The NY Times covered a study that found that "Westerners focused on the central figure’s expression, while the Japanese took everyone into account." Here is another except of the article:....The differences may speak to deeply ingrained cultural traits, the authors write, suggesting that Westerners may “see emotions as individual feelings, while Japanese see them as inseparable from the feelings of the group"...Read the rest of the article here....Still, the study fits squarely in a longstanding body of research into differences between Eastern and Western perceptions of the world around us.
Researchers studying paintings from the 16th through 20th centuries, for example, have found that in Western portraits, the subject took up a larger portion of the picture and was painted in a way to make the subject stand out, the study said. In Eastern portraits, the subjects tended to be smaller and to blend into the background...
