ABSTRACT
Environmental factors, such as culture, are known to shape individual variation in brain activity including spontaneous activity, but less is known about their population-level effects. Eastern and Western cultures differ strongly in their cultural norms about relationships between individuals. For example, the collectivism, interdependence and tightness of Eastern cultures relative to the individualism, independence and looseness of Western cultures, promote interpersonal connectedness and coordination. Do such cultural contexts therefore influence the group-level variability of their cultural members’ spontaneous brain activity? Using novel methods adapted from studies of inter-subject neural synchrony, we compare the group-level variability of resting state EEG dynamics in Chinese and Canadian samples. We observe that Chinese subjects show significantly higher inter-subject correlation and lower inter-subject distance in their EEG power spectra than Canadian subjects, as well as lower variability in theta power and alpha peak frequency. We demonstrate, for the first time, different relationships among subjects’ resting state brain dynamics in Chinese and Canadian samples. These results point to more idiosyncratic neural dynamics among Canadian participants, compared with more shared neural features in Chinese participants.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Author contributions
JX and GN conceived the idea. JX, SWT and GN wrote the manuscript together. A. Wolff, PQ, YZ, XS, JC, VK, A. Wolman, DS, JI, YW, and AS provided the main and replication EEG and Self-Consciousness Scale datasets (except China 2), and reviewed and edited the original draft. SWT provided advice on data analysis methods. SWT and JX analyzed the data and visualized the results with supervising and structuring by GN.
Data and code availability statements
The datasets and codes used in this study are available from the corresponding authors via e-mail on request.
Supplementary data
Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online at https://doi.org/10.1080/17470919.2023.2278199