ABSTRACT
The paper studies cultural differences in the interpretation of pictograms. The online survey was conducted via Google forms and Facebook to collect the data during December 2018. The survey asked Russian participants the meanings of six preselected globalized signs and six localized signs from Japan and Taiwan. There were 98 respondents from 30 countries where the main group was from Russia (41%). The survey observed the distinction of the recognition of the global and local signs among people with various cultural backgrounds. The results demonstrate the connection between cultural background and understanding of localized signs. The issues of the need for localized and global signs were discussed and were compared with the results of the survey. More than half of the localized signs did not achieve 50% of the recognition rate for the Russian group. Meanwhile, half of the local signs were misunderstood by all participants. Furthermore, the globalized signs had the highest recognition rates, and some of them had 100% recognition rate for the Russian participants. Based on the results, factors of the effectiveness of the signs, such as sign prevalence and abstractness, were discussed. Overall, the survey has shown that there is a need for more research to be done with more meticulous selection of the signs. It is hoped that, in the future, further iconic/sign testings with higher recognition rates can be validated for Russian people in Taiwan.
