PSYCHOLOGY

The aim of the article is to present a summary of some of dthe findings from studies of pictorial perception in different culturla groups,including the author's own research and that of other (e.g.Hudson,1960,1962).It is often not clear when he is referring to his own(and that of his co-workers) rather than the someone else's research,and it is only through reading other sources(e.g. serpell,1976) that this can be achived.

The nature of the studies discussed is cross-cultural,since a comparision is being made between the interpretation of 3-D pictures by members of western cultures(unspecified) and variousAfrican countries (e.g. zambia).However, the method used either the particiant's nationality or the characteristic of being 3-D or 2-D perceiver ( based on, say,Hudson's pictures tests).In both cases,the investigator is, of course,unable to manipulate the independent variable: it is a characteristics the participant already possess and is selected accordingly.The method is sometimes referred to as expost facto experimentation(see coolican,1994).(Note that cross-cultural studies as such are not a method of collecting data but rather an overall approach to the study of human behaviour,just as cross-sectional and longitudinal approaches are in development psycholiogy.Exactly how data is collected will depend on the purpose of the study,the age of the participants,the kind of behaviours under investigation,and so on-the overall approach may involve the use of experiments,observation or some combination of different methods).

Deregowski also considers some explanations which have been put forward for cultural differences in perception,but no empirical support for these is provided.