Does Culture Shape Our Spatial Ability? An Investigation Based on Eye Tracking

Culture affects people’s spatial memory, mental representations, and spatial reference frameworks. People with different cultural backgrounds show different degrees of spatial ability. However, the current research does not reveal the shaping of spatial ability by culture from the perspective of visual cognition. In this study, we used eye tracking and designed mental rotation, spatial visualization, spatial orientation, and spatial correlation tasks to compare the spatial ability of Chinese and Malaysian Chinese people. The results showed that there were some minimal differences between them. Chinese participants had higher accuracy in the mental rotation task, showed more fixation to landmarks in spatial orientation, showed more fixation to the main map, and switched more frequently between the two thematic maps when judging spatial relationships. As “cultural citizens” of China, Malaysian Chinese people’s spatial ability is not only shaped by their own ethnic culture in terms of language but also influenced by foreign races in terms of education, wayfinding tendency, and cognitive style. This study can contribute to the understanding of the influence of culture on spatial ability and its possible causes.