Murata, A., Moser, J. S., & Kitayama, S. (2013). Culture shapes electrocortical responses during emotion suppression. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, 8(5), 595–601. https://doi.org/10.1093/scan/nss036

Culture shapes electrocortical responses during emotion suppression (2013)

Kitayama, S., & Park, J. (2010). Cultural neuroscience of the self: Understanding the social grounding of the brain. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, 5(2–3), 111–129. https://doi.org/10.1093/scan/nsq052

Cultural neuroscience of the self: Understanding the social grounding of the brain (2010)

Maguire, E. A., Gadian, D. G., Johnsrude, I. S., Good, C. D., Ashburner, J., Frackowiak, R. S. J., & Frith, C. D. (2000). Navigation-related structural change in the hippocampi of taxi drivers. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 97(8), 4398–4403. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.070039597

Navigation-related structural change in the hippocampi of taxi drivers (2000)

Myruski, S., Birk, S., Karasawa, M., Kamikubo, A., Kazama, M., Hirabayashi, H., & Dennis-Tiwary, T. (2019). Neural signatures of child cognitive emotion regulation are bolstered by parental social regulation in two cultures. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, 14(9), 947–956. https://doi.org/10.1093/scan/nsz070

Neural signatures of child cognitive emotion regulation are bolstered by parental social regulation in two cultures (2019)

Pomona College

Cultural neuroscience is an emerging field of research that joins social and biological sciences to explore the influences of culture on brain development. While cultural psychology historically has relied on observational studies and survey methods, neuroscience measures such as ERPs and fMRI enable researchers to study the underlying neural mechanisms responsible for observed behavioral differences across cultures.

Cultural Neuroscience

One example of culture’s influence on brain function involves the use of the abacus in East Asian cultures. Giyoo Hatano, a Japanese developmental psychologist, hypothesized that abacus users relied on a mental representation of an abacus to solve arithmetic problems. In an fMRI study, Japanese participants, all of whom were familiar with the abacus, demonstrated increased activation in the parietal lobe. The magnitude of activation was positively correlated with the difficulty of the arithmetic problem. By contrast, individuals with no abacus experience tend to engage brain regions associated with linguistic processing when tasked with arithmetic problems (i.e. Broca’s area, Wernicke’s area). These findings support Hatano’s theory and illustrate the influence of culture on neuroplasticity.

Cultural neuroscience and arithmetic processing

A significant example of cultural neuroplasticity involves the famous “taxi driver” study by Maguire et al. (2000). They used structural MRI to compare the brains of experienced London taxi drivers to controls who did not drive taxis. Taxi drivers had larger posterior hippocampi, but smaller anterior hippocampi, compared to controls. Posterior and anterior hippocampal volume was positively and negatively correlated, respectively, with time spent as a licensed taxi driver. These findings support the hypotheses that a) the posterior hippocampus is involved in spatial/navigational memory and b) environmental stimuli can essentially “reshape” the brain.

Cultural neuroscience and spatial navigation

Research in the emerging field of cultural neuroscience suggests that culture influences one's sensitivity and reactivity to his or her emotions. A majority of such research has focused on comparisons between Europe and North America ("West") and China and Japan ("East"). Broadly speaking, European American cultures value emotional expression, whereas East Asian cultures value emotional control. EEG studies across the two cultures found that both Asians and European Americans showed a strong LPP amplitude after viewing unpleasant pictures. When tasked with suppressing negative emotions, however, Asians showed significant reduction in LPP amplitude, while the same effect was much less pronounced in European Americans. These studies highlight the role of culture in emotional processing. Future directions might look into cultures beyond the traditional binary of "Western" and "Eastern" cultures.

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