West and East, Cultural Differences

Aidoneus · #1

An interesting video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?x-yt-ts=1 ... oDtoB9Abck

Oddly enough for a Westerner, I picked the Eastern choice for every example given in the film. I would be interested in hearing from others concerning their personal choices, especially those who identify themselves as being raised in the West or East. And, of course, any other insights or comments on the film would interest me.

EdLee · #2

Bill, Thanks.

Different sections:

wineandgolover · #3

Oh, the irony starting at 24:50. Westerners make the mistake of assigning characteristics to folks. "They assume people behave the way they do is because they have certain properties they carry around with them." You mean like the property easterner and westerner?

The whole video strikes me as the sort of psycho-babble people use to start a cult or justify horrific acts.

EdLee · #4

Regarding psyco-babble, yes, we have to be very careful.
Thus the note about rigorous research.

daal · #5

For anyone interested in reading discussions related to Nisbett's research, here are two earlier threads. Generalizers beware!

viewtopic.php?p=54666#p54666

viewtopic.php?p=154710#p154710

DrStraw · #6

Fascinating. I found myself watching it all when I should have been doing other things. I found myself seeing those examples from the western point of view mostly, but also from the eastern view for a couple of them. That probably reflects my western upbringing but interest in all things eastern.

Mike Novack · #7

However we should take note that "Eastern" vs "Western" could be too broad a brush.

There are many "Western" cultures, and while many of them have characteristics in common, not always the same characteristics. There are also many "Eastern" cultures, and these likewise have some characteristics in common, but similarly not necessarily the same ones.

Because of proximity, we are more likely to find within one eastern culture a minority borrowing from a neighboring culture, and the same true for western cultures. Because of distance, that is far less common between cultures of the east and cultures of the west and vice versa. But a surprising amount does take place.

Finding scattered results from a "test" like this that says "eastern characteristic" does not necessarily mean eastern influence. It might be that THIS characteristic is also part of your particular western culture, or if not in your culture as a whole, in you particualr sub-cultural group within that culture.

skydyr · #8

Mike Novack wrote:

However we should take note that "Eastern" vs "Western" could be too broad a brush.

There are many "Western" cultures, and while many of them have characteristics in common, not always the same characteristics. There are also many "Eastern" cultures, and these likewise have some characteristics in common, but similarly not necessarily the same ones.

Because of proximity, we are more likely to find within one eastern culture a minority borrowing from a neighboring culture, and the same true for western cultures. Because of distance, that is far less common between cultures of the east and cultures of the west and vice versa. But a surprising amount does take place.

Finding scattered results from a "test" like this that says "eastern characteristic" does not necessarily mean eastern influence. It might be that THIS characteristic is also part of your particular western culture, or if not in your culture as a whole, in you particualr sub-cultural group within that culture.

I've seen similar grouping tests that were at one point used for intelligence tests being used in Africa, where everyone was getting the answer wrong and being placed as less intelligent in the results, when the real problem was that the test was not designed well, and the subjects were grouping according to different criteria from the test's creators. The specific example I recall was an axe, a saw, a log, and a screwdriver. The kicker is that when the Africans were asked to group the objects "like an idiot would," they would then group them by the test writers' criteria of tools vs not-tools, rather than woodworking vs not woodworking.

Similarly, it's worth noting that a lot of psychological studies are done not on people, but on western undergrads specifically, because you can compel them to participate for a grade in their psych 101 class.

Aidoneus · #9

Perhaps I should have made it clearer that my choices were quite conscious. Of course I saw reasons to select both choices. I suspect that most other people did too. And as others here have admonished, I do not read very much into any of this beyond some entertainment value.

daal wrote:

For anyone interested in reading discussions related to Nisbett's research, here are two earlier threads. Generalizers beware!

viewtopic.php?p=54666#p54666

viewtopic.php?p=154710#p154710

Thank you for pointing out these threads! I was especially happy to discover The Bob High Memorial Library (http://www.usgo.org/bob-high-memorial-library).

daal · **#10**

Aidoneus wrote:

I do not read very much into any of this beyond some entertainment value.

It's probably a good idea to not read too much into a TV presentation, and I'll probably get in trouble for saying this, but I can't help being intrigued by the idea that if cultural differences in perception exist, that some characteristic ways of viewing could be advantageous to a go player. I'm thinking of this, which starts at about 29:00:

The video wrote:

The eye movements of easterners and westerners are studied as they view a tiger in a jungle. What we find is that the Americans focus in on the most salient object, they spend nearly all their time looking at the tiger for example, and Asians spend much more time looking at the background, and especially looking back and forth between the background and the object, looking back and forth between the jungle and the tiger. So they make more eye movements, make more movements between the background and the object, so they see more about the background, and they see more about the relationships between what's in the background and what's in that salient object.
In Eastern thought, the property of an object can differ depending on where it is. So a tiger in a zoo or the circus is conceived differently from one in the jungle. Depending on its venue, the property of the tiger changes. This surrounding milieu can be called the field. Objects belong to the field around them in what is known as the situation. Easterners can tend to overanalyze the situation of an object, because the situation decides its properties.

If you were predisposed to view a stone not as a stone, but rather as a stone in a certain place and a certain situation, wouldn't that be good for your go?

As an aside, I'm learning Chinese, and one of the first things I learned was that whereas the basic word order in English is Who, What, Where, When, in Chinese it's Who, When, Were, What. This, I was told, reflects the value that the Chinese place on the context of an action.

EdLee · **#11**

Quote:

whereas the basic word order in English is Who, What, Where, When, in Chinese it's Who, When, Where, What. This, I was told, reflects the value that the Chinese place on the context of an action.

Interesting. By themselves, the word orders may or may not be indicative of something --
after all, you have to order them somehow, so some must come before others.
It could be true that the linguists and other experts have done the research and figured out that, indeed, those word orders do reflect something.
Or not.

Mef · **#12**

The DUKS one was interesting to me...when they first showed the animation, I grouped the two wooden pieces together. Once they showed how the test was actually done (with the physical objects) I definitely would have grouped the cylinders. I'm not sure what to make of that.

EdLee · **#13**

Mef wrote:

I definitely would have grouped the cylinders. I'm not sure what to make of that.

You subconsciously prefer the circular cross section to the rectangular because the circle is "more" perfect ? (And feels better in the hand? )

Aidoneus · **#14**

Simpler or more "primitive" things and concepts almost always have shorter one or two syllable names. Wood is more "primitive" than cylinder, so one might subconsciously choose to translate "duks" as wood based on linguistic experience. Perhaps being given the actual three-dimensional objects instead of a picture has another effect of emphasizing shape--perhaps along the lines of Ed's observation, though why this might differ between east and west is not clear to me.

On the other hand, I think that individual differences within groups are often greater than such studies suggest. This leads me to wonder a few things such as: the size of the samples; any homonyms for "duks" in the different languages; and the exact preliminary explanations, if any, given to the subjects.

Bill Spight · **#15**

Aidoneus wrote:

I think that individual differences within groups are often greater than such studies suggest.

Indeed. Especially since East and West each encompass a wide variety of cultures.

Take the question of individualism. In the West, Anglo culture is, I suspect, more individualistic than other European cultures. When I was in college a Frenchman, who was, ironically, an Anglican priest, bent my ear for several minutes criticizing the British on exactly that point. If the research had taken French and Greek cultures to represent the West, would the results have been the same?

And what about this noun-verb bit? Among languages, Chinese and English both make relatively little of that distinction, having many words that can take on either function. And I remember, in my study of Japanese grammar, coming across the idea that, historically, modern Japanese verbs had nominal force. (Now they are more like adjectives.) I did not quite understand that, but it was an interesting idea.

Mike Novack · **#16**

Aidoneus wrote:

Simpler or more "primitive" things and concepts almost always have shorter one or two syllable names. Wood is more "primitive" than cylinder, so one might subconsciously choose to translate "duks" as wood based on linguistic experience. Perhaps being given the actual three-dimensional objects instead of a picture has another effect of emphasizing shape--perhaps along the lines of Ed's observation, though why this might differ between east and west is not clear to me.

And that is too simplistic a view of language, a dangerous over generalization. "Wood" would not be more primitive than cylinder for a language in which "shape" is of great linguistic importance. To be fair, AFAIK the languages that use "shape" don't really use "words" in the sense that ours does; essentially all "sentences" are like a single word put together by linking stems and roots. However I can think of a language of this type which would have a primitive "stem" for "cylindrical" (for example, the PART of the utterance that referred to an "arrow" might be formed by "cylindrical", "thin", "pointed", "wooden")

skydyr · **#17**

Mike Novack wrote:

Aidoneus wrote:

Simpler or more "primitive" things and concepts almost always have shorter one or two syllable names. Wood is more "primitive" than cylinder, so one might subconsciously choose to translate "duks" as wood based on linguistic experience. Perhaps being given the actual three-dimensional objects instead of a picture has another effect of emphasizing shape--perhaps along the lines of Ed's observation, though why this might differ between east and west is not clear to me.

And that is too simplistic a view of language, a dangerous over generalization. "Wood" would not be more primitive than cylinder for a language in which "shape" is of great linguistic importance. To be fair, AFAIK the languages that use "shape" don't really use "words" in the sense that ours does; essentially all "sentences" are like a single word put together by linking stems and roots. However I can think of a language of this type which would have a primitive "stem" for "cylindrical" (for example, the PART of the utterance that referred to an "arrow" might be formed by "cylindrical", "thin", "pointed", "wooden")

Indeed, while some languages like French divide all nouns into 2 classes (masculine vs feminine) that take agreement differently from other nouns, adjectives etc. other languages, like some of the Bantu languages of Africa, have 8 or more genders, often distinguished by shape. So, you use a slightly different form of "red" for a red stick vs a red ball.

Aidoneus · **#18**

Mike Novack wrote:

Aidoneus wrote:

Simpler or more "primitive" things and concepts almost always have shorter one or two syllable names. Wood is more "primitive" than cylinder, so one might subconsciously choose to translate "duks" as wood based on linguistic experience. Perhaps being given the actual three-dimensional objects instead of a picture has another effect of emphasizing shape--perhaps along the lines of Ed's observation, though why this might differ between east and west is not clear to me.

And that is too simplistic a view of language, a dangerous over generalization. "Wood" would not be more primitive than cylinder for a language in which "shape" is of great linguistic importance. To be fair, AFAIK the languages that use "shape" don't really use "words" in the sense that ours does; essentially all "sentences" are like a single word put together by linking stems and roots. However I can think of a language of this type which would have a primitive "stem" for "cylindrical" (for example, the PART of the utterance that referred to an "arrow" might be formed by "cylindrical", "thin", "pointed", "wooden")

Oh come on! You cannot honestly be asserting that a cylinder (three syllables in English) is a more basic (or "primitive") concept than wood (one syllable). And I said nothing about more basic shapes: flat, sharp, round, thin, fat, etc.

So Mike, are you one of those people who like to argue just for the sake of arguing? Because I don't have time or inclination to debate linguistic theory with you. Have a nice day!

Mike Novack · **#19**

Aidoneus wrote:

Oh come on! You cannot honestly be asserting that a cylinder (three syllables in English) is a more basic (or "primitive") concept than wood (one syllable). And I said nothing about more basic shapes: flat, sharp, round, thin, fat, etc.

So Mike, are you one of those people who like to argue just for the sake of arguing? Because I don't have time or inclination to debate linguistic theory with you. Have a nice day!

Sorry, but I didn't see in your original comment anything about English being the criteria. I thought you were saying that "wood" was a more basic concept than "cylinder" and how that should be expected to affect word length (in a presumably arbitrary language). Nor was I referring to "linguistic theory" although you have just given an example for the side of the argument that believes that the language we speak strongly influences our ability to conceptualize.

You, not I, was expressing "linguistic theory" (that more basic concepts could be expected to have shorter/simpler words). I was simply pointing out that there are languages in which "cylinder" would be more basic than "wood" (because I know of one which uses "shape" and "cylindrical" is one of the "shapes" --- although to be fair, our concepts of "word" and "word length wouldn't quite apply in this language).

This is all about "cultural difference", right?

Nyanjilla · **#20**

Oh dear... I do so hate simplistic "Them vs. Us" categorization. Especially when it implies I was Too Long In Japan.

But no, I don't think this has improved my view of the go board in any way.

West and East, Cultural Differences

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