Circles or rectangles? And does the answer depend on where you grew up?
10 months ago
- #neuroscience
- #perception
- #culture
- Two studies explore whether people from different cultures perceive visual illusions differently.
- The first study by Ivan Kroupin found that people from the UK/US and rural Namibia see the Coffer illusion differently, possibly due to environmental exposure to straight lines vs. round structures.
- The 'carpentered world' hypothesis suggests Westerners perceive straight lines and angles more due to their built environments.
- The second study by Dorsa Amir and Chaz Firestone challenges this hypothesis using the Müller-Lyer illusion, showing it works across species and even in newly sighted individuals.
- Discrepancies between studies suggest cultural perception differences may be more complex than the 'carpentered world' hypothesis alone.
- Perception is an active construction by the brain, not a direct readout of sensory information, leading to diverse experiences within and between cultures.
- The Perception Census project aims to study perceptual diversity in a large, global sample to better understand these differences.