ABSTRACT
To the perceiver, the experience of vision feels so effortless, automatic, andinstantaneous that most people simply presume they see things as they are,and that the visual system operates like a movie camera, passively capturing all that comes before it. In reality vision is highly constructive, relying on a variety of top-down processes that create meaning from the “blooming and buzzing confusion” of impinging sensory information. Some of these top-down processes are part of our biological endowment or acquired through visual experience in the initial months and years of life (Kellman & Arterberry, 1998). Others may emerge more slowly, and become modified through systematic patterns of social interactions with caregivers and peers. One such process emerging in part through socialization experiences is attention (Chavajay & Rogoff, 1999; Kitayama & Duffy, 2004). Attention is the psychological process that allows perceivers to concentrate selectively on certain aspects of the sensory world, while at the same time excluding other aspects from conscious awareness. Hence, attention is a fundamental cognitive process that determines what visual information is processed. Because cultures vary considerably in socialization practices that foster the development of attention, people in different cultures may acquire different “strategies” of attention early in life. Moreover, these differences in attention strategies may even cause people who live in different cultures to see the same world in different ways.
