Culture and Perceptions

There is an interesting article this morning in the Boston Globe's Health/Science section with the title, "Cultural insights." The author, Carey Goldberg writes, "New brain research is adding high-tech evidence to what lower-tech psychology experiments have found for years: Culture can affect not just language and custom, but how people experience the world at stunningly basic levels--what they see when they look at a city street, for example, or even how they perceive a simple line in a square."

Westerners tend to focus more on a distinctive object whereas Easterners tend to focus more on the background which contains the distinctive object. Dr. Denise Park says, "Literally, our data suggest that people see different elements of pictures. If you're looking at an elephant in the jungle, the Westerner will focus on the elephant and the Easterner is going to be more thinking about the jungle scene that has the elephant in it."

I wonder how these subtle but important differences affect the gospel, how it is presented, how it is shared and what things stand out in the different cultures. It is a fascinating article with implications for the missional church.