Editing Cognitive development (section)

=== Cultural influences ===
From cultural psychologists' view, minds and culture shape each other. In other words, culture can influence brain structures which then influence our interpretation of the culture. These examples reveal cultural variations in neural responses:

==== Figure-line task ====
Behavioral research has shown that one's strength in independent (tasks which are focused on influencing others or oneself) or interdependent tasks (tasks where one changes their own behavior to favor others) differ based on their cultural context. In general, East Asian cultures are more interdependent whereas Western cultures are more independent. Hedden et al. assessed functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) responses of East Asians and Americans while they performed independent (absolute) or interdependent (relative) tasks. The study showed that participants used regions of the brain associated with attentional control when they had to perform culturally incongruent tasks. In other words, neural paths used for the same task were different for Americans and East Asians.<ref>{{cite journal | last1 = Hedden | first1 = T. | last2 = Ketay | first2 = S. | last3 = Aron | first3 = A. | last4 = Markus | first4 = H. R. | last5 = Gabrieli | first5 = J. D. E. | year = 2008 | title = Cultural influences on neural substrates of attentional control | journal = Psychological Science | volume = 19 | issue = 1| pages = 12–17 | doi=10.1111/j.1467-9280.2008.02038.x | pmid = 18181784| s2cid = 14439636 }}</ref>

==== Transcultural neuroimaging studies====
New studies in transcultural neuroimaging studies have demonstrated that one's cultural background can influence the neural activity that underlies both high (for example, social cognition) and low (for example, perception) level cognitive functions. Studies demonstrated that groups that come from different cultures or that have been exposed to culturally different stimuli have differences in neural activity. For example, differences were found in that of the pre motor cortex during mental calculation and that of the VMPFC during trait judgements of one's mother from people with different cultural backgrounds. In conclusion, since differences were found in both high-level and low-level cognition one can assume that our brain's activity is strongly and, at least in part, constitutionally shaped by its sociocultural context.<ref>{{cite journal | last1 = han | first1 = S. | last2 = Northoff | first2 = Georg | year = 2008 | title = Culture sensitive neural substrates of human cognition: a transcultural neuroimaging approach | url = https://www.researchgate.net/publication/51415748|journal = Nature Reviews | volume = 9 | issue = 1 | pages = 646–654| doi = 10.1038/nrn2456 | pmid = 18641669 | s2cid = 6461309 }}</ref>

==== Understanding of others' intentions ====
Kobayashi et al. compared American-English monolingual and Japanese-English bilingual children's brain responses in understanding others' intentions through [[false-belief]] story and cartoon tasks. They found universal activation of the region bilateral [[ventromedial prefrontal cortex]] in [[theory of mind]] tasks. However, American children showed greater activity in the left inferior frontal gyrus during the tasks whereas Japanese children had greater activity in the right inferior frontal gyrus during the Japanese Theory of Mind tasks. In conclusion, these examples suggest that the brain's neural activities are not universal but are culture dependent.<ref>{{cite journal | last1 = Kobayashi | first1 = C. |author2-link=Gary H. Glover | last2 = Glover | first2 = G. H. | last3 = Temple | first3 = E. | year = 2007 | title = Cultural and linguistic effects on neural bases of 'theory of mind' in American and Japanese children | journal = Brain Research | volume = 1164 | issue = 1| pages = 95–107 | doi=10.1016/j.brainres.2007.06.022| pmc = 2964053 | pmid=17643400}}</ref>