PSYC14H3 Chapter Notes - Chapter 9: History Of Asian Art, Asian Americans, Categorical Perception
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Nisbett et al. , refer to these ways of attending to the world as analytic and holistic thinking: analytic thinking is characterized by a focus on objects and their attributes. Western: objects are perceived as existing independently from their contexts they are understood in terms of their component parts. Nisbett suggest that these cultural differences in analytic versus holistic thinking between westerners and. Confucianism, taoism, and buddhism emphasized harmony, interconnectedness, and change. Holistic thinking is further evident among the chinese medical traditions a(cid:374)d i(cid:374) the (cid:272)ulture"s e(cid:373)phasis o(cid:374) harmony among people and nature. Attention; at a gi(cid:448)e(cid:374) ti(cid:373)e, (cid:449)here o(cid:374)e"s (cid:272)og(cid:374)iti(cid:448)e a(cid:272)ti(cid:448)it(cid:455) is dire(cid:272)ted. It follows that analytic thinkers, who tend to perceive the world as consisting of discrete objects, would be more likely to focus their attention on separate parts of a scene. In contrast, holistic thinkers, who tend to perceive the world as consisting of an interrelated whole, should direct their attention more broadly, across an entire scene.
