Abstract
Differences of “high-level” social and cognitive processes between Easterners and Westerners have been well demonstrated by previous studies. However, it is still unclear, to which extent, culture influences the “low-level” perceptual processes. Here, we used Gabor patches to provide a direct comparison of lower versus higher spatial frequency information processing in two types of cultures. After analyzing the ERP data of 38 subjects, we found that, in response to both HSF and LSF stimuli, Americans displayed relatively larger P1 amplitudes, reflecting early visual neuronal activities, whereas East Asians showed greater P3a amplitudes, indexing attention recruitment. This finding suggests that Americans may be superior in early encoding of stimuli, while East Asians have advantages in later allocation of attention, which could be a strong compensation.