for a varying length from 2 months up to four years. 

The Americans and the Japanese in the US were both tested by an American 

experimenter and instructions were given in English. 

Materials and Procedure 

 

Six different combinations of frames and a line were prepared. They were mostly 

identical to the ones used in Study 1, except, first, that some of the ratios of the size of the 

two frames were somewhat changed and, second, that the pattern with the two frames of 

the identical size was run in two variations. See Table 2 for specifications of the square 

size and the line length of the combinations used in Study 2. The participants were tested 

individually within the same procedure as in Study 1. 

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Results and Discussion 

 

As in Study 1, there was no systematic tendency for over- or under-estimation in 

any of the stimulus combinations. Preliminary analysis showed no significant effects 

involving the gender of participants. Although past research tended to show females to be 

more context-sensitive than males (Cross & Madson, 1997), this effect appears to be less 

robust than the cultural difference.   

The means were thus submitted to a 2x2x2x6 ANOVA, with two between-subject 

variables (cultural origins of participants [Japanese vs. Americans] and testing location 

[Japan vs. US]) and two within-subject variables (task [absolute vs. relative] and 

stimulus version [the six combinations noted above]. The mean error scores (in mm) are 

summarized in Table 3. The size of error varied systematically across the four groups of 

participants, as indicated by a significant main effect for testing location and an 

interaction between testing location and participant culture, F(1, 105) = 15.97, p < .0001 

and F(1, 105) = 8.25, p < .01. Further, the error size was larger for the absolute task than 

for the relative task, F(1, 105) = 39.56, p < .0001. Importantly, however, replicating Study 

1, the critical interaction between task and participant culture proved to be highly 

significant, F(1, 105) = 10.18, p < .002. Moreover, we also found a highly reliable 

interaction between task and testing location, F(1, 105) = 56.19, p < .0001. 

The pertinent means are summarized in Figure 3. Replicating Study 1, Japanese 

participants in Japan proved to be much more accurate in the relative task than in the 

absolute task, t(105) = 9.90, p < .01. In contrast, Americans in the US were significantly 

more accurate in the absolute task than in the relative task, t(105) = 2.15, p < .05. The 

remaining two groups of participants showed an effect that strongly resembled the effect 

of the host culture. Thus, the pattern for Americans in Japan was closer to the pattern for 

Japanese in Japan than to the pattern for Americans in the US. Likewise, the pattern for 

Japanese in the US was closer to the pattern for Americans in the US than to the pattern 

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for Japanese in Japan. When examined from a different angle, the performance in the 

relative task was significantly better for Japanese than for Americans, t(105) = 7.84, p 

< .001; but the performance in the absolute task was better for Americans than for 

Japanese, t(105) = 4.73, p < .001. In both cases, the data in the remaining two groups fell 

in-between. It is noteworthy that essentially the same pattern was observed across the 

six combinations of stimuli (see Table 2). In particular, as in Study 1, the same 

cross-cultural difference in error pattern was observed for the two combinations where 

the two frames were equal in size. 

 

GENERAL DISCUSSION 

 

Socio-Cultural Shaping of Attention and Perception 

In agreement with recent theorizing on cultural variation in cognition (Nisbett et 

al., 2001), the current work showed that Japanese are more capable of incorporating 

contextual information in making a judgment on a focal object, but North Americans are 

more capable of ignoring it. Importantly, we demonstrated the cross-cultural variation in 

a non-social task that is specifically designed to simultaneously assess the two cognitive 

competences of either ignoring or incorporating context. The FLT may be an important 

source of information for a nonsocial, basic cognitive capacity that is recruited in the 

making of more complex, contextualized judgments and perceptions. Future research 

should clarify both the social origins of the nonsocial cognitive and attentional skills and 

processes and the contribution of the nonsocial cognitive and attentional processes to 

judgments and inferences made on social objects and events. 

We repeatedly found the same cross-cultural variation in error pattern even 

when the two frames were identical. This finding contradicts the notion that Asians (or 

Americans) are predisposed to perform the relative (or the absolute) task even when they 

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were instructed to do otherwise. Should individuals have these predispositions, errors 

should have been minimum when the two frames were identical because, under these 

conditions, the answers of the two tasks converge. In view of the current evidence, we 

may suggest that errors were due, in part, to a difficulty in accurately encoding the 

central line. That is to say, whereas Japanese may have had a difficulty in releasing 

attention from the frame and then refocusing it on the line in the absolute task, 

Americans may have had a difficulty in releasing attention from the central line and 

shifting it to the frame in the relative task. It is of note that the errors in the two tasks of 

the FLT were largely independent within each experimental group in the both studies 

(-.08 < r < .44, with the medium = -.06), indicating that the two attentional abilities are 

mostly separate. Yet, in both cases, the difficulty in controlling attention may be expected 

to cause an impairment in the adequate encoding of the line. Future work should 

examine this and other mechanisms in greater detail. 

Limitations 

The effects of cultural origins of participants and test locations in Study 2 are 

quite suggestive, but require caution in interpretation. One provocative interpretation is 

that the effect of test location was caused by immersion into a new culture. That is to say, 

cognitive and attentional capacities and tendencies may be modified in accordance with 

new demands and affordances of living in a new host culture (Kitayama, Markus, 

Matsumoto, & Norasakkunkit 1997). Importantly, this modification can be permanent 

once it takes place or relatively temporary and reversible, with an important implication 

in what might be expected to happen when our participants go back to their home country. 

Nevertheless, for a variety of practical constraints associated with cross-cultural 

experimental research, we could not exercise the degree of experimental control that 

would have otherwise been obligatory. Among others, we depended entirely on 

convenience samples. We wish to acknowledge three ensuing difficulties in 

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interpretation.  

First, the average length of stay in the host cultures turned out to be very different 

between the Americans in Japan and Japanese in the US. Although this variable did not 

correlate with the error size in the two tasks, a better balanced sampling would have been 

desirable.  

Second, the language used for instructions was also chosen for convenience. In 

particular, in the US not only Americans but also Japanese were tested in English, but in 

Japan participants were tested in their native languages. This might have had an 

unknown degree of influence on the results because evidence indicates that language can 

prime the associated culture (Hoffman, Lau, & Johnson, 1986; but see Ishii et al., in press, 

for an important caveat). 

Third, both the Japanese participants in the US and the American participants in 

Japan were people who voluntarily moved to the other culture. Though obtained effects 

on cognitive biases may have been due to immersion in a new culture, the possibility of 

selection bias is equally viable. That is to say, only those people who have psychological 

affinities to another culture may find themselves living in this other culture. Although 

these explanations for the effect of test location are not mutually exclusive, future work 

should empirically address their relative significance. 

Conclusion 

 

Culture is a source of generic expectations, default goals, desires, and needs, and 

overarching values. Cultural variations in attention, perception, and cognition, then, 

would enable us to take a renewed look at the New Look (Bruner, 1994). The current work 

suggests that culture’s practices and beliefs encourage very divergent cognitive and 

attentional capacities—the ones to either incorporate or ignore context while making a 

judgment about a focal object.   

Future work along the line proposed here may reveal a degree of socio-cultural 

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shaping of attention and perception that is substantially greater than has so far been 

assumed in the psychological literature. If so, this evidence would provide a solid basis to 

re-conceptualize the human psychological processes and structures as fully embedded in 

and thus significantly constituted by the collectively shared practices, values, and beliefs 

of culture (Kitayama, 2002). Indeed, if properly analyzed, the thesis of the New Look will 

be instrumental in breaking a self-imposed shell of the traditional psychological 

discipline and broadening its horizon to include society, culture, and history in its 

territory of investigation. 

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Cultural Look  19 

 

Table 1. Mean error scores in the absolute versus relative line-drawing tasks by Japanese 

and Americans (Study 1, the metric is in terms of mm in all cases). 

 
Height Length Height 

of 1

st

   of 

of 2

nd

 

 

   Japanese  American 

Frame   Line 

Frame   

 

 

 

 

 

 

               

 

89 62 179 

Absolute 

Task 

 M 

 6.8 

  2.2 

    SD 

 (5.0) 

  (2.1) 

 Relative 

Task 

 M 

 6.3 

  10.6 

    SD 

 (4.8) 

  (4.1) 

 

102 29  153 

Absolute 

Task 

 M 

 3.6 

  2.5 

    SD 

 (4.9) 

  (2.5) 

 Relative 

Task 

 M 

  

5.7 

  6.2 

    SD 

 (5.9) 

  (4.0) 

 

127 53  127 

Absolute 

Task 

 M 

 7.1 

  3.8 

    SD 

 (4.7) 

  (4.0) 

 Relative 

Task 

 M 

 4.0 

  4.5 

SD 

 (3.3) 

  (3.5) 

 

153 87  102 

Absolute 

Task 

 M 

 9.0 

  6.1 

    SD 

 (4.9) 

  (4.6) 

 Relative 

Task 

 M 

 4.2 

  6.6 

    SD 

 (3.4) 

  (5.0) 

 

179 31  89 

Absolute 

Task 

 M 

 3.6 

  3.8 

 

   SD 

 (2.9) 

  (3.6) 

 Relative 

Task 

 M 

 2.3 

  3.7 

 

   SD 

 (2.7) 

  (2.5) 

 
 

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Cultural Look  20 

 

Table 2. Mean error scores in the absolute versus relative line-drawing tasks by Japanese 

and Americans in both Japan and the US (Study 2, the metric is in terms of mm in all 

cases). 

 
Height Length Height 

of 1

st

   of 

of 2

nd

    

Japanese 

Americans 

Japanese  Americans 

Frame   Line 

Frame   

in Japan 

in Japan 

in the US    in the US       

 

81 68 162 

Absolute 

Task 

M  9.2  

6.6  

4.1  

3.4 

 

  SD 

(5.7) 

 

 (5.7) 

 (3.0) 

 (2.9) 

Relative 

Task 

M  4.3  

3.6  

5.7  

7.7 

 

  SD 

(3.5) 

 

 (2.6) 

 (3.2) 

 (7.4) 

 

 

 

 108  22 

162 

 

  Absolute 

Task 

M  5.1  

3.2  

3.2  

4.1 

 

  SD 

(5.1) 

 

 (2.7) 

 (2.3) 

 (2.6) 

Relative 

Task 

M  3.1  

5.8  

3.0  

3.9 

 

  SD 

(2.0) 

 

 (4.4) 

 (2.4) 

 (3.4) 

 

 101  28 

101 

 

  Absolute 

Task 

M  8.1  

5.4  

4.0  

4.2 

 

  SD 

(6.7) 

 

 (7.0) 

 (2.8) 

 (3.0) 

Relative 

Task 

M  3.1  

2.7  

2.9  

4.4 

 

  SD 

(2.0) 

 

 (1.8) 

 (2.6) 

 (2.9) 

 

 141  102 

141 

 

 Absolute 

Task 

14.5 

 14.0 

 3.3 

 6.5 

 

  SD 

(10.1) 

 

 (9.1) 

 (2.9) 

 (4.7) 

Relative 

Task 

M  3.9  

5.1  

4.7  

8.4 

 

  SD 

(2.8) 

 

 (4.1) 

 (3.3) 

 (5.6) 

 108  73 

81 

Absolute 

Task 

M  8.0  

7.8  

4.8  

5.3 

 

  SD 

(4.4) 

 

 (3.5) 

 (3.3) 

 (3.8) 

Relative 

Task 

M  3.0  

4.2  

2.8  

5.6 

 

  SD 

(2.2) 

 

 (4.8) 

 (2.4) 

 (4.0) 

 

 162  30 

81 

 

  Absolute 

Task 

M  6.7  

4.6  

3.9  

4.2 

 

  SD 

(7.0) 

 

 (3.6) 

 (2.4) 

 (3.2) 

Relative 

Task 

M  2.0  

2.8  

2.7  

3.9 

 

  SD 

(1.9) 

 

 (1.7) 

 (2.0) 

 (2.2) 

 

 

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Cultural Look  21 

 

 

Figure 1-A. The original stimulus 

Figure 1-B. The absolute task 

Figure 1-C. The relative task 

Square=90 mm tall 
Line=30 mm/ 
          one third of the 
          height of the   
          square 

30 mm 

one third of   
the height of   
the square 

 
Figure 1. Framed Line Test (FLT). Participants are shown a square frame with a vertical 

line, followed by the tasks of drawing a line in a new square of the same or different size. 

The line has to be identical to the first line either in absolute length (Figure 1-B) or in 

proportion to the height of the respective frames (Figure 1-C). 

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Cultural Look  22 

 

 

0

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

Jap anese

 A m ericans

C ulture

Mean Absolute Error (mm)

A b solu te T ask

R elative T ask

Figure 2. Mean error scores (in mm) in the two line drawing tasks of FLT for Japanese 

and Americans. 
 

 

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Cultural Look  23 

 

 

0

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

1 0

Jap an ese in

Jap an

 A m erican s in

Jap an

 Jap an ese in

A m erica

 A m erican s in

A m erica

Mean Absolute Error (mm)

A b solu te T ask

R elative T ask

 

 

Figure 3. Mean error scores (in mm) in the two line drawing tasks of FLT for Japanese 

and Americans in the two cultural locations (i.e., Japan and the United States). 
 

 

 

 

 


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