Hokkaido Summer Institute 2021: Cognitive Science: Frontiers in Cultural Psychology 2021 held

Published Date: Feb 17, 2022

For five days from June 28 to July 2, Cognitive Science, Frontiers in Cultural Psychology 2021 was held as a course offered by Hokkaido Summer Institute (HSI) 2021.

Professor Takahiko MASUDA from the University of Alberta in Canada and Associate Professor Sawa SENZAKI from the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay in USA were invited to be part of this program. They gave intensive lectures with Professor Masaki YUKI at the Laboratory of Behavioral Science, Faculty of Humanities and Human Sciences, Hokkaido University. Through these lectures, which were offered for the sixth time this year, participants had the opportunity to learn about frontiers in cultural psychology.

Professor Masuda, who has been holding online lessons at Alberta University, said this was the first face-to-face lesson he had taught in a long time.
Associate Professor Senzaki, who hails from the laboratory led by Professor Masuda, served as a model in the portrait drawing seminar.
Professor Masaki YUKI, who hosted this program, focused on organizing lessons that would run smoothly together with Professor Masuda and Associate Professor Senzaki.

The lectures covered three themes: (1) how the behavioral patterns of people in the North American cultural sphere differ from those of Japanese people or Asian people; (2) the psychological mechanisms behind such differences; and (3) the capabilities required to surmount such differences and hone cross-cultural communication skills. Lecturers taught intensive lessons based on a number of specific cases and facilitated discussions through which participants learned about the latest findings.

Intense group discussions were held, albeit from behind acrylic partitions.
Following these discussions, representatives from each group gave presentations that summarized what they had discussed.
In addition to implementing COVID-19 infection control measures such as the use of acrylic partitions as physical barriers and the sterilization of hands and equipment, commercial fans were brought in to provide proper ventilation.

With the behavioral guidelines (a.k.a. Business Continuity Plan) of Hokkaido University set at Level 2, adequate COVID-19 infection control measures were implemented for this course. In addition to being seated with ample distance between one another in a spacious room with proper ventilation, students spoke from behind acrylic partitions. And despite the use of physical barriers such as masks and acrylic partitions, these students—many of whom had not participated in face-to-face lessons for quite some time—were able to engage in lively discussions.

The lesson on the third day included a seminar for drawing portraits and landscapes. Experiments have revealed that when drawing portraits, North Americans tend to draw a larger portrait of the figure from the chest up, while East Asians are likely to draw the entire body, and that when drawing landscapes, North Americans are apt to place the horizon lower on the drawing paper, while East Asians place it higher on the paper. These differences reflect the psychological differences between North Americans and East Asians in terms of whether attention is paid to individual elements or overall composition. Participants examined whether this tendency was applicable to pictures drawn by students with different cultural backgrounds as well as engaged in discussions.

Associate Professor Senzaki, smiling as she looked at the pictures drawn by students, was able to obtain examples supporting the results of past experiments on differences between North Americans and East Asians.