Real space and represented space: Cross-cultural perspectives

This paper examines the contribution ofcross-cultural studies to our understanding ofthe perception and representation of space. A cross-cultural survey of the basic difficulties in understanding pictures ranging from the failure to recognise a picture as a representation to the inability to recognise the object represented in the picture indicates that similar daculties occur in pictorial and nonpictorial cultures. The experimental work on pictorial space derives from two distinct traditions: the study of picture perception in "remote" populations and thestudy of the perceptual illusions. A comparison of the findings on pictorial space perception with those on real space perception and perceptual constancy suggests that cross-cultural differences in the perception of both real and representational space involve two different types of skills: those related exclusively to either real space or representational space, and those related to both. Different cultural groups use different skills to perform the same perceptual tasks.