Cognitive Science (2011) 1–12
Copyright 2011 Cognitive Science Society, Inc. All rights reserved.
ISSN: 0364-0213 print / 1551-6709 online
DOI: 10.1111/j.1551-6709.2010.01163.x
Feature and Configuration in Face Processing: Japanese
Are More Configural Than Americans
Yuri Miyamoto,a Sakiko Yoshikawa,b Shinobu Kitayamac
a
Department of Psychology, University of Wisconsin-Madison
b
Kokoro Research Center, Kyoto University
c
Department of Psychology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
Received 24 November 2009; received in revised form 1 November 2010; accepted 1 November 2010
Abstract
Previous work suggests that Asians allocate more attention to configuration information than Caucasian Americans do. Yet this cultural variation has been found only with stimuli such as natural
scenes and objects that require both feature- and configuration-based processing. Here, we show that
the cultural variation also exists in face perception—a domain that is typically viewed as configural
in nature. When asked to identify a prototypic face for a set of disparate exemplars, Japanese were
more likely than Caucasian Americans to use overall resemblance rather than feature matching.
Moreover, in a speeded identity-matching task, Japanese were more accurate than Americans in identifying the spatial configuration of features (e.g., eyes). Together, these findings underscore the
robustness of culture’s influences on cognition.
Keywords: Culture; Face perception; Feature-based and configuration-based processing
1. Introduction
Researchers have suggested that face perception is special (Farah, Wilson, Drain, &
Tanaka, 1998). Even newborns attend to a face-like pattern rather than to ‘‘scrambled’’ face
patterns (Johnson, Dziurawiec, Ellis, & Morton, 1991) and brain areas that process faces are
different from brain areas that process other kinds of objects (Farah, Levinson, & Klein,
1995; Kanwisher, McDermott, & Chun, 1997). Findings such as these indicate a biological
basis and a potentially universal ability to perceive faces. However, a growing body of
research has demonstrated cultural differences in how people attend to social and physical
Correspondence should be sent to Yuri Miyamoto, Department of Psychology, University of Wisconsin,
Madison, 1202 West Johnson Street, Madison, WI 53706. E-mail: [email protected]
2
Y. Miyamoto, S. Yoshikawa, S. Kitayama ⁄ Cognitive Science (2011)
environments (Nisbett, 2003; Nisbett, Peng, Choi, & Norenzayan, 2001). Here, we address
whether face perception is indeed universal, or whether there are cultural variations in how
people attend to faces.
It is generally agreed that face processing is configuration-based relative to processing of
other objects and patterns (Farah et al., 1998). Specifically, three types of configural processing in face perception have been identified (Maurer, Le Grand, & Mondloch, 2002):
detection of first-order relations (i.e., two eyes above a nose and mouth), processing of individual features as an overall gestalt, and sensitivity to second-order relations (i.e., spatial
distance among internal features). For example, Tanaka and Farah (1993) showed that certain parts of faces (e.g., nose) are more easily identified when presented within a whole face
than when presented by themselves, thus providing evidence for the processing of individual
features as a gestalt. Of importance, no comparable effect was observed for other types of
stimuli, such as for houses (e.g., a window presented in a whole house). Although certain
properties of faces (e.g., ingroup vs. outgroup faces; Elfenbein & Ambady, 2002; Tanaka,
Kiefer, & Bukach, 2004) and developmental changes (Mondloch, Le Grand, & Maurer,
2002) have been shown to influence the extent of configural processing, it seems undisputed
that face processing is very special. If processing of faces is highly configural, one could
expect little room for cultural variation.
Recent research on culture and cognition, however, indicates that face perception may be
even more based on configural processing among Easterners than among Westerners. This
research shows substantial cultural differences in cognitive and perceptual processes
(Nisbett et al., 2001). Across various measures of attention, including psychological
measures such as memory (Masuda & Nisbett, 2001) and eye movement (Chua, Boland, &
Nisbett, 2005), as well as brain measures such as electroencephalograms (Lewis, Goto,
& Kong, 2008) and functional magnetic resonance imaging (Gutchess, Welsh, Boduroglu,
& Park, 2006; Hedden, Ketay, Aron, Markus, & Gabrieli, 2008), individuals in Eastern cultures are more likely than those in Western cultures to attend to the context surrounding
focal objects and also to relationships among them.
The existing evidence is consistent with the supposition that although an object can be
perceived hierarchically both as a whole configuration and as multiple components
(cf., Palmer, 1977), the relative weight given to the two types of processing may vary
considerably as a function of culture, with Westerners and Easterners relying more on
feature- and configuration-based processing, respectively. So far, the literature on cultural
differences in attention has used naturalistic scenes—social (e.g., Masuda et al., 2008) or
nonsocial (e.g., Masuda & Nisbett, 2001, 2006) and geometric figures or objects as experimental stimuli (e.g., Kitayama, Duffy, Kawamura, & Larsen, 2003). These stimuli were
deemed suitable for testing cultural differences in feature- vs. configuration-based processing because they could be processed with equal ease in either one or both of the two
processing modes.
In contrast, as noted above, face processing is known to be highly configural (Farah et al.,
1998) even among Westerners, who tend to rely on feature-based processing. Hence, if Easterners are even more likely than Westerners to attend to the overall configuration of facial
features, this finding would establish a robust cultural bias in modes of perceptual processing.
Y. Miyamoto, S. Yoshikawa, S. Kitayama ⁄ Cognitive Science (2011)
3
Accordingly, we set out to test the hypothesized cultural difference in attention by employing
faces as stimuli. Extrapolating on previous findings on cultural differences, we predicted that
Asians would rely even more on configural processing than Americans. Specifically, we examined whether there are cultural differences in two types of configural processing: processing of
an overall gestalt and sensitivity to second-order relations. In Study 1, we first tested cultural
differences in reliance on an overall gestalt rather than individual features. Study 2 further
examined whether cultural differences extend to sensitivity to second-order relations by
investigating attention to individual features and to spatial relations between features.
2. Study 1
We presented participants with groups of four faces and also with their two composite
faces (see Fig. 1): featural (i.e., combining parts of all four faces) and configural (i.e., morphing all four faces) composite faces. Whereas featural faces retained the individual features
of their exemplars, configural faces maintained the global configuration (overall gestalt) of
the exemplars. Since previous research has shown that East Asians are more likely than
Fig. 1. Example of four original faces with their featural (bottom left) and configural (bottom right) composite
faces used in Study 1.
4
Y. Miyamoto, S. Yoshikawa, S. Kitayama ⁄ Cognitive Science (2011)
Americans to categorize objects based on their global family resemblance rather than feature matching (Norenzayan, Smith, Kim, & Nisbett, 2002), we predicted that Japanese
would be more likely than Americans to choose configural faces as prototypic faces.
2.1. Method
2.1.1. Participants
Thirty-one Caucasian American undergraduates (18 females) in the United States and 41
Japanese undergraduates (20 females) in Japan participated in the study. American students
were given a course credit, whereas Japanese students were given a book coupon (equivalent to $4.50) for their participation. Each session was conducted in a small group with a
maximum of 5 participants.
2.1.2. Materials and procedure
Color photographs of Japanese and Caucasian faces were used. We prepared four disparate faces for each of the four sets defined by ethnicity (Caucasian vs. Japanese) and gender
(male vs. female), for a total of 16 different faces. For each set, we created both a configural
prototype and a featural prototype (Cabeza & Kato, 2000). The configural prototype was
created by morphing the four faces in each set using the Software for Facial Image Processing System for Humanlike ‘‘Kansei’’ Agent (Information-technology Promotion Agency,
IPA, Japan) and its extension tool (Harashima–Naemura Laboratory, University of Tokyo,
Tokyo, Japan). To create the featural prototype, we first arbitrarily numbered the four faces
in each set. We then cut the eyes of the first face and pasted them on the fourth face. Similarly, the eyebrows and the mouth of the fourth face were replaced with the corresponding
features of the second and the third faces, respectively. The resulting featural prototype consisted of the nose and the shape of the fourth face, the eyes of the first face, eyebrows of the
second face, and the mouth of the third face.
All the stimuli were printed on sheets of paper. Four original faces were printed on the
top of each sheet. At the bottom of the sheet were printed two composite faces, which were
covered by a piece of re-adherable paper. To control for the duration of exposure, participants were instructed to watch the group of four faces for 5 s. They were then asked to
remove the paper and judge which of the bottom two faces was the better representative
(tenkei in Japanese) of the group, using a forced-choice response format. Participants
repeated the same procedure for all four sets of faces. The order of presentation was counterbalanced across participants.
2.2. Results
We analyzed the number of times that configural faces were chosen. As predicted,
Japanese respondents were more likely to choose configural faces (M = 3.37) than were
American respondents (M = 2.84), t(1, 70) = 2.68, p < .01, d = 64. This finding indicates
that, compared to Americans, Japanese may be more likely to use overall resemblance rather
than feature-matching to choose a prototypic face.
Y. Miyamoto, S. Yoshikawa, S. Kitayama ⁄ Cognitive Science (2011)
5
3. Study 2
Study 1 showed that Japanese may be more likely than Americans to use overall resemblance rather than feature-matching to identify a prototypic face. This may have resulted in
part because of the priority that Asians give to configural (vs. featural) processing. Although
Study 1 provided evidence supporting our hypothesis, the findings of Study 1 were based on
a self-report measure of a prototypic face. It is possible that the observed cultural differences
reflect not only differences in configural (vs. featural) processing but also differences in the
interpretation of the task. Study 2 thus sought to employ a behavioral measure to test
whether cultural differences would be observed even in a task that involved a minimum
amount of interpretation.
In addition to the attention to an overall gestalt of a face (rather than to individual features), sensitivity to second-order relations among features is a prominent feature of configural processing (Maurer et al., 2002). Masuda and Nisbett (2006) found that, when compared
to Americans, Japanese were more sensitive to changes in spatial relationships between
objects. Study 2 thus examined the ease with which Japanese and Americans detected subtle
discrepancies in the spatial location of facial features. In particular, we prepared two sets of
faces that differed either in individual features (i.e., eyes and mouth) or in spacing between
the features (see Fig. 2; Mondloch et al., 2002). We predicted that Japanese would more
readily detect the spacing differences than Americans would. In addition, we also examined
self-reported attentional strategies employed during the task.
Furthermore, we also explored the effect of acculturation on face perception. Cognitive
style may change depending on the cultural and perceptual environments in which one is
embedded (Miyamoto, Nisbett, & Masuda, 2006). Therefore, to provide a stronger test for
the role of culture in face perception, we also examined Asian students in the United States
to explore whether they would show perceptual patterns in-between Japanese and Americans.
Fig. 2. Example of spacing and featural sets used in Study 2. The left-most face in each row is the original face.
The faces in the first row make up a spacing set and those in the second row make up a featural set.
6
Y. Miyamoto, S. Yoshikawa, S. Kitayama ⁄ Cognitive Science (2011)
3.1. Method
3.1.1. Participants
Twenty-one Caucasian American undergraduates (13 females) and 15 Asian undergraduates (4 females) in the United States and 23 Japanese undergraduates (8 females) in Japan
participated in the study. All Asian undergraduates were born in Asia (e.g., China, Korea)
and lived in the United States for an average of 5.73 years. Students in the United States
were given course credit, whereas Japanese students were given a book coupon (equivalent
to $4.50) for their participation. Participants were tested individually.
3.1.2. Materials and procedure
We created four sets of facial stimuli (i.e., Caucasian male, Caucasian female, Japanese
male, and Japanese female). In each set, we modified an original face to create four spacing
faces and four featural faces. Following the previous study (Mondloch et al., 2002), the
spacing faces were created by moving the eyes 4 mm up, down, closer together, or further
apart, and by moving the mouth 2 mm up or down. The featural faces were created by
replacing the eyes and mouth with those of other faces. Stimuli were in the range of
5.7–6.2 cm wide and 7.6–8.0 cm high (6.5–7.1 · 8.7–9.1 from the testing distance of
50 cm).
The stimuli were presented on a Dell Laptop computer (Latitude D620) with a monitor
size of 14 inches, using DirectRT software (Empirisoft, New York, NY, USA). Participants
were seated with their eyes approximately 50 cm away from the monitor. First, they were
told that they would be shown pictures of people who looked very similar to each other. As
an example, they were presented with one original face of a Caucasian female with its eight
modified versions and told that those faces all looked alike yet were all different people.
They were instructed that one face would appear very briefly on the screen followed by
another, and that their job was to judge whether the faces were the same or different as accurately and as quickly as possible. Following the procedure of Mondloch et al. (2002), the
first face appeared on screen for 200 ms, followed by a 300-ms interval. Then, the second
face appeared and remained on the screen until participants pressed a response key.
Participants worked on two 120-trial blocks: spacing and featural blocks. Before each
block, participants were given four practice trials taken from the actual trials. During the
practice trials, the first face appeared on the screen longer (360 ms) and the interval was
shorter (100 ms) than during actual trials to facilitate understanding of the task. Feedback
was provided after each practice trial.
Each 120-trial block was further divided into two 60-trial blocks: Caucasian and Japanese
blocks. The orders of spacing and featural blocks and Caucasian and Japanese blocks were
counterbalanced across participants. Within each block, half of the trials presented same
faces and the other half presented different faces. Each face was presented with the same
face half of the trials and with a different face for the other half of the trials. The order of
the individual faces was randomized within each block and across participants.
After the computer trials, participants were asked to fill out a questionnaire asking their
attentional strategies during the trials. They were asked to rate the extent to which they
Y. Miyamoto, S. Yoshikawa, S. Kitayama ⁄ Cognitive Science (2011)
7
focused on various aspects of face on 7-point rating scales ranging from 1 (did no focus at
all) to 7 (focused very much). Some of the items asked attention to individual features (i.e.,
eyes, eyebrows, nose, and mouth), whereas other items asked attention to configural aspects
(i.e., configuration [zentaiteki fuchi], impression [insho], and expression [hyojo]). We examined whether Japanese report attending to configural aspects more than Americans do. In
addition to the internal features, we also asked whether participants attend to external contours [rinkaku], for exploratory purposes. Although external contours include information
about specific features (e.g., shape of chin), they provide context in which internal features
are located (Sinha & Poggio, 1996). We thus explored whether Japanese, who rely on context-dependent processing (Nisbett et al., 2001), may attend to external contours as well.
3.2. Results
3.2.1. Proportion correct
We first analyzed the proportion of correct responses. The main effects of face set and
culture were both significant, F(1, 56) = 118.15, p < .001, g2p = .68, F(2, 56) = 5.28,
p < .01, g2p = .16, respectively. Also as predicted, an interaction between face set and culture proved significant, F(2, 56) = 5.68, p < .01, g2p = .17. As shown in Fig. 3, for the featural set, cultural groups did not vary. But for the spacing set, American participants made
more errors in judging than did Japanese participants, t(56) = 4.39, p < .001, d = 1.10.
Asian participants in the United States fell in the middle of the two groups and differed significantly from Americans, t(56) = 2.67, p < .01, d = 0.75, but not from Japanese,
t(56) = 1.28, ns, d = 0.35. Ethnicity of the face had no effect.
3.2.2. Reaction time
Next, we computed the median RT on correct trials. The main effects of face set and culture were both significant, F(1, 56) = 4.30, p < .05, g2p = .07, F(2, 56) = 8.64, p < .001,
*
1
*
0.9
0.8
Mean Accuracy
0.7
0.6
0.5
0.4
0.3
0.2
0.1
0
Americans
Asians in US
featural set
Japanese
spacing set
Fig. 3. Mean accuracy by culture of participants and face set. Error bars represent the standard error. Asterisk
indicates a significant difference.
8
Y. Miyamoto, S. Yoshikawa, S. Kitayama ⁄ Cognitive Science (2011)
g2p = .24, respectively. Reaction times were faster for the featural set (M = 769 ms) than for
the spacing set (M = 816 ms), and faster for Japanese (M = 731 ms) and Asian participants
in the United States (M = 736 ms) than for American participants (M = 900 ms). There was
no interaction between culture and face set, F < 1. Together with the findings of the accuracy data, these results indicate that even though American participants took longer to
respond, they made a greater number of errors in the spacing set than the other cultural
groups did, which rules out the possibility that there were speed-accuracy trade-offs.
3.2.3. Rating scale
We first computed the average of individual internal featural information (i.e., eyes, eyebrows, nose, and mouth) and the average of configural information (i.e., configuration,
impression, and expression). An Information · Culture interaction was significant, F(2,
56) = 5.89, p < .01, g2p = .17. As shown in Fig. 4, Japanese participants reported attending
more to configural information than American participants did, t(56) = 3.14, p < .01,
d = 0.77. Asian participants did not differ from either group, ts(56) < 1.69. On the other
hand, there were no significant cultural differences in reported attention to featural information, ts(56) < 1.82. These results are consistent with the behavioral measures, providing
further support for our hypotheses.
We also examined each item separately (see Table 1). Although there were no cultural
differences in the overall attention to individual features, there were cultural differences in
which specific features were attended to. Japanese participants reported attending more to
eyes than American participants did, t(56) = 2.44, p < .05, whereas American participants
reported attending more to mouths than Asian participants did, t(56) = 2.56, p < .05, providing conceptual replication of a recent finding by Yuki, Maddux, and Masuda (2007). As
for configural information, compared to American participants, Japanese and Asian participants reported attending more to configuration, ts(56) = 2.79, p < .01 and 2.17, p < .05, and
Japanese participants reported attending more to impression, t(56) = 3.61, p < .01, although
7
*
Rating off Attention
6
5
4
3
2
1
Americans
Asians in US
features
Japanese
configural aspects
Fig. 4. Means ratings of attention to individual features (i.e., eyes, eyebrows, nose, and mouth) vs. configural
aspects (i.e. configuration, impression, and expression). Error bars represent the standard error. Asterisk indicates a significant difference.
Y. Miyamoto, S. Yoshikawa, S. Kitayama ⁄ Cognitive Science (2011)
9
Table 1
Means and standard deviations of rating of attention to various aspects of faces by culture
Individual features
Eyes
Brows
Nose
Mouth
Configural aspects
Configuration
Impression
Expression
External feature
Contour
Americans
Asians in United States
Japanese
M (SD)
M (SD)
M (SD)
F (2, 56)
6.19a (1.12)
4.62a (1.88)
4.24a (2.00)
5.50a (1.79)
6.73ab (0.70)
4.27a (2.22)
3.13a (1.88)
3.87b (1.92)
6.78b (0.42)
4.09a (1.78)
3.43a (1.47)
4.57ab (1.93)
3.46*
<1
1.95
3.34*
3.86a (1.71)
4.15a (1.98)
4.76a (1.37)
4.93ab (1.22)
5.00ab (1.36)
4.60a (2.23)
5.09b (1.35)
5.74b (0.86)
4.87a (1.87)
4.39*
6.35**
<1
2.52a (1.54)
3.60ab (2.32)
3.96b (1.89)
3.29*
Notes. The responses were made on 7-point scales ranging from 1 to 7. Within each rating, the means with
the same superscript are not significantly different from each other. F-values represent one-way anova with
culture as an independent variable.
*p < .05, **p < .01.
there were no cultural differences in how much attention was given to expression,
ts(56) < .26. Interestingly, Japanese participants reported attending more to external contours than American participants did, t(56) = 2.50, p < .05. Such a finding is in line with
previous studies showing that Japanese are more likely than Americans to attend to a contextual frame surrounding an object (e.g., Kitayama et al., 2003). Japanese reported attending more to external contours than Americans did, possibly because external contours
served as contextual frames in which internal features were located.
4. Discussion
The most important contribution of the present set of studies is to demonstrate that the
hypothesized cultural difference can be clearly shown even in face processing. Study 1
showed that Japanese were more likely than Americans to use overall resemblance rather
than feature matching to choose a prototype and, moreover, Study 2 found that Japanese
were more accurate than Americans in detecting spacing differences. Furthermore, as was
also predicted, the data from Asians in the United States fell in between. The self-reported
measures of attentional strategies provided results consistent with the behavioral data and
also showed cultural differences in attention to specific individual features.
It is noteworthy that the cultural differences were found across two different types of
stimuli. In Study 1, a configural prototype was created by blending all facial features and
configuration. Thus, a configural prototype maintained an overall gestalt but altered specific
characteristics. In Study 2, configural changes were manipulated by changing spacing
between individual features. The fact that we observed cultural differences across the two
10
Y. Miyamoto, S. Yoshikawa, S. Kitayama ⁄ Cognitive Science (2011)
studies suggests that there are cultural differences in both types of configural processing:
processing of an overall gestalt and sensitivity to second-order relations.
The present study did not find an effect of facial ethnicity, as has been found in past
research (Tanaka et al., 2004). One possible discrepancy between studies on the own-race
effect and our current findings is that whereas the studies examining the own-race effect typically use a larger number of unfamiliar faces, our study repeatedly presented a smaller
number of faces. Participants in our study might have become familiar with those other-race
faces over the course of the experiment, thus eliminating the own-race advantage in processing the faces.
Additionally, recent research on own-race effect found that, whereas processing of ownrace faces was equally configuration-based across cultures, Asians showed more configuration-based processing for other-race faces than Caucasians did (Michel, Rossion, Han,
Chung, & Caldara, 2006). Although there are several possible explanations for the cultural
differences found in processing of other-race faces (e.g., the media effect), the present findings suggest that there are cultural variations in the extent of configural processing.
Researchers have repeatedly demonstrated that face perception is special (Farah et al.,
1998); processing of faces is configuration-based relative to processing of other objects. So
far, this work has been done primarily in Western cultures with Western participants. The
main contribution of the current work, then, is to add to the existing work and show that the
configural nature of face processing is even more pronounced among Asians than among
Westerners. Although there might be biological bases for face perception (Farah et al.,
1995; Kanwisher et al., 1997), following the studies showing the role of visual experiences
and expertise in configural processing (Diamond & Carey, 1986; Gauthier & Tarr, 1997),
we speculate that a configural processing pathway is mobilized to varying degrees to perceive stimuli that require fine individual discriminations. The face is one such stimulus in
all cultures. However, we suspect that the fine-tuned discriminations between faces are especially crucial in cultural contexts that place a high premium on interdependence with others,
relative to cultural contexts that value independence more (Markus & Kitayama, 1991). This
consideration may suggest yet one possibility as to why Asians might be more configural in
face processing than Westerners.
Acknowledgments
We thank Yumi Endo, Lam Yiu, Maria A. Loy, and Brooke Wilken for their support in
conducting this research. Support for this research was also provided by the Japan Society
for the Promotion of Science Fellowship to Yuri Miyamoto.
References
Cabeza, R., & Kato, T. (2000). Features are also important: Contributions of featural and configural processing
to face recognition. Psychological Science, 11, 429–433.
Y. Miyamoto, S. Yoshikawa, S. Kitayama ⁄ Cognitive Science (2011)
11
Chua, H. F., Boland, J. E., & Nisbett, R. E. (2005). Cultural variation in eye movements during scene perception.
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, USA, 102, 12629–12633.
Diamond, R., & Carey, S. (1986). Why faces are and are not special: An effect of expertise. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 115, 107–117.
Elfenbein, H., & Ambady, N. (2002). On the universality and cultural specificity of emotion recognition: A
meta-analysis. Psychological Bulletin, 128, 203–235.
Farah, M., Levinson, K., & Klein, K. (1995). Face perception and within-category discrimination in prosopagnosia. Neuropsychologia, 33, 661–674.
Farah, M., Wilson, K., Drain, M., & Tanaka, J. (1998). What is ‘special’ about face perception? Psychological
Review, 105, 482–498.
Gauthier, I., & Tarr, M. (1997). Becoming a ‘greeble’ expert: Exploring mechanisms for face recognition. Vision
Research, 37, 1673–1682.
Gutchess, A., Welsh, R., Boduroglu, A., & Park, D. (2006). Cultural differences in neural function associated
with object processing. Cognitive, Affective & Behavioral Neuroscience, 6, 102–109.
Hedden, T., Ketay, S., Aron, A., Markus, H., & Gabrieli, J. (2008). Cultural influences on neural substrates of
attentional control. Psychological Science, 19, 12–17.
Johnson, M., Dziurawiec, S., Ellis, H., & Morton, J. (1991). Newborns’ preferential tracking of face-like stimuli
and its subsequent decline. Cognition, 40, 1–19.
Kanwisher, N., McDermott, J., & Chun, M. (1997). The fusiform face area: A module in human extrastriate
cortex specialized for face perception. Journal of Neuroscience, 17, 4302–4311.
Kitayama, S., Duffy, S., Kawamura, T., & Larsen, J. (2003). Perceiving an object and its context in different
cultures: A cultural look at New Look. Psychological Science, 14, 201–206.
Lewis, R., Goto, S., & Kong, L. (2008). Culture and context: East Asian American and European American differences in P3 event-related potentials and self-construal. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 34,
623–634.
Markus, H., & Kitayama, S. (1991). Culture and the self: Implications for cognition, emotion, and motivation.
Psychological Review, 98, 224–253.
Masuda, T., Ellsworth, P., Mesquita, B., Leu, J., Tanida, S., & Van de Veerdonk, E. (2008). Placing the face in
context: Cultural differences in the perception of facial emotion. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 94, 365–381.
Masuda, T., & Nisbett, R. (2001). Attending holistically versus analytically: Comparing the context sensitivity
of Japanese and Americans. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 81, 922–934.
Masuda, T., & Nisbett, R. (2006). Culture and change blindness. Cognitive Science: A Multidisciplinary Journal,
30, 381–399.
Maurer, D., Le Grand, R., & Mondloch, C. (2002). The many faces of configural processing. Trends in Cognitive
Sciences, 6, 255–260.
Michel, C., Rossion, B., Han, J., Chung, C., & Caldara, R. (2006). Holistic processing is finely tuned for faces of
one’s own race. Psychological Science, 17, 608–615.
Miyamoto, Y., Nisbett, R. E., & Masuda, T. (2006). Culture and the physical environment: Holistic versus
analytic perceptual affordances. Psychological Science, 17, 113–119.
Mondloch, C., Le Grand, R., & Maurer, D. (2002). Configural face processing develops more slowly than
featural face processing. Perception, 31, 553–566.
Nisbett, R. (2003). The geography of thought: How Asians and Westerners think differently... and why. New
York: Free Press.
Nisbett, R. E., Peng, K., Choi, I., & Norenzayan, A. (2001). Culture and systems of thought: Holistic vs. analytic
cognition. Psychological Review, 108, 291–310.
Norenzayan, A., Smith, E., Kim, B., & Nisbett, R. (2002). Cultural preferences for formal versus intuitive
reasoning. Cognitive Science: A Multidisciplinary Journal, 26, 653–684.
Palmer, S. (1977). Hierarchical structure in perceptual representation. Cognitive Psychology, 9, 441–474.
Sinha, P., & Poggio, T. (1996). Role of learning in three-dimensional form perception. Nature, 384, 460–463.
12
Y. Miyamoto, S. Yoshikawa, S. Kitayama ⁄ Cognitive Science (2011)
Tanaka, J., & Farah, M. (1993). Parts and wholes in face recognition. The Quarterly Journal of Experimental
Psychology A: Human Experimental Psychology, 2, 225–245.
Tanaka, J., Kiefer, M., & Bukach, C. (2004). A holistic account of the own-race effect in face recognition:
Evidence from a cross-cultural study. Cognition, 93, B1–B9.
Yuki, M., Maddux, W., & Masuda, T. (2007). Are the windows to the soul the same in the East and West?
Cultural differences in using the eyes and mouth as cues to recognize emotions in Japan and the United
States. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 43, 303–311.