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[gonzo]

No, not another one of those China Bashing threads.
Someone elsewhere reprinted this article which slots in neatly with some reading I've been doing on language and brain function.

The Hidden Power of Culture
      
The society in which we live influences the way our brain perceives the world
      
By Corey Binns
      

Culture influences the songs we sing, the steps we dance and the words we write. It also shapes our brains. Scientists have long known that neuroplasticity allows individual events to sculpt the brain’s form and function. Now there is evidence that life experience as intangible as culture can also reorganize our neural pathways. Recent research has found that culture influences the way a person’s brain perceives visual stimuli such as scenes and colors.

In one study, psychologists showed people 200 complex scenes, such as an elephant in a jungle or an airplane flying over a city, while scanning their brains with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). The team, led by Denise C. Park of the University of Illinois, studied young and elderly subjects from the U.S. and Singapore. For Westerners of all ages, the images triggered activity in a part of the brain asso­ciated with object recognition called the lateral occipital region, whereas the same object-associated areas were not activated in the older Asians’ brains.

“An Asian would see a jungle that happened to have an elephant in it,” Park explains. “Meanwhile a Westerner would see the elephant and might notice the jungle.” Because the Asian subjects’ responses differed between the two generations, while the older Americans matched the youths in their interpretation of the landscapes, the researchers concluded that the culture people grow up in plays a role in how they interpret what they see.

Language, says Stanford University cognitive scientist Lera Boroditsky, helps to convey and maintain a culture’s conventions—and similarly affects perception. In an unrelated study, she found that Russian speakers, whose language includes two words that make a mandatory distinction between light blue and dark blue, could more quickly distinguish between shades of the color than English speakers could. In this case, language meddled in the simple task of differentiating among hues. With an infinite number of ways to perceive the world, Boroditsky says, every culture’s guidebook helps to focus our brain’s attention on the characteristics most important to our life.

Some related reading:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/life/feature/story/0,13026,1310286,00.html
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn9422.html

The idea that a bilingual can be totally dyslexic in an alphabetic language yet highly functional in an East Asian one is interesting.

[Mr Nobody]

I found this very interesting, and have read several things on similar topics. I have heard the maths link before, of course. I wonder if the part of the brain used for Chinese reading (I'm guessing its the lateral occipital region used for object recognition) is the same one used for solving maths problems? That would make sense, more than the abacus/number order thingy to me. This would follow from the observed dyslexia difference between cultures, too.

[Lotus Eater]

Culture has, as one of it's foundations, language.  Language tells you what to notice - and how to notice it.  So with Chinese language the broader context is noticed before the smaller (easy example - addresses, dates).  However, take the same Chinese baby and teach English - no difference in brain usage patterns.

[abusalam]

No, not another one of those China Bashing threads.
Someone elsewhere reprinted this article which slots in neatly with some reading I've been doing on language and brain function.

The Hidden Power of Culture
      
The society in which we live influences the way our brain perceives the world
      
By Corey Binns
      

Culture influences the songs we sing, the steps we dance and the words we write. It also shapes our brains. Scientists have long known that neuroplasticity allows individual events to sculpt the brain’s form and function. Now there is evidence that life experience as intangible as culture can also reorganize our neural pathways. Recent research has found that culture influences the way a person’s brain perceives visual stimuli such as scenes and colors.

In one study, psychologists showed people 200 complex scenes, such as an elephant in a jungle or an airplane flying over a city, while scanning their brains with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). The team, led by Denise C. Park of the University of Illinois, studied young and elderly subjects from the U.S. and Singapore. For Westerners of all ages, the images triggered activity in a part of the brain asso­ciated with object recognition called the lateral occipital region, whereas the same object-associated areas were not activated in the older Asians’ brains.

“An Asian would see a jungle that happened to have an elephant in it,” Park explains. “Meanwhile a Westerner would see the elephant and might notice the jungle.” Because the Asian subjects’ responses differed between the two generations, while the older Americans matched the youths in their interpretation of the landscapes, the researchers concluded that the culture people grow up in plays a role in how they interpret what they see.

Language, says Stanford University cognitive scientist Lera Boroditsky, helps to convey and maintain a culture’s conventions—and similarly affects perception. In an unrelated study, she found that Russian speakers, whose language includes two words that make a mandatory distinction between light blue and dark blue, could more quickly distinguish between shades of the color than English speakers could. In this case, language meddled in the simple task of differentiating among hues. With an infinite number of ways to perceive the world, Boroditsky says, every culture’s guidebook helps to focus our brain’s attention on the characteristics most important to our life.

Some related reading:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/life/feature/story/0,13026,1310286,00.html
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn9422.html

The idea that a bilingual can be totally dyslexic in an alphabetic language yet highly functional in an East Asian one is interesting.

I once read an article on a similar topic posted by a user in Dave`s ESL café. It seemed somewhat racist and ethnocentric (from a Western point of view). So here, the topic "The Chinese Brain" again seems somewhat misleading although the conent of the text is not necessarily so. Brains anatomically and most likely also physiologically are everywhere the same - irrespective of race and culture, IMHO. That what makes human beings individual and unique in relation to one another and to other people in general is the way in which the synapses inside the brain are connected. This has impacts on personality, learning behavior, etc. A new-born baby will have the process of synapses connecting completed after some time, and more recent studies in the area of neurobiology point to the fact that environmental factors largely determine the way in which this connection takes place to make this human an individual.

Dylexia phenomena are of some interest in this context. It has been shown that dyslexic children in the USA had no problem remembering and reading Chinese characters when pronounced in English - the fact that Chinese characters do not represent sounds but meaning concepts linguistically allows the actual reading to be English, Sino-Japanese, Sino-Korean or whatever while the meaning is always the same - irrespective of native pronunciation. It seems that in Western societies we are primarily using the left brain hemisphere to read and write while in case of a meaning-based script like Chinese, there is some predominance of the right hemisphere of the brain. For Chinese children, this may change later when they learn Pinyin or English. The reason why Westeners seem to have so many problems to commit Chinese characters in meaning and pronunciation to long-term memory seems due to the fact that they will need the right hemisphere of the brain to do so which they are less used to.

This is - in very brief form and only "roughly spoken" - what I said in one of my earlier books on learning the Chinese script.

And I take a somewhat "materialist" stance in saying that such differences are due to different cultural traditions and socialisation patterns rather than ethnic or "racial" factors.

Nepali is written with the Devanagari script (deva means "divine") as many other Indic (not "Indian")languages including Sanskrit are. And the principles of the Tan script largely rely on those of Devanagari (not necessarily in terms of the graphical forms of symbols). Devanagari is a sound-based and not a meaning-concept-based script. Those using it are like us in the Western World in primarily making use of our left brain hemisphere.

Have a great day!

   

[gonzo]

And I take a somewhat "materialist" stance in saying that such differences are due to different cultural traditions and socialisation patterns rather than ethnic or "racial" factors. [/
!
 

Absolutely. My topic was worded to gain attention [not that it really did], as are most thread titles. I'd go a step further to opine that "race" is an intellectual construct, best left to skull measuring Belgian colonists and the KKK.
The links I gave to articles discussing Mathematics and the brain created a lot of interest amongst the Math faculty at my school, where we have a significant number of high achieving East Asian students.

[abusalam]

And I take a somewhat "materialist" stance in saying that such differences are due to different cultural traditions and socialisation patterns rather than ethnic or "racial" factors.

 
[/quote]
 I'd go a step further to opine that "race" is an intellectual construct, best left to skull measuring Belgian colonists and the KKK.
[/quote]

[/quote]

I am not quire sure whether there are some Belgian colonists of Flemish origin measuring the skulls of the Wallones [for those not from Europe, let me add that Belgium has three major languages and cultures (a bit like Switterland): a very small part which is German (Malmedy), a bigger part that speaks a kind of southern Dutch dialect in the North West and another part that speaks French called "Wallones"(southeast of Belgium).  There have been some conflicts between Wallones and Flemish parts in the past.]

I can now better understand your intentions in making the post.
Let us perhaps measure our own skulls, and perhaps the degree of intelligence in it .... or not in it....smile/.lol....

[gonzo]

Abusalam
When the Belgians took over Rwanda at the end of WW1, they set up the whole Hutu v Tutsi division as a racial one, whereas previously it had only been a mutually convenient social classification. Skull measurement was one of the "scientific" means used to determine that the Tutsi were further evolved than the Hutu, even if light years behind their Belgian overlords. Tutsi became the governing class, Hutu the slave labor, thus providing the motive for the Rwandan genocide.
King Leopold makes Hitler look like an enlightened despot.

[abusalam]

Abusalam
When the Belgians took over Rwanda at the end of WW1, they set up the whole Hutu v Tutsi division as a racial one, whereas previously it had only been a mutually convenient social classification. Skull measurement was one of the "scientific" means used to determine that the Tutsi were further evolved than the Hutu, even if light years behind their Belgian overlords. Tutsi became the governing class, Hutu the slave labor, thus providing the motive for the Rwandan genocide.
King Leopold makes Hitler look like an enlightened despot.

Yes, I can only agree with you. I have been to Rwanda and adjecent countries and have seen the consequences of the terrible things that happened there. As you probably will know, the Tutsi are said to have immigrated from the north centuries ago and got the settled among their native neighbours, mostly some kind of Bantu language speaking people. The Tutsi are a cattle-breeding people while the Hutu are farmers. Like in China, there were conflicts with animal-breeding people (mostly nomads) and settled agrarian societies over land. This is perhaps not the only determining factor but in the case of the Hutu-Tutsi conflict, this has existed in the pre-colonial period already long before the Belgians ever came there and took over from the Germans (towards the end of the 19th century, they were an emerging colonial power - and thank God they failed - they lost all their colonies after World War I). The Belgians as colonists took advantage of that ethnic conflict and, like most colonial administrators, played one group against the other to maintain their own power ("divide and impera" - ha, the Romans once did the same!). And that the Belgians might also have done what you already mentioned (measuring skulls, etc.) is just one of the crazy things certain people did at that time. It is racist, unscientific and it would have been much better that the Belgians and other colonial power would never have gone there - better for the native people there. In this sense, power to the (native and all other) people! 
This matter is an illustrative example of how dogmatism, totalitarian ideologies (Nazism, communism)and even racism can have a cruel and really bad impact on common peoples' lives.
Freedom to the mind!

[Mr Nobody]

The idea of brain measuring wasn't originally advanced for the purposes used. It was advanced as a scientific idea: Bigger brain means smarter person. This was taken from looking about at animals and so on. A false idea, but not one motivated originally for other purposes. Also, it was only supposed to be to determine relative pre-hominid intelligences between species, based on methods used for animals for a long time. I forgot the names of the people involved, but I am sure you can google them. It was a classic Victorian misuse of science. Everyone doing science at my uni had to study things like this so we wouldn't fall into the same traps, such as Chinese Restaurant Syndrome (supposedly caused by msg, since then thoroughly debunked - msg doesn't do anything bad at all.) etc. Anyway, back to brains:

Some idiots then took that as a way to compare human brains using various methods.

One fool from the UK took to pouring dried peas into skulls. Eg microcephalic bantu vs hydrocephalic Frenchman (who would have been brain damaged). He even crammed the peas into the skulls of white people, and left them poured for black skulls.He then counted the peas, and lo and behold, white folks is just damn smarter. Look at women's brains, smaller than men, and look, they aren't as smart either.

Like many things, such as evolution, (social darwinism, eugenics) have been taken and run with in the wrong direction.

The same for Capitalism, Communism, Fascism, Anarchy, etc. The original ideals aren't what the people have done with them. You could put Christianity, Islam and a few others on the same list.

But one thing is we can't judge people from history using modern ethical standards. They didn't have them, they didn't exist, and if they did, they would have been stupid to hold them in that environment.

[abusalam]

The idea of brain measuring wasn't originally advanced for the purposes used. It was advanced as a scientific idea: Bigger brain means smarter person. This was taken from looking about at animals and so on. A false idea, but not one motivated originally for other purposes. Also, it was only supposed to be to determine relative pre-hominid intelligences between species, based on methods used for animals for a long time. I forgot the names of the people involved, but I am sure you can google them. It was a classic Victorian misuse of science. Everyone doing science at my uni had to study things like this so we wouldn't fall into the same traps, such as Chinese Restaurant Syndrome (supposedly caused by msg, since then thoroughly debunked - msg doesn't do anything bad at all.) etc. Anyway, back to brains:

Some idiots then took that as a way to compare human brains using various methods.

One fool from the UK took to pouring dried peas into skulls. Eg microcephalic bantu vs hydrocephalic Frenchman (who would have been brain damaged). He even crammed the peas into the skulls of white people, and left them poured for black skulls.He then counted the peas, and lo and behold, white folks is just damn smarter. Look at women's brains, smaller than men, and look, they aren't as smart either.

Like many things, such as evolution, (social darwinism, eugenics) have been taken and run with in the wrong direction.

The same for Capitalism, Communism, Fascism, Anarchy, etc. The original ideals aren't what the people have done with them. You could put Christianity, Islam and a few others on the same list.

But one thing is we can't judge people from history using modern ethical standards. They didn't have them, they didn't exist, and if they did, they would have been stupid to hold them in that environment.

Well said!

[Mr Nobody]

Thank you. Small areas of my brain still hold some functionality, despite my efforts to the contrary. I am looking to solve this problem, but I keep thinking of poodles.


Perhaps it is working.

[Lotus Eater]

I never think of poodles - maybe when I am thinking of stupid I think of red setters, but not poodles.  Does this make me weird??

[teleplayer]

I never think of poodles - maybe when I am thinking of stupid I think of red setters, but not poodles.  Does this make me weird??

No. Just makes you aware of inbred dogs and how stupid they are and what such inbreeding can possibly do to other creatures probably plants too. 
A groomed iris setter is so cute but they are way too much maintenance and way too many of them are totally stupid. Climbing down off the tomato crate now. 

[abusalam]

Thank you. Small areas of my brain still hold some functionality, despite my efforts to the contrary. I am looking to solve this problem, but I keep thinking of poodles.


Perhaps it is working.

I am not quite sure whether some areas of my brain still hold some functionality.... ....Fortunately, it is not my job to decide that and I can leave it to other people to decide. ...
Anyway, skull measuring and drawing conclusions as to brain "performance" in connection with certain weird and abstruse ideas about race was common at a certain time that fortunately is over these days. And the Nazis with their dogmatic ideas about the "superiority" of "their race" are one of the more cruel "variants" in this. Those thinking themselves superior to others are mostly those inferior in matters of personality, intellectual capacity, ethical and moral standards. History has fortunately shown that they are and never were proven right, and as imperfect as this human world still may be, mankind has at least progressed to that extent that we are developping towards a "one world" these days...with all the communication means available these days across cultures and continents and with the "superiority" of the "white man" and the Western world put at stake and rightly committed to doubt as other parts of the world are catching up. We even have a Malaysian flying as an astronaut; we have Western employees teaching English in China and elswhere in the non-Western world....And my vision is that the day may come when we will have Chinese and Indian and other teachers in the Western part of the world to teach us their languages, cultures, etc.