I remember reading Raymond Wilder's
#book “Mathematics As a Cultural System” and feeling conflicted.
How can something as universal as mathematics be influenced by
#culture?
Then I found some of Stanislas Dehaene & team's studies, collected in “The Number Sense”.
Digging deeper, I reached the inevitable nature vs. nurture debate, including studies from the 40s and 50s, like E. L Kaufman's.
Back to the present, it shouldn't come as a surprise, then, when
#Science published an article in June 2025 showing that culture,
#education, and the environment do play a role in our
#abstract understanding.
Such factors go as far as influencing our visual perception and its mental processing.
For example, the Himbas, an ethnic group from Namibia, are less susceptible to optical illusions that usually trick people who grew in urban areas and had a modern education.
The Himba natives are primed by their lifestyle and rural organization, which is based on circular huts and dens, grouped together in a larger circular area.
When shown the famous Coffer Illusion, Himbas can easily focus on the circles, whereas most of us (including myself) see 20 rectangles.
Does this mean that abstraction, in the form of seeing shapes and labeling them mentally as “squares” or “circles”, is culturally biased?
This is a question I explore further in The Gradient.
https://www.thegradient.xyz/circle-or-rectangle-the-abstract-through-the-eyes-of-culture/
