Abstract

People socialized in different cultures differ in their thinking styles. Eastern-culture people view objects more holistically by taking context into account, whereas Western-culture people view objects more analytically by focusing on them at the expense of context. Here we studied whether participants, who have different thinking styles but live within the same culture, exhibit differential brain activity when viewing a drama movie. A total of 26 Finnish participants, who were divided into holistic and analytical thinkers based on self-report questionnaire scores, watched a shortened drama movie during functional magnetic resonance imaging. We compared intersubject correlation (ISC) of brain hemodynamic activity of holistic vs analytical participants across the movie viewings. Holistic thinkers showed significant ISC in more extensive cortical areas than analytical thinkers, suggesting that they perceived the movie in a more similar fashion. Significantly higher ISC was observed in holistic thinkers in occipital, prefrontal and temporal cortices. In analytical thinkers, significant ISC was observed in right-hemisphere fusiform gyrus, temporoparietal junction and frontal cortex. Since these results were obtained in participants with similar cultural background, they are less prone to confounds by other possible cultural differences. Overall, our results show how brain activity in holistic vs analytical participants differs when viewing the same drama movie.

Details

Title
A drama movie activates brains of holistic and analytical thinkers differentially
Author
Bacha-Trams, Mareike 1 ; Alexandrov, Yuri I 2 ; Broman, Emilia 1 ; Glerean, Enrico 3 ; Kauppila, Minna 1 ; Kauttonen, Janne 1 ; Ryyppö, Elisa 1 ; Sams, Mikko 4 ; Jääskeläinen, Iiro P 5 

 Brain and Mind Laboratory, Department of Neuroscience and Biomedical Engineering, Aalto University, Espoo, Finland 
 Laboratory of Neural Bases of Mind, Institute of Psychology, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russia; Department of Psychology, National Research University Higher School of Economics, Moscow, Russia 
 Brain and Mind Laboratory, Department of Neuroscience and Biomedical Engineering, Aalto University, Espoo, Finland; Department of Computer Science, Aalto University, Espoo, Finland; Helsinki Institute of Information Technology, Aalto University, Espoo, Finland 
 Brain and Mind Laboratory, Department of Neuroscience and Biomedical Engineering, Aalto University, Espoo, Finland; Department of Computer Science, Aalto University, Espoo, Finland 
 Brain and Mind Laboratory, Department of Neuroscience and Biomedical Engineering, Aalto University, Espoo, Finland; Advanced Magnetic Imaging Centre, Aalto NeuroImaging, Aalto University, Espoo, Finland 
Pages
1293-1304
Publication year
2018
Publication date
Dec 2018
Publisher
Oxford University Press
ISSN
17495016
e-ISSN
17495024
Source type
Scholarly Journal
Language of publication
English
ProQuest document ID
3171529865
Copyright
© The Author(s) 2018. Published by Oxford University Press. This work is published under http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ (the “License”). Notwithstanding the ProQuest Terms and Conditions, you may use this content in accordance with the terms of the License.