A psychologist carried out a laboratory experiment to see whether or not culture affects perception. He asked Marc and José to look at the three images shown in Figure 2 (a sheep, some grass, and a cat) and decide which image was the odd one out.

Marc was brought up on a farm and still lives in a rural part of France. Marc said, "The cat is the odd one out. The sheep and the grass go together best because sheep eat grass.”

José was brought up in the Spanish city where he still lives. “No!” said José, "it's the grass. The cat and the sheep go together best because they are both animals."

Outline how culture can affect perception. Refer to both Marc and José's comments in your answer.

This scenario illustrates how culture influences cognitive processes, including perception and categorisation. Research has shown that people from collectivist or rural cultures (like Marc's) often tend to think holistically, focusing on relationships and context. They group objects based on functional relationships (e.g., 'sheep eat grass'). In contrast, people from individualistic or urban/Western cultures (like José's) often tend to think analytically, focusing on objects and their attributes. They are more likely to group objects based on abstract taxonomic categories (e.g., 'sheep and cats are both animals'). Marc's and José's different responses to the same perceptual task demonstrate the powerful top-down influence of their cultural upbringing on how they interpret the world.