How does ancient Indian thought relate to theories of cognition and consciousness?

Sedlmeier and Srinivas (2016). How do theories of cognition and consciousness in ancient Indian thought systems relate to current Western theorizing and research?

How does our culture influence the way we recall autobiographical memories?

The cultural goals you are brought up with, can implicitly guide what you can recall in autobiographical memories.

For instance, Wang (2016) did a review on cultural research. They found that when asked to recall autobiographical memories, European American adults remember activities associated with their own agency and independence. However, Asian Americans remember more group orientated details and activities.

• This could be because of the different cultural practises - Western cultures tend to emphasise individuality, in contrast to the group cohesiveness seen in East Asian cultures.
• This can affect what you encode and pay attention to, thus also affecting what you remember later on.

Wang, Q. (2016). Why Should We All Be Cultural Psychologists? Lessons From the Study of Social Cognition. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 11(5), 583–596. https://doi.org/10.1177/1745691616645552

Social Orientation Hypothesis

The social orientation hypothesis focuses on the cognitive differences between Westerners and East Asians. It claims that Westerners tend to be more analytics and East Asians tend to be more holistic.

The Origin of Cultural Differences in Cognition: Evidence for the Social Orientation Hypothesis: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2838233/

Culture and cognitive differences:

https://www.apa.org/monitor/feb06/connection

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/00220221221092409

Linguistic Differences

Linguistic differences can lead to differences in perception.

For example, English uses a spectrum to differentiate between light blue and dark blue whereas Russian has two separate words. Due to this, Russian speakers more readily put these in different categories.

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