An Analysis of "Polyphasic Pictorial Perception"

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Abstract
African (Rhodesian and Zambian) and Western (Canadian) subjects were asked to describe simple pictures in order to assess their tendency to interpret pictures as representing a sequence of events, and the extent to which such tendency is fostered by background cues and arrangement of figures. The samples tested showed that such a tendency was more common in the African sample. The results also suggest that it is probably erroneous to describe the phenomenon as perceptual, since the responses appeared to be affected by the extent to which subject's interpretation was "stimulus-bound." Only the background cues were found to affect subjects' responses.