Mapping the neural mechanism that distinguishes between holistic thinking and analytic thinking
Yue Teng,
Hui-Xian Li,
Sylvia Xiaohua Chen,
Francisco Xavier Castellanos,
Chao-Gan Yan,
Xiaomeng Hu
Affiliations
Yue Teng
Department of Psychology, Renmin University of China, Beijing 100872, China; Laboratory of the Department of Psychology, Renmin University of China, Beijing 100872, China; Interdisciplinary Platform of Philosophy and Cognitive Science, Renmin University of China, 100872 China,
Hui-Xian Li
The Third Affiliated Hospital of Zhengzhou University, Zhengzhou 450052, China; CAS Key Laboratory of Behavioral Science, Institute of Psychology, Beijing 100101, China
Sylvia Xiaohua Chen
Department of Applied Social Sciences, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong, China
Francisco Xavier Castellanos
Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, NYU Grossman School of Medicine, New York, NY 10016, USA; Nathan Kline Institute for Psychiatric Research, Orangeburg, NY 10962, USA
Chao-Gan Yan
CAS Key Laboratory of Behavioral Science, Institute of Psychology, Beijing 100101, China; International Big-Data Center for Depression Research, Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China; Magnetic Resonance Imaging Research Center, Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China
Xiaomeng Hu
Department of Psychology, Renmin University of China, Beijing 100872, China; Laboratory of the Department of Psychology, Renmin University of China, Beijing 100872, China; Interdisciplinary Platform of Philosophy and Cognitive Science, Renmin University of China, 100872 China,; Corresponding author at: Department of Psychology, Renmin University of China, Beijing, China, 59 Zhongguancun Road, Haidian District, Beijing 100872, China.
Holistic and analytic thinking are two distinct modes of thinking used to interpret the world with relative preferences varying across cultures. While most research on these thinking styles has focused on behavioral and cognitive aspects, a few studies have utilized functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to explore the correlations between brain metrics and self-reported scale scores. Other fMRI studies used single holistic and analytic thinking tasks. As a single task may involve processing in spurious low-level regions, we used two different holistic and analytic thinking tasks, namely the frame-line task and the triad task, to seek convergent brain regions to distinguish holistic and analytic thinking using multivariate pattern analysis (MVPA). Results showed that brain regions fundamental to distinguish holistic and analytic thinking include the bilateral frontal lobes, bilateral parietal lobes, bilateral precentral and postcentral gyrus, bilateral supplementary motor areas, bilateral fusiform, bilateral insula, bilateral angular gyrus, left cuneus, and precuneus, left olfactory cortex, cingulate gyrus, right caudate and putamen. Our study maps brain regions that distinguish between holistic and analytic thinking and provides a new approach to explore the neural representation of cultural constructs. We provide initial evidence connecting culture-related brain regions with language function to explain the origins of cultural differences in cognitive styles.
