Biomedical subjects

Hannah Faye Chua

Publications and source records attributed to Hannah Faye Chua.

4 recordsLinked to original sources

PubMed2006

Source memory, aging and culture.

BACKGROUND: The present study investigates the possibility that culture affects age differences in context memory. There is evidence that East-Asians process scenes more holistically and show better context memory than Americans. OBJECTIVE: We examined evidence for differences in binding source to context in young and old Americans and native Chinese. We hypothesized that age effects on source memory could be mitigated due to these cultural differences in processing style. METHODS: During incidental encoding, younger and older Chinese and Americans watched a video with statements spoken by four distinct speakers. After a brief interval, participants identified source (experiment 1) or item and source (experiment 2). RESULTS: We observed substantial age-related deficits in source memory in both cultures but little evidence for cultural differences in source or item memory. CONCLUSION: Basic source memory processes operate similarly across culture and age. The source of holistic processing differences observed between cultures may occur in cognitive operations that are more highly bound to a social context.

Adult↗

PubMed2006

Risk avoidance: graphs versus numbers.

There have long been speculations that graphical and numerical presentations of risk statistics differ in their impact on people's wilingness to pursue actions that could harm or even kill them. But research has been unclear about the processes whereby the pictorial character of graphical displays per se might affect those risky decisions or even whether such effects actually occur. In two studies, we demonstrate that the pictorial nature of a graphical risk display can, indeed, increase risk avoidance. This increase is associated with a heightened impression of the riskiness of less safe alternatives. The results suggest that this picture-driven, intensified sense of riskiness, in turn, rests on two kinds of mechanisms: one cognitive, the other affective. Cognitively, pictorial presentations impose weaker upper bounds on people's internal representations of the chances that riskier alternatives will bring about actual harm. Affectively, pictures ignite stronger, more aversive negative associations with riskier options and their outcomes.

Accidents, Traffic↗

PubMed2005

Cultural variation in eye movements during scene perception.

In the past decade, cultural differences in perceptual judgment and memory have been observed: Westerners attend more to focal objects, whereas East Asians attend more to contextual information. However, the underlying mechanisms for the apparent differences in cognitive processing styles have not been known. In the present study, we examined the possibility that the cultural differences arise from culturally different viewing patterns when confronted with a naturalistic scene. We measured the eye movements of American and Chinese participants while they viewed photographs with a focal object on a complex background. In fact, the Americans fixated more on focal objects than did the Chinese, and the Americans tended to look at the focal object more quickly. In addition, the Chinese made more saccades to the background than did the Americans. Thus, it appears that differences in judgment and memory may have their origins in differences in what is actually attended as people view a scene.

Adult↗

PubMed2005

Culture and diverging views of social events.

The authors compared East Asians' and Americans' views of everyday social events. Research suggests that Americans tend to focus more on the self and to have a greater sense of personal agency than East Asians. The authors assessed whether, compared to East Asians, Americans emphasize main characters even when events do not involve the self and whether they see more agency or intentionality in actions, even when the actions are not their own. Whether East Asians would observe more emotions in everyday scenarios than would Americans also was investigated. In Study 1, Chinese and Americans read alleged diary entries of another person. Americans did focus more on main characters and on characters' intentionality. Study 2 replicated these results comparing Taiwanese and Americans on free recall of events concerning the self and of narratives and videos concerning others. Study 2 also found that Taiwanese made more comments about the emotional states of characters.

Affect↗