Research: Americans, Chinese, see the world differently

Wow. Wired reports on University of Michigan research that found Americans and Chinese view the world in radically different ways.

The researchers ran a test that measured eye movements of Chinese and American subjects while they looked at photographs. The Americans looked more at the foreground subject, the Chinese paid attention to the background and the relationship of the background to the foreground subject. As for overseas "Asians" raised in North America:

Reinforcing the belief that the differences are cultural, he said, when Asians raised in North America were studied, they were intermediate between native Asians and European-Americans, and sometimes closer to Americans in the way they viewed scenes.

But this still doesn't explain why Chinese tend to follow the same formula for all photo compositions -- posing in front of monuments/buildings/scenic areas at the exact center of the frame. Pictures of scenery without people are rare, as are close-ups, unusual compositions, non-posed photographs of people, etc. Maybe future research can address this important question ...