DEVELOPING CROSS-CULTURAL NEUROPSYCHOLOGY THROUGH THE LENS OF CROSS-CULTURAL COGNITIVE NEUROSCIENCE

Abstract

H.W. Huang and C.M. Huang review empirical evidence from cross-cultural cognitive neuroscience which investigates whether and how sustained exposure to cultural experiences influences the neurobiological basis of human cognition and behavior. They highlight several cross-cultural brain imaging studies showing that individuals with sustained exposure to interdependent/collectivistic or independent/individualistic cultural experiences present dissociable styles of processing information that modulate neurocognitive processes, influence neural functions, and shape brain structures. Several brain regions are implicated in processing culturally preferred information including the ventral-visual and fronto-parietal cortices associated with culture-related differences in visual perception, attention and memory, executive control, semantic representation, and language comprehension. H.W. Huang and C.M. Huang conclude by discussing some methodological considerations and potential challenges of performing cross-cultural cognitive neuroscience that need to be addressed when developing cross-cultural neuropsychological assessments to evaluate individual variations in behavior-brain associations across cultures.