A cross-cultural comparison of change detection in driving and non-driving scenes

Some studies on change detection have reported cultural differences (though not consistently replicated), with participants from Western countries appearing more sensitive to focal changes and those from East Asian countries more sensitive to background changes. Such findings suggest possible cross-cultural differences in attentional style, however most previous studies have largely used abstract stimuli with changes that are inconsequential to the individual. By contrast, driving research indicates that people prioritise task- and safety-relevant changes, reflecting the influence of goal-directed attention. This study explored whether cross-cultural differences in change detection would emerge within a driving context. UK and Malaysian drivers viewed change blindness stimuli from a driver's perspective. No cultural differences were observed, but safety relevance strongly influenced detection. Study 2 compared driving and non-driving stimuli to assess whether safety relevance overshadowed cultural effects. Again, safety relevance had a strong impact, but cultural differences were absent. These findings suggest that cross-cultural results from abstract tasks may not generalise to real-world contexts, where goal-directed priorities appear to dominante responses in change detection.