Cultural adaptation physically rewires the brain and perception

Evidence

For example, neurological research shows that London taxi drivers develop a larger hippocampus (the area of the brain that stores spatial representations) the longer they have been working (Maguire et al., 1999). And amazingly enough, blind individuals are able to marshal progressively larger areas of the visual cortex as they practice using their fingertips to read braille (Pascual-Leone & Torres, 1993). Culturally determined psychological tendencies can also noticeably shift when individuals learn about or adapt to new cultures. For example, although research has shown that while Japanese are better than Americans at relative (compared to absolute) spatial judgment tasks (whereas Americans show the opposite pattern), Americans living in Japan perform these relative tasks similarly to Japanese (Kitayama, Duffy, Kawamura, & Larsen, 2003). Conversely, Japanese living in the United States respond to absolute spatial judgments tasks as accurately as Americans and significantly better than Japanese living in Japan (Kitayama et al., 2003). — Roderick M. Kramer, Geoffrey J. Leonardelli, Robert W. Livingston, Social Cognition, Social Identity, and…, 2238

Categorization

• CANDY: The brain-flip finding — Japanese living in the U.S. outperform Japanese in Japan on the very tasks Americans excel at — is a snackable, memorable example of neuroplasticity.
• SHARE: Send to anyone interested in cross-cultural psychology or neuroplasticity — the Kitayama spatial-judgment reversals are a precise, counterintuitive data point.
• XREF: connects to: Adaptation itself is a theoretical activity combining contemplation and exercise — Catherine Malabou, The Future of Hegel: Plasticity,…, 512; Education automates perception-reaction links, blurring the line between passivity and activity — Yves Citton, The Ecology of Attention, 372; Evolutionary and neurological accounts cannot fully explain cultural patterns — W. David Marx, Status and Culture: How Our Desire for…, 807 (+8 more)