Gaomong Lo¹ (glo3@csuchico.edu), Chia-huei Tseng², Bo Yeong Won¹; ¹California State University, Chico, ²Tohoku University

Prior research on cultural differences in perception has shown that individuals from Eastern cultures tend to rely more on global processing, whereas those from Western cultures rely more on local processing, reflecting holistic versus analytic cognitive styles (Masuda & Nisbett, 2001; Nisbett et al., 2001). However, most studies have compared cultures at the group level and have rarely examined how individual differences—such as levels of individualism and collectivism or exposure to other cultures—may influence perceptual processing within a culture. Our study explored whether individual differences in collectivistic versus individualistic orientations influence perceptual processing within a culture and whether cultural differences extend to subconscious perceptual abilities, specifically ensemble judgments. To investigate these questions, participants completed a within-subjects size-judgment task under global and local processing conditions and also completed the Racial Contact Questionnaire (Hancock & Rhodes, 2008) and the Individualism and Collectivism Scale (Triandis & Gelfand, 1998). Visual displays were created using randomized circle stimuli adapted from Cha et al. (2022). Based on previous literature, we hypothesized that individuals endorsing more collectivistic values would show higher global processing accuracy, whereas those endorsing more individualistic values would excel in local processing. Contrary to these predictions, the results showed the opposite trend: participants with stronger collectivistic orientations tend to show lower global accuracy and higher local accuracy. Similarly, participants with greater exposure to Asian cultures tend to perform worse on the global task and better on the local task. Although unexpected, these findings suggest that cultural values or exposure alone may not fully account for perceptual differences previously reported. Cultural influences may also manifest differently in conscious versus subconscious perceptual processes. To clarify these patterns, we plan to directly compare Japanese and American participants in future work.