The Sensory Processes of Japanese-American and Caucasian-American Students

Differences were found in the respective factor patterns and factor structures for the two groups suggesting that, in fact, they do integrate sensory information in different ways, and Caucasian-Americans tended to process information from several senses at the same time.

Abstract

Summary The study examined the hypothesis that an individual's cultural environment influences the sensory mediation of information processing. Nine sensory tasks associated with either visual, auditory, or kinesthetic-tactile receptor systems were performed by 114 Japanese-American (J-A) and 57 Caucasian-American (C-A) males. The results were factor analyzed and differences were found in the respective factor patterns and factor structures for the two groups suggesting that, in fact, they do integrate sensory information in different ways. The J-A males relied most heavily upon spatial-kinesthetic information, while the C-A males were more visually oriented. The Caucasian-Americans also tended to show aggregate factors of several interacting sensory modalities, while the Japanese-Americans generally produced factors involving predominately one isolated sensory modality. These factor structures indicated that Caucasian-Americans tended to process information from several senses at the same time, while the Japanese-Americans tended to approach the same stimulus situation by relying predominately on a single sense modality.