Culture Shock?
by Jeremy Alessi · 04/29/2006 (12:45 pm) · 10 comments
The 'intellectual' difference between various cultures/races has always been a topic of debate in my family ever since I gave the book "The Bell Curve" to my mother 12 years ago. The debate has been successfully re-ignited in my mind ever since I picked up Brain Age for my Nintendo DS this past Tuesday.
Here's a quote from The Bell Curve:
For those who haven't heard of it, Brain Age is a game based on various mental exercises proposed by Dr. Ryuta Kawashima. The tests are supposed to activate your prefrontal cortex and in general make you think quicker and use more of your brain. The only issue (other than my brain hurting the first day ;) is that the game seems culturally unbalanced to me.
The Japanese culture is known for being excellent at math. Conversely western cultures like the U.S. are a little better when it comes to language (verbal). At least this was my understanding of The Bell Curve. The game, designed in Japan no less, slaps you in the face with this.
All of the tests designed to test math skills such as calculations ... in my opinion I fly through. However, according to the game I only get 'Car Speed' on them. In contrast on some of the more language and situational awareness oriented tests I am able to achieve 'Jet Speed'. The sad truth is that I feel like I could go faster when it comes to the language and situational awareness tests but I feel that I am just about at my limits with the math tests.
The game is obviously biased toward the Japanese culture and its interpretation of a healthy brain. It's perfectly fair for them to keep the high math/calculation standard. However, when it comes to language the game's expectations should have then been set to the culture with the highest standard.
Here I am sitting in the midst of my U.S. culture which is consistently being slammed for poor math and science skills ... showing less than stellar results as compared to my Japanese counterparts when it comes to math. Yet on the same token I'm made to feel that my language and situational awareness skills are ahead of the game.
The truth of the matter is for a Japanese person I'm not too swift with my calculations and I'm good at language and situational awareness. The problem being I'm not Japanese! Either these sorts of test should be 'culturalized' ... or the highest standards from every culture should be used.
Above I mention language (which was talked about in The Bell Curve) and situational awareness. The latter is a new topic of study, which would not have been mentioned in The Bell Curve, though it is a cultural bias nonetheless.
The situational awareness test has you counting how many people go in and out of a house. There was an article about a year or so ago in the local paper about how FPS game players are very good at keeping a running tally of foes in their head and knowing where they all are. Being that the FPS is very popular here in the U.S. and not in Japan, again the test is culturally biased and Japanese gamers would be made to feel OK with their abilities in this test meanwhile, more than likely, they would not hold a candle to their western counterparts who play FPS games.
Of course this is all speculation! Heck, maybe after all these years of programming and calculating I simply cannot reverse my genetics. After all, as a child language was always easy for me but math was always hard. Part of my makeup always makes me go after what really challenges me. Because I was terrible at math I had to choose a career path based on it.
Thus, perhaps it is not the game, but it sure seems like it.
Here's a quote from The Bell Curve:
Quote:
A more certain difference between the races is that East Asians have higher nonverbal intelligence than whites while being equal, or perhaps slightly lower, in verbal intelligence.
For those who haven't heard of it, Brain Age is a game based on various mental exercises proposed by Dr. Ryuta Kawashima. The tests are supposed to activate your prefrontal cortex and in general make you think quicker and use more of your brain. The only issue (other than my brain hurting the first day ;) is that the game seems culturally unbalanced to me.
The Japanese culture is known for being excellent at math. Conversely western cultures like the U.S. are a little better when it comes to language (verbal). At least this was my understanding of The Bell Curve. The game, designed in Japan no less, slaps you in the face with this.
All of the tests designed to test math skills such as calculations ... in my opinion I fly through. However, according to the game I only get 'Car Speed' on them. In contrast on some of the more language and situational awareness oriented tests I am able to achieve 'Jet Speed'. The sad truth is that I feel like I could go faster when it comes to the language and situational awareness tests but I feel that I am just about at my limits with the math tests.
The game is obviously biased toward the Japanese culture and its interpretation of a healthy brain. It's perfectly fair for them to keep the high math/calculation standard. However, when it comes to language the game's expectations should have then been set to the culture with the highest standard.
Here I am sitting in the midst of my U.S. culture which is consistently being slammed for poor math and science skills ... showing less than stellar results as compared to my Japanese counterparts when it comes to math. Yet on the same token I'm made to feel that my language and situational awareness skills are ahead of the game.
The truth of the matter is for a Japanese person I'm not too swift with my calculations and I'm good at language and situational awareness. The problem being I'm not Japanese! Either these sorts of test should be 'culturalized' ... or the highest standards from every culture should be used.
Above I mention language (which was talked about in The Bell Curve) and situational awareness. The latter is a new topic of study, which would not have been mentioned in The Bell Curve, though it is a cultural bias nonetheless.
The situational awareness test has you counting how many people go in and out of a house. There was an article about a year or so ago in the local paper about how FPS game players are very good at keeping a running tally of foes in their head and knowing where they all are. Being that the FPS is very popular here in the U.S. and not in Japan, again the test is culturally biased and Japanese gamers would be made to feel OK with their abilities in this test meanwhile, more than likely, they would not hold a candle to their western counterparts who play FPS games.
Of course this is all speculation! Heck, maybe after all these years of programming and calculating I simply cannot reverse my genetics. After all, as a child language was always easy for me but math was always hard. Part of my makeup always makes me go after what really challenges me. Because I was terrible at math I had to choose a career path based on it.
Thus, perhaps it is not the game, but it sure seems like it.
About the author
#2
04/29/2006 (12:58 pm)
I don't think what you're saying about math and language is right; however, people in Japan certainly know how to play rpg's better than people in the US. I think that is the real issue. When you play with someone from Japan and they kick your but in PvP because they are just better due to being from Japan. That's just not fair! :P
#3
Nick
04/29/2006 (1:26 pm)
I noticed that apostrophes dissapear if you type your post in MS Word and paste it here. If you want to spell check it, it's best to first type it in Notepad, then paste it to Word to check it, then paste it here.Nick
#4
04/29/2006 (1:38 pm)
Japanese are taught English as a required class throughout gradeschool. Though most are never fluent, they have a much better understanding of English than most English speakers of Japanese. They need to know 2000 kanji plus the hiragana/katana phoenetic "letter" set with variant meanings depending on combination to be considered fluent in reading. Many European countries teach English in schools as well. Very few Americans are any kind of bi-lingual. I really have no idea where you get this impression from.
#5
04/29/2006 (2:33 pm)
I've added a quote from The Bell Curve above.
#6
04/29/2006 (3:50 pm)
And of course, who did the research and wrote this book? White, english speaking, people. So they have different standards for what linguistic ability is, based on their own conceptions from their language. Were these authors fluent in any asiatic languages themselves? If anything, it's the structure of the languages in the culture that would lead to leaning of understanding certain topics easier, and not that they have a lesser understanding of "language".
#7
Anyway, any test of course is going to be scewed. No one really knows anyone else's perspective. However, I'd argue that Brain Age serves to bolster the research reported in The Bell Curve and it's from Japan, not the United States. The Bell Curve and Brain Age both communicate the same results and one is from Japan and one is from the United States.
04/29/2006 (4:07 pm)
Well the book was quite controversial at the time. You can read about it here.Anyway, any test of course is going to be scewed. No one really knows anyone else's perspective. However, I'd argue that Brain Age serves to bolster the research reported in The Bell Curve and it's from Japan, not the United States. The Bell Curve and Brain Age both communicate the same results and one is from Japan and one is from the United States.
#8
Germans were good trained.
Russians were adopting easily in a situation on a field.
Japanese were very disciplined.
And all of them had "broad"/"wide" education, not "narow" specialization.
04/29/2006 (4:08 pm)
Your post reminded me of a study of pilots and snipers during WWI and WWII, it shows that the best war pilots were Germans, Russians and Japanese, the best snipers were Japanese and Russians among Axis and Allies. The reason for that was "cultural situational awareness".Germans were good trained.
Russians were adopting easily in a situation on a field.
Japanese were very disciplined.
And all of them had "broad"/"wide" education, not "narow" specialization.
#9
Just my 2 cents.
04/29/2006 (10:55 pm)
Tests are a substitute to determine a person's potential when that person has no practical experience from which to determine their abilities. Tests are good for making a choice on whether or not to invest opportunity in a person. I don't think any tests tell how smart anyone is. Just, hopefully, how not stupid they are.Just my 2 cents.
#10
BTW, I prefered your full post, you shouldn't edited it ;)
04/30/2006 (9:39 am)
That's a good saying, Anton.BTW, I prefered your full post, you shouldn't edited it ;)
Torque Owner Jeremy Alessi