Seung Gon Yoo
Faculty Sponsor: Dr. Kristi Multhaup, Dr. Margaret Munger
Boundary extension (BE) is a type of memory error, or visual attention error, in which people falsely remember seeing a wider-angle view of the scene than the original scene. None of the literature, however, specifically focuses on the possibility of cultural difference affecting the size of BE. Many cross-cultural studies on visual attention support the idea that culture plays a significant role in people’s perception of images. There is a strong potential for culture to be a significant factor in the explanation of BE rating differences given literature on visual perception consistently showing that there are significant differences between how East Asians and Westerners perceive objects. Korean (N = 36), American (N = 36) participants viewed pictures and later rated the same or similar pictures as the same, zoomed in, or zoomed out. While boundary extension was robust in both groups, there was no cultural difference in the size of BE. In contrast to cultural differences reported in visual attention, the present lack of cultural differences for BE suggests that BE may not be solely a visual attention task. Alternatively, the lack of cultural difference in the present study may be due to the use of a common language (English) for both groups, instead of using English for Americans and Korean for Koreans. This may have reduced the cultural manipulation needed to detect a cross-cultural difference.
