Department of Psychology, Brandeis University, Waltham, MA 02454-9110, USA.
Soc Cogn Affect Neurosci. 2010 Jun;5(2-3):254-63. doi: 10.1093/scan/nsp059. Epub 2010 Feb 4.
The current study employed functional MRI to investigate the contribution of domain-general (e.g. executive functions) and domain-specific (e.g. semantic knowledge) processes to differences in semantic judgments across cultures. Previous behavioral experiments have identified cross-cultural differences in categorization, with East Asians preferring strategies involving thematic or functional relationships (e.g. cow-grass) and Americans preferring categorical relationships (e.g. cow-chicken). East Asians and American participants underwent functional imaging while alternating between categorical or thematic strategies to sort triads of words, as well as matching words on control trials. Many similarities were observed. However, across both category and relationship trials compared to match (control) trials, East Asians activated a frontal-parietal network implicated in controlled executive processes, whereas Americans engaged regions of the temporal lobes and the cingulate, possibly in response to conflict in the semantic content of information. The results suggest that cultures differ in the strategies employed to resolve conflict between competing semantic judgments.
当前的研究采用功能磁共振成像技术，探讨了领域一般性（例如执行功能）和领域特定性（例如语义知识）过程对跨文化语义判断差异的贡献。先前的行为实验已经确定了分类的跨文化差异，东亚人更喜欢涉及主题或功能关系的策略（例如牛-草），而美国人则更喜欢类别关系的策略（例如牛-鸡）。东亚人和美国参与者在进行功能成像时，交替使用类别或主题策略来对三个单词进行分类，以及在控制试验中对单词进行匹配。观察到了许多相似之处。然而，与匹配（控制）试验相比，在类别和关系试验中，东亚人激活了一个与控制执行过程相关的额顶叶网络，而美国人则激活了颞叶和扣带回的区域，这可能是对语义信息内容冲突的反应。研究结果表明，文化在解决竞争语义判断之间冲突时所采用的策略上存在差异。
