Culture

• Perceptual set


  The tendency for our brain to notice certain aspects of the environment more than others.
• Culture

  The social world that surrounds you.
• Hudson's Study - Aim


  Hudson aimed to find out whether people from different cultural/educational backgrounds perceived depth cues in 2D images differently.
• Hudson's Study - Method


  He showed 2D drawings to participants in South Africa – native black people who were either schooled or unschooled; and white people of European descent who were either schooled or unschooled.The participants had to say which animal the man was trying to spear.The spear was pointing at an elephant and an antelope but depth cues suggested it was actually being aimed at the antelope.
• Hudson's Study - Results


  Despite the picture using height in the visual field and relative size to indicate depth, many believed the spear was pointing to the elephant.Both black and white schooled participants were more likely to perceive depth than unschooled participants.White schooled participants were more likely to perceive depth than black schooled participants.
• Hudson's Study - Conclusion


  People from different cultural/educational backgrounds use depth cues differently and have a different perceptual set.This supports Gregory’s theory as it shows that depth cues are learned.
• Hudson's Study - Evaluation - Cross-cultural research


  One weakness is the instructions may not make sense. The language barrier means translations of the method may have been unclear. This will therefore affect the validity of the results.
• Hudson's Study - Evaluation - Problems with the method


  A weakness is that some of the participants may have been confused by seeing drawings on paper. When more familiar materials such as cloth were used they gave different answers. This shows representation affects results.
• Hudson's Study - Evaluation - Poor design


  One weakness is that the research is from a long time ago and may be poorly designed. Early cross-cultural studies of perception often did not include things like proper control groups. This caused the results of cross-cultural differences in perception to lack validity.