topics: |  psychology | cultural

carpenteredness

differences between European and non-European groups on Muller-Lyer
illusion 

Europeans tended to be more taken in by the illusion - i.e. perceive the
line with "arrow ends" as  being shorter.    

 
		Muller-Lyer illusion

experiments: 
[Berry 1968, 1971] - on eskimos

@article{berry1968ecology,
  title={Ecology, perceptual development and the M{\"u}ller-Lyer illusion},
  author={Berry, JW},
  journal={British Journal of Psychology},
  volume={59},
  number={3},
  pages={205--210},
  year={1968},
  publisher={Wiley Online Library}

[Rivers 1901] - Murray islanders
Segall/Herskovits 1966]
http://userwww.service.emory.edu/~philrnm/publications/article_pdfs/Diachronic%20Penetrability.pdf
   Marshall Segall, Donald Campbell, and Melville Herskovits’ (1966)
   research across seventeen cultures shows that culturally influenced
   differences in visual experience during the first two decades of life
   substantially affect how people experience the Müller-Lyer stimuli...

abst: http://psycnet.apa.org/psycinfo/1967-05876-000
   European and American city dwellers have a much higher percentage of
   rectangularity in their environments than non-europeans and so are more
   susceptible to that illusion. 

   H-V illusion data supported the hypothesis that plains dwellers would
   prove maximally susceptible, urban dwellers moderately so, and groups in
   restricted environments (e.g., equatorial forests) minimally susceptible. 

Interpretation of this cultural difference revolved around presumed
differences in perceptual experience.  
Europeans live in "carpentered" environments characterized by straight
lines, right angles, and square corners. 

[Later experiments ] compared people within the same cultural group who
happen to live in environments of varying "carpenteredness" - e.g. members of
an African tribe a) living in traditional rural environment, vs. b) members
of same group living in African cities.  [Here,] researchers often failed to
find differences in susceptibility to the illusion.  [Jahoda 1966]

[Pollack 1970] : density of pigmentation in the eye is related to
susceptibility to the M-L illusion.   Dark-skinned people often have denser
eye pigmentation.  

Note: These notes were the basis of this new article on wikipedia.