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Memory

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Cross-cultural differences in item and backgroundmemory: examining the influence of emotionalintensity and scene congruency

Katherine R. Mickley Steinmetz, Charlee M. Sturkie, Nina M. Rochester,Xiaodong Liu & Angela H. Gutchess

To cite this article: Katherine R. Mickley Steinmetz, Charlee M. Sturkie, Nina M. Rochester,Xiaodong Liu & Angela H. Gutchess (2017): Cross-cultural differences in item and backgroundmemory: examining the influence of emotional intensity and scene congruency, Memory, DOI:10.1080/09658211.2017.1406119

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/09658211.2017.1406119

Published online: 25 Nov 2017.

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Cross-cultural differences in item and background memory: examining theinfluence of emotional intensity and scene congruencyKatherine R. Mickley Steinmetza, Charlee M. Sturkieb, Nina M. Rochestera, Xiaodong Liub and AngelaH. Gutchess b

aDepartment of Psychology, Wofford College, Spartanburg, SC, USA; bDepartment of Psychology, Brandeis University, Waltham, MA, USA

ABSTRACTAfter viewing a scene, individuals differ in what they prioritise and remember. Culture may be onefactor that influences scene memory, as Westerners have been shown to be more item-focusedthan Easterners (see Masuda, T., & Nisbett, R. E. (2001). Attending holistically versus analytically:Comparing the context sensitivity of Japanese and Americans. Journal of Personality and SocialPsychology, 81, 922–934). However, cultures may differ in their sensitivity to scene incongruencesand emotion processing, which may account for cross-cultural differences in scene memory. Thecurrent study uses hierarchical linear modeling (HLM) to examine scene memory whilecontrolling for scene congruency and the perceived emotional intensity of the images. Americanand East Asian participants encoded pictures that included a positive, negative, or neutral itemplaced on a neutral background. After a 20-min delay, participants were shown the item andbackground separately along with similar and new items and backgrounds to assess memoryspecificity. Results indicated that even when congruency and emotional intensity werecontrolled, there was evidence that Americans had better item memory than East Asians.Incongruent scenes were better remembered than congruent scenes. However, this effect didnot differ by culture. This suggests that Americans’ item focus may result in memory changesthat are robust despite variations in scene congruency and perceived emotion.

ARTICLE HISTORYReceived 19 March 2017Accepted 7 November 2017

KEYWORDSCulture; memory; emotion;valence; congruency

When viewing a scene, foreground objects are oftenattended to and remembered better than contextual orbackground information (Chun & Turk-Browne, 2007).However, this item-focused memory may actually charac-terise Westerners more than Easterners (see Nisbett &Masuda, 2003). There is a rich literature that suggeststhat Westerners are more object-focused than Easterners.When studying images, Americans tend to show greateractivation of brain regions involved in object processingthan East Asians (Goh et al., 2007; Gutchess, Welsh, Bodur-oglu, & Park, 2006). Furthermore, Americans focus atten-tion more quickly on items and spend more time lookingat them than do East Asians (Chua, Boland, & Nisbett,2005). Far fewer studies have examined how these differ-ences in attention to items influence memory. There is evi-dence for enhancement in object memory (Millar, Serbun,Vadalia, & Gutchess, 2013), though some studies have alsofound no difference in object memory between cultures(Gutchess et al., 2006; Masuda & Nisbett, 2001; Yanget al., 2013).

One potential reason for discrepant results in thememory literature may be due to differences in the con-gruency between objects and backgrounds in scenes.Past studies often use constructed scenes that include anitem and a background, which may vary in how congruent

these scenes appear. Congruency has not been systemati-cally controlled in prior studies. Some studies haveemployed naturalistic backgrounds (Masuda & Nisbett,2001; Millar et al., 2013), while others have not (Ko, Lee,Yoon, Kwon, & Mather, 2011). Importantly, there is evi-dence that perception of congruency may differ across cul-tures. When shown scenes that include either a congruentor incongruent item, East Asians exhibit neural activity thatsuggests that they are more sensitive to incongruities initems and backgrounds in visual scenes than Westernersare (Goto, Ando, Huang, Yee, & Lewis, 2009; Jenkins,Yang, Goh, Hong, & Park, 2010). This may be an importantfactor when examining memory as there is evidence thatcongruity affects memory. Incongruent scenes may bemore novel or surprising and are thus better rememberedthan congruent scenes (Green, 1956; Näätänen, Jacobsen,& Winkler, 2005; Pezdek, Whetstone, Reynolds, Askari, &Dougherty, 1989). It is possible that even small variationsin congruency could contribute to cultural differences inmemory, given East Asians’ heightened responsivity toincongruity. These ideas make it important to addressthe effects of congruency. At present, it is unclearwhether any Western advantage in object memory is actu-ally confounded by cultural differences in perceivingincongruency in scenes.

© 2017 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group

CONTACT Katherine R. Mickley Steinmetz steinmetzkr@wofford.edu Department of Psychology, Wofford College, 429 North Church St., Spartanburg,SC 29303, USA

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It is also unclear whether culture influences memory forthe backgrounds paired with objects. Many studies haveshown that Easterners are more context-focused than Wes-terners, perhaps due to the more collectivist nature ofEastern cultures (see Nisbett & Masuda, 2003). However,the context has been defined in many ways, from proces-sing distractions (Ji, Peng, & Nisbett, 2000) to change blind-ness (Masuda & Nisbett, 2006; Nisbett & Masuda, 2003).Some memory studies that have focused on the questionhave shown that Easterners are more likely to attend toand remember background information than Westerners.For example, East Asian participants showed a memorydetriment for items that were not tested in their originalcontext compared to those tested in the same context(Chua et al., 2005; Masuda & Nisbett, 2001). In addition,as compared to Westerners, Koreans better recognisedscenes presented behind faces than Americans (Ko et al.,2011) and Japanese are better at remembering the facialemotional expressions of background characters(Masuda, Gonzalez, Kwan, & Nisbett, 2008). However, notall studies have shown an Eastern advantage in memoryfor backgrounds (Gutchess et al., 2006; Millar et al., 2013).Though again, these studies vary in the congruitybetween objects and backgrounds.

Lastly, another factor that may influence cultural differ-ences in scene memory is emotion. Whereas Western cul-tures tend to place higher value on high arousal positivestates (e.g., elation, excitement, enthusiasm), Eastern cul-tures tend to place higher value on low arousal positivestates (e.g., calmness, peacefulness; Tsai, Miao, Seppala,Fung, & Yeung, 2007). On the other hand, despite thesedifferences in ideal affect, some studies have shown thatEast Asians and Americans may feel emotions in a similarway and physiological reactions may not differ significantlyacross cultures (e.g., Levenson & Tsai, 1997; Tsai, Levenson,& Carstensen, 2000). Thus, it is unclear if any potentialdifferences in ideal affect or emotion interpretationwould influence scene memory.

The goal of the current study is to examine cross-cul-tural differences in item memory and to understand ifdifferences in item–background congruency or emotionaccount for previously found cultural differences. EastAsian and American participants were shown scenes thatincluded an emotional or neutral object placed on aneutral background. At test, participants were shown theitems and backgrounds separately in order to assess cul-tural differences in item memory. Participants rated theemotional intensity that they felt as well as the perceivedcongruency of each picture. The current study used hier-archical linear modeling (HLM) which allowed us tocontrol for factors that may have confounded previousstudies. Specifically, HLM allows for the consideration ofthe congruency ratings for each individual picture inorder to determine if differences in sensitivity to con-gruency account for changes in item memory. Thus,instead of averaging across each category, HLM considersthe rating and memory response for each individual

stimulus. This gives the ability to control for possible indi-vidual differences in perception of each scene. Given theinherent individual differences in scene processing, usingthis type of analysis is important in order to provide amore accurate picture of cultural differences in memory.

Method

Participants

Participants included 40 East Asian (25 female) and 41American (25 female) students from Wofford College andBrandeis University.1 American students were nativeEnglish speakers who had not resided outside of theUnited States for more than two years. East Asian studentswere native of an East or Southeast Asian country (i.e.,China, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Taiwan, Thailand, orVietnam) who had resided within the United States forno longer than five years. All participants were consideredto have a fluent understanding of both written and verbalEnglish. All participants gave written consent and werecompensated with either class credit or a gift card.

Materials

Study stimuli included composite scenes which included apositive, negative, or neutral item placed on a neutral back-ground (see Figure 1). Scenes were chosen from a pictureset that was developed in order to assess memory speci-ficity (Kensinger, Garoff-Eaton, & Schacter, 2007). Thesescenes were constructed in order to form the most realisticcomposite scene possible. In a previous pilot study, allbackgrounds were verified as being neutral by naiveraters (Mickley Steinmetz & Kensinger, 2013). As thesescenes had only been rated by American participants, anonline pilot study was conducted to assess valence, famili-arity, and arousal level of the scenes across cultures (N = 14East Asians, N = 18 Americans), and unfamiliar scenes orthose that were rated differently across cultures were notselected. None of the participants from the pilot studywere included in the primary study reported here.

The test lists included the items and backgrounds fromthe composite scenes, presented separately. Some of thesepictures were the “same” item or background. Some were“similar”, items or backgrounds, sharing the same verballabel, but differing in other visual details (e.g., monkey;jungle). Others were completely “new” items and back-grounds, not previously studied by the participant (seeFigure 1).

Procedure

In the study phase, participants viewed a series of 60 com-posite images, 20 with positive-arousing items, 20 withnegative-arousing items, and 20 with neutral items digitallyplaced on a neutral background. Images were displayed onthe computer screen for 3000 ms. Participants were

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instructed: “Once the picture leaves the screen, you will beasked to indicate the emotional intensity that you feel on ascale from 1 to 9”. The scale was then depicted with 1labelled as “Negative (Unpleasant)” and 9 labelled as “Posi-tive (Pleasant)”. Participants had 3000 ms to make theirrating. Following the study phase, participants had a 20-min delay where they completed a variety of surveys andcognitive tasks: Pattern Matching (Salthouse, 1996), alanguage proficiency questionnaire, Beck Anxiety Inven-tory (BAI; Beck, Epstein, Brown, & Steer, 1988), the BeckDepression Inventory (BDI; Beck, Ward, Mendelson, Mock,& Erbaugh, 1961), the Self-Construal Scale (SCS; Singelis &Sharkey, 1995), the Emotion Regulation Questionnaire(ERQ; Gross & John, 2003), and the Religion Scale Question-naire (Hoge, 1972). If participants were unable to completethese tasks in the 20-min delay, they were completed fol-lowing the test phase.

During the test phase, participants were given a surpriserecognition test. The backgrounds and items were all pre-sented independently from one another. Participants wereasked whether the item or background that was displayedwas the “same” as presented in the study phase, “similar” tothose presented in the study phase, or completely “new.”

Of the 90 background images shown, 30 pictures were ofthe “same” backgrounds in the study list (10 negative, 10positive, and 10 neutral), 30 pictures were of “similar” back-grounds (10 negative, 10 positive, and 10 neutral), and 30pictures were completely “new” backgrounds (10 negative,10 positive, and 10 neutral). Participants then rated all com-posite study images on congruency: how well the item fitswith the paired background. The proportion of imagesremembered for each response and picture type isreported in Table 2.

Results

Participant characteristics

Groups did not differ in years of education, BAI or BDIscores, or SCS Independence & Interdependence scores(see Table 1). East Asians scored higher than Americanson the Pattern Matching Test and the Religion Question-naire (indicating that the East Asians were less religiousthan the Americans). East Asians were also slightly olderthan American participants. Americans scored higherthan East Asians on both ERQs (Reappraisal and Suppres-sion). The influence of each scale that differed acrossgroups (i.e., age, Pattern Matching, ERQ, Religion) wasalso analysed as described below.

Hierarchical linear modeling

Previous studies have shown cultural differences in theemotional valuation of different stimuli (Park, Tsai, Chim,Blevins, & Knutson, 2016; Tsai et al., 2007). In addition, ques-tions have arisen regarding how the congruency of theitem with the background could influence these results(Goto et al., 2009; Ishii, Kobayashi, & Kitayama, 2009). Toexamine the influence of these two factors while consider-ing how certain properties of each stimulus and participantcontribute to memory, HLM was used (see Woltman,

Figure 1. Example stimuli and stimulus timeline for the encoding and recognition memory tasks.

Table 1. Demographic Information.

American East Asian p valueM SD M SD

Age 20.17 1.58 21.18 2.68 .043*Years of Education 14.63 1.55 15.09 1.97 .251Pattern Matching 36.76 6.99 41.00 7.10 .008*BAI 11.85 8.31 12.40 6.26 .740SCS Independence 5.28 0.67 5.01 0.66 .070SCS Interdependence 4.62 0.50 4.42 0.46 .065BDI 8.02 6.18 8.25 5.72 .865ERQ Reappraisal 26.25 5.61 18.62 11.06 <.001*ERQ Suppression 11.76 5.09 7.99 4.98 .001*Religion 22.61 8.04 32.13 6.03 <.001*

Note: Higher religion scores indicate less religious individuals.*Significant at p < .05.

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Feldstain, MacKay, & Rocchi, 2012, for an introduction toHLM). HLM is useful as it models both within- andbetween-participant variation, making it possible to look

at group-level differences as well as individual-leveldifferences.

Each scene shown at encoding was matched with itscongruency, valence, and emotional intensity rating(emotional intensity = absolute value of distance fromneutral) as well as the memory for the item in the sceneand the background. The outcome variable was “itemmemory”, which referred to the participant’s response foreach item during the same/similar recognition test. Theitems were scored as 2 = correct responses (“same”/sameor “similar”/similar), 1 = partially correct responses(“same”/similar or “similar”/same), or 0 = incorrectresponses (“new”/similar or “new”/same). Thus, theoutcome variable was an ordinal variable and the datawere nested (ratings and memory for each picture,nested in individuals). Therefore, we used a multilevellogistic regression for ordinal data. Level 1 included stimu-lus-level predictors: congruency rating, emotional intensityrating, valence rating, and background memory. Emotionalintensity ratings were scored as the difference in ratingfrom neutral. Background memory ratings were scored inthe same manner as items (i.e., each background wasscored according to how it was remembered by the partici-pant: 2 = correct responses (“same”/same or “similar”/similar), 1 = partially correct responses (“same”/similar or“similar”/same), or 0 = incorrect responses (“new”/similaror “new”/same)). Including background memory in theanalysis allowed us to determine if background memorypredicted item memory or, more importantly, if back-ground memory interacted with culture, which would indi-cate that culture had a different effect on item memory ascompared to background memory. Level 2 included anindividual-level predictor: cultural group (1 = American vs.2 = East Asian).

In the null model, we examined if we could expect anyvariation in item memory based only on variation betweenindividuals. In Model 1, we added the item-level predictors(congruency rating, emotional intensity rating, valencerating, and background memory). In Model 2, we alsoadded the individual-level predictor (American vs. EastAsian).

The level 1 model explained within participant variationin item memory as a function of the level 1 predictors:experienced emotional intensity, valence, congruency,and background memory. See Table 3 for the full resultsof each model. This model indicated a significant interceptfor congruency (γ30 = 0.027, t(4740) = 2.395, p = .017). Thiscoefficient for congruency included the impact of con-gruency on the log-odds of the first category of theoutcome variable (incorrect memory, scored 0), as com-pared to the second category (partially correct memory,scored 1) or the third category (correct memory, scored2). This positive coefficient indicates that as congruencyratings increase, they are associated with a higher valuein log-odds of the category or categories associated withworse memory. In other words, pictures that were ratedas less congruent were better remembered. However, the

Table 2. Proportion memory accuracy for each stimulus type, sorted bycorrect answer and actual response, reported as Mean (Standard Error).The key at the top explains each category as in Garoff, Slotnick, andSchacter (2005).

ParticipantResponse

CorrectResponse

"same" "similar" "new"

same specificrecognition

partialrecognition

completemiss

similar false recognition specific ORpartialrecognition

partial miss

new baseline falserecognition

partial falserecognition

correctrecognition

Valence TypeCorrectResponse Answer American East Asian

Neutral Item Same "same" 0.743 (0.031) 0.649 (0.032)"similar" 0.148 (0.022) 0.146 (0.022)"new" 0.109 (0.019) 0.138 (0.020)

Similar "same" 0.340 (0.033) 0.328 (0.033)"similar" 0.499 (0.042) 0.395 (0.042)"new" 0.161 (0.027) 0.274 (0.027)

New "same" 0.055 (0.014) 0.110 (0.027)"similar" 0.195 (0.019) 0.241 (0.025)"new" 0.750 (0.022) 0.649 (0.034)

Background Same "same" 0.627 (0.038) 0.659 (0.039)"similar" 0.153 (0.019) 0.149 (0.019)"new" 0.219 (0.025) 0.164 (0.025)

Similar "same" 0.190 (0.026) 0.282 (0.027)"similar" 0.517 (0.032) 0.369 (0.032)"new" 0.293 (0.034) 0.303 (0.034)

New "same" 0.029 (0.007) 0.073 (0.020)"similar" 0.215 (0.018) 0.227 (0.023)"new" 0.756 (0.022) 0.701 (0.031)

Negative Item Same "same" 0.759 (0.033) 0.762 (0.033)"similar" 0.136 (0.021) 0.136 (0.021)"new" 0.105 (0.018) 0.108 (0.018)

Similar "same" 0.342 (0.036) 0.336 (0.036)"similar" 0.519 (0.038) 0.410 (0.038)"new" 0.140 (0.022) 0.221 (0.022)

New "same" 0.035 (0.009) 0.103 (0.023)"similar" 0.170 (0.021) 0.159 (0.024)"new" 0.795 (0.022) 0.739 (0.032)

Background Same "same" 0.557 (0.035) 0.628 (0.036)"similar" 0.227 (0.027) 0.241 (0.027)"new" 0.216 (0.022) 0.172 (0.023)

Similar "same" 0.224 (0.034) 0.244 (0.034)"similar" 0.417 (0.035) 0.364 (0.036)"new" 0.359 (0.034) 0.323 (0.034)

Positive Item Same "same" 0.719 (0.035) 0.738 (0.036)"similar" 0.140 (0.019) 0.164 (0.020)"new" 0.141 (0.024) 0.151 (0.024)

Similar "same" 0.280 (0.035) 0.385 (0.035)"similar" 0.532 (0.033) 0.408 (0.033)"new" 0.188 (0.025) 0.200 (0.025)

New "same" 0.023 (0.008) 0.085 (0.024)"similar" 0.180 (0.020) 0.221 (0.028)"new" 0.798 (0.024) 0.695 (0.035)

Background Same "same" 0.576 (0.033) 0.654 (0.033)"similar" 0.239 (0.023) 0.203 (0.024)"new" 0.185 (0.026) 0.162 (0.027)

Similar "same" 0.266 (0.033) 0.318 (0.033)"similar" 0.470 (0.034) 0.415 (0.035)"new" 0.263 (0.031) 0.300 (0.032)

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effect of congruency did not remain when culture wasadded to the model.

The main focus of this study was investigating whethercongruency interacts with the cultural group. The Level 2slopes and intercepts model considered both participant-level and group-level effects on item memory (see Table3). The slope for the interaction between congruency andculture was not significant (γ41 =−0.015, t(4700) =−0.682,p = .496). The parameters related to valence and emotionalintensity were also not significant, ps > .05. There was,however, a significant intercept for culture (γ01 = 0.610, t(78)= 3.442, p < .001) and a significant intercept for back-ground memory (γ20 = 0.278, t (4700) = 2.618, p = .009).These effects were qualified by a significant interactionbetween background memory and culture (γ21 =−0.156,t (4700) =−2.124, p = .034) (see Figure 2). When back-ground memory was coded as 0, indicating incorrectmemory (“new”/similar or “new”/same; YBIJ_BAC = 0), theestimated slope coefficient of culture on the log-odds ofitem memory is 0.61 (γ01 = 0.61, p < .001, model 2 inTable 3). This means that the higher value of culture, ascoded in the model, had a higher probability of incorrectresponse (vs. partially correct response and correctresponses) in item memory, or that the higher value ofculture had a higher probability of incorrect and partiallycorrect response (vs. correct responses) in item memory.Given that culture is dummy coded with 2 = East Asiansand 1 = Americans, this indicates that Americans, onaverage, are more likely to have better item memorythan East Asians, with the estimated odds ratio 1.84.

When background memory was considered with par-tially correct responses (“same”/similar or “similar”/same;YBIJ_BAC = 1), the estimated slope coefficient of cultureon the log-odds of item memory is 0.61–0.156 = 0.454.This shows that among all partially correct responses in

background memory, Americans, on average, are stillmore likely to have better item memory than East Asians.However, the cultural difference is smaller than when back-ground memory was incorrect (with estimated odds at1.57).

When background memory was correct (“same”/sameor “similar”/similar; YBIJ_BAC = 2), the estimated slopecoefficient of culture on the log-odds of item memory is0.61–2*0.156 =0 .298. This shows that among those withcorrect responses in background memory, Americans, onaverage, are still more likely to have better item memorythan East Asians. However, this cultural difference

Table 3. Results of HLM analysis on the item memory outcome variable.

Model 1 Model 2

Fixed effects Coefficient SE T-ratio p Coefficient SE T-ratio p

For Intercept (β0)Intercept (γ00) −1.553 0.102 −15.275 <.001 −2.475 0.287 −8.636 <.001Culture (γ01) 0.610 0.177 3.442 <.001

For Arousal slope (β1)Arousal (γ10) −0.047 0.027 −1.724 .085 0.099 0.082 1.204 .229Culture (γ11) −0.095 0.053 −1.783 .075

For Background Memory slope (β2)Background Memory (γ20) 0.044 0.037 1.202 .229 0.278 0.106 2.618 .009Culture (γ21) −0.156 0.074 −2.124 .034

For Valence (β3)Valence (γ30) −0.070 0.045 −1.556 .120 −0.138 0.139 −0.995 .320Culture (γ31) 0.046 0.091 0.505 .613

For Congruency Slope (β4)Congruency (γ40) 0.027 0.011 2.395 .017 0.049 0.034 1.449 .148Culture (γ41) 0.049 0.034 1.449 .148

Estimated delta (threshold) 1.277 1.280

Notes: Model 1 included the item-level predictors (congruency rating, arousal rating, valence rating, and background memory). Model 1 indicated a signifi-cant intercept for congruency such that when background memory = 0, scenes that were rated as less congruent were better remembered. Model 2included item-level predictors as well as the individual-level predictor (American vs. East Asian). Model 2 indicated a significant intercept for culture, indi-cating that Americans were better able to remember items than East Asians. There was also a significant background memory by culture interaction indi-cating that Americans had better item memory than East Asians especially when background memory was poor.

Figure 2. Background memory and culture jointly predict item memory.Odds = p(item memory = 0)/ p(item memory≥ 1). The y-axis indicates log-odds (or logit) based on Model 2 with all the other variables in the modelfixed at value 0. More negative values indicate a greater likelihood ofbetter item memory.

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becomes even smaller than partially correct responses(with estimated odds at 1.347).

To ensure that any group differences did not accountfor these results, each scale that differed across groups(i.e., age, Pattern Matching, ERQ, Religion) was used as asecond-level predictor in HLM analyses that mirror theone reported above. These results indicated that evenwith these predictors included with the model, there wasstill always a significant effect of culture on item memory.In addition, there was still no interaction between con-gruency and culture. However, when ERQ, Pattern Match-ing, and Religion were included in the model, the cultureby background memory interaction became marginaland there was a marginal emotional intensity by cultureinteraction that did not appear earlier.

In addition, in order to compare directly with Millar et al.(2013), the supplementary materials include an analysis ofvariance that was conducted in a similar manner to thatstudy. This analysis also indicates better item memory forAmericans as compared to East Asians.

Discussion

In this study, we found that Americans had better item andbackground memory than East Asians and that this couldnot be accounted for by differences in processing incon-gruent scenes. There was also evidence that Americansremembered items better than East Asians, especiallywhen background memory was poor. Lastly, there wasno strong evidence for a cultural difference that wasspecific to memory for valenced information. Each ofthese findings will be discussed in turn.

When controlling for scene congruency and emotionalintensity, Americans were more likely to remember itemsthan East Asians. This is consistent with a number ofstudies suggesting that Americans attend more to items(Chua et al., 2005; Nisbett & Masuda, 2003) and may acti-vate more item processing regions when encodingscenes (Gutchess et al., 2006). These results are also gener-ally consistent with Millar and colleagues (2013) who, intwo experiments, showed participants both items aloneas well as scenes that included an item placed on a back-ground. All scenes and items were neutral. This studyalso found increased memory for items in Americans ascompared to East Asians. Though the authors of thatpaper had questioned if the congruency of the imagesmay account for these effects, the current study strength-ened these findings by showing that congruency doesnot account for Americans’ enhancement in objectmemory as compared to East Asians.

Furthermore, enhancements in object memory are notalways associated with decrements in backgroundmemory across cultures. The current study as well asMillar and colleagues (2013) found that Americans remem-bered both items and backgrounds better than East Asians.Though East Asians did have greater background memoryfor some memory conditions, as shown in Table 2, these

did not emerge when congruency was controlled in theHLM analysis. Despite this lack of relative differencesacross cultures, there was evidence that the relationshipbetween item and background memory did differ byculture, as shown in Figure 2. The largest cross-culturaldifference in item memory was found when backgroundmemory was incorrect. This may indicate that Americanstrade off memory for the background in exchange forbetter item memory. This interaction is in line with paststudies which have shown that East Asians attend moreto, and are more distracted by, background contextualinformation (Ji et al., 2000; Masuda et al., 2008; Stanley,Zhang, Fung, & Isaacowitz, 2013) and are more accurateat recognising items when in original settings than novelsetting as well (Ko et al., 2011; Masuda et al., 2008;Masuda & Nisbett, 2001; Yang et al., 2013). Thus, thecurrent study provides some evidence that the relationbetween item and background memory is more constantin East Asians than Americans.

The current study was strengthened by the ability tocontrol for the congruency of items placed on back-grounds to form scenes. The results indicated that con-gruency did influence memory across groups. Scenesthat were rated low in congruency were better remem-bered than those rated higher in congruency. This maybe because stimuli that are less congruent are often alsounexpected or surprising. This is related to the consistencyeffect, which suggests that items in scenes that are incon-sistent with the expectation of what should occur in thatscene are better remembered than those consistent withscene expectations (e.g., Friedman, 1979; Hock, Romanski,Galie, & Williams, 1978; Pezdek et al., 1989). Unlike previousstudies which have looked at incongruent items and back-grounds (Jenkins et al., 2010), our stimuli were intended tofit well with their backgrounds. However, in the currentstudy, there was some variation in background fit whichmay have led to less congruent images being betterremembered. However, congruency’s impact on memorydid not differ by culture. This is interesting in light of pre-vious work which has shown that semantic incongruitiesmay influence East Asians more than Americans. Forexample, Goto et al. (2009) recorded event-related poten-tial (ERP) activity when showing participants congruentand incongruent pictures (e.g., a crab on beach (congruent)or a crab on parking lot (incongruent)) and found that East-erners exhibited a more negative N400 for incongruent ascompared to congruent trials, while Westerners showed nodifference in brain activity by congruency. Similarly, Ishiiet al. (2009) had participants listen to emotional wordsthat were read either in a vocal tone that matched thevalence of the word or one that was incongruent. Thisstudy found that females that exhibited a chronic socialorientation, indicating a more interdependent culture,showed differences in ERP activity between congruentand incongruent tones. In both of these studies, the incon-gruence was found in the meaning of the paired stimuli. Inthe current study, the items and backgrounds were

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carefully matched so that they would semantically makesense in the given background. This may indicate that cul-tural differences may be more likely to occur in reference tosemantic incongruities or it may indicate that culturaldifferences may occur on the neural level that are notapparent on the behavioural level.

Very few studies have examined cultural differences inmemory for emotional scenes. One recent study foundthat Americans exhibited a larger emotion-inducedmemory trade-off effect than Turks, suggesting that cul-tures could differ in their prioritisation of emotional iteminformation at the expense of neutral background infor-mation (Gutchess, Garner, Ligouri & Boduroglu, 2017).Interestingly, the current study did not find strong evi-dence for valence or emotional intensity driving culturaldifferences in scene memory. This is despite the findingthat East Asians may prefer different emotions than Amer-icans (Tsai et al., 2007). However, it has also been foundthat the physiological reaction to emotional stimuli is lesslikely to differ across cultures (Levenson & Tsai, 1997; Tsaiet al., 2000). This may indicate that despite a particulartype of emotion being preferred, experience of emotionas well as memory for emotional items may be less likelyto be influenced by culture. However, it is possible thatin complex settings or scenes, culture may influence howmuch attention is paid to emotional information, perhapsat the expense of other information.

In conclusion, we present evidence for increased itemmemory in Americans as compared to East Asians. It iseasy to think that memory processes are the same acrossthe globe, but that is simply not the case. It becomesmore and more important to understand these differencesin our cultures as our world becomes increasingly globa-lised. Understanding cross-cultural differences couldimpact a host of different domains that implicatememory, from educational systems to business inter-actions to international diplomacy. Furthermore, emotionmay contribute to some of the most charged cultural inter-actions with the broadest implications, such as remember-ing the behaviour and statements of a negotiating partner.In order to understand the ways in which individuals fromdifferent cultures could differently encode information intomemory in dynamic real-world situations, it is necessary tofirst understand how different factors influence memoryacross cultures in controlled laboratory settings. For thefirst time, the current study was able to examine thiseffect while controlling for each individual’s experiencedemotional intensity and congruency for each scene. Thisgave a distinct advantage to previous studies which havecompared group averages for each memory type.Despite previous predictions, the congruency of theimages did not account for the cross-cultural differencein memory. These results indicate that the cross-culturaldifference in item memory is robust and does not resultsolely from differences in emotion and congruency.These findings suggest that emotion and the perceptionof incongruity in one’s environment, which often vary

across cultures, may not impact item memory in dramati-cally different ways. However, extending these results tomore emotionally arousing or incongruent situationswould provide stronger tests of the comparability ofthese processes in memory across cultures.

Note

1. Sample sizes were selected to be similar to past studies (e.g.,Millar et al., 2013). Note that power analyses conducted inG*Power (Mayr, Erdfelder, Buchner, & Faul, 2007) for samplesize estimation suggested a total sample of 22 to detecteffects using alpha = 0.05, power = 0.80, and Cohen’s f = 0.31(h2

p = 0.09). Power of 0.80 was selected based on the powerfound in Millar et al. (2013).

Acknowledgements

The authors thank Chloe Newlon, Sarah Dublin, Carlyn Fralick, VanessaZarubin, Kim Arjune, and Aubrey Knight for their help with studydesign, data collection, and analysis.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

ORCID

Angela H. Gutchess http://orcid.org/0000-0003-3047-5907

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