PSYC1005 Study Guide - Final Guide: Taiwanese Mandarin, Phonological Awareness, Psychological Science
Reading Behind the Lines: Exploring Reading Acquisition in an Indigenous Environment
Researching Reading Acquisition: A Weird Psychological Science?
• WEIRD = Western educated industrialised rich demographic populations
• 95% of research conducted on participants that represent 12% of the population → not getting
universal responses.
o Weird assumptions
o Weird participants (not necessarily representative of all humans)
o Weird experiments
o Weird researchers
• Research in other cognitive domains shows differences in processing across cultures:
Holistic v.
Analytic
Perception
Masuda & Nisbett (2001)
• Compared American and Japanese participants of visual scene processing tasks.
• Participants were required to view dynamic vignettes for 20 sec, then report
what they saw.
• Findings suggested that Westerners were more analytic, whereas Easterners
were more holistic.
Contextualising
Perception
• Kitayama et al. 2003
• Framed-line test: absolute and relative tasks.
• Asian cultures better at incorporating contextual information (performed better in
the relative task).
• North American cultures better at ignoring contextual information (performed
better in the absolute task).
Spatial
Cognition -
Frames of
Reference
• There are cultural differences in the way populations think about spatial
orientation and directions.
• Such differences are related to different linguistic reference systems.
• Industrialised populations, such as English, Japanese and Dutch populations,
primarily use a relative (or egocentric) frame of reference.
• Other cultures, including Tzeltal (Mayan) speakers and Guugu Yimithirr (Australian
Aboriginal) speakers use an absolute frame of reference - navigate space based on
N, S, E or W.
What About Cross-Cultural Research and Reading?
• Cultural differences in the predictors of reading (Huang & Hanley, 1994):
o Tested English readers (UK), Chinese readers (Taiwanese Mandarin speakers) and Chinese
readers (HK Cantonese speakers) - mean age 8.
o Given a reading test, as well as four different tests to determine the cognitive factors that
predict reading ability.
o The authors concluded that learning to read in English relied more on phonological awareness
skills than learning to read in Chinese.
o Conversely, learning to read in Chinese seemed to rely more on visual skills than learning to
read in English.
• Cross-cultural similarities in the predictors of reading acquisition (McBride-Chang & Kail, 2002).
o Tested 190 Hong Kong children (mean age 5) and 128 American children (mean age 6.5) (noted
that HK children start school earlier).
o Used a battery of tasks that assessed reading skills, processing speed, phonological awareness,
naming, visual-spatial skill and vocabulary.
o Results showed that phonological awareness was a key predictor of reading for both Chinese
and English orthographies.
o The authors concluded that phonological awareness, therefore, is likely to be a universal
predictor of reading acquisition.
o Interestingly, visual processing was not a unique predictor of reading.
Reading Between the Lines: A Current Example
Why research reading acquisition in an Indigenous environment?
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
Reading behind the lines: exploring reading acquisition in an indigenous environment. Researching reading acquisition: a weird psychological science: weird = western educated industrialised rich demographic populations. 95% of research conducted on participants that represent 12% of the population not getting universal responses: weird assumptions, weird participants (not necessarily representative of all humans, weird experiments, weird researchers. Masuda & nisbett (2001: research in other cognitive domains shows differences in processing across cultures: Compared american and japanese participants of visual scene processing tasks. Participants were required to view dynamic vignettes for 20 sec, then report what they saw. Findings suggested that westerners were more analytic, whereas easterners were more holistic. Framed-line test: absolute and relative tasks: asian cultures better at incorporating contextual information (performed better in the relative task), north american cultures better at ignoring contextual information (performed better in the absolute task). There are cultural differences in the way populations think about spatial orientation and directions.
