7/8/15

Research into cognition has indicated cultural differences between Western and East Asian subjects in the perception of two-dimensional screen based images. East Asian subjects are able to process complex changes in visual information across a screen space better than Western subjects, who deal best with centralised changes. This paper discusses how these cultural cognitive differences transfer to the design and interpretation of three-dimensional virtual space, as represented on a two-dimensional screen.

Space syntax measures where used to analyse East Asian and Western game environments. Initial results indicate that there are statistically significant differences between the spatial parameters of the two cultural groups of chosen game environments. The analysis of three-dimensional game space also indicates spatial design differences between original Western game environments and their adapted form for the East Asian games market. These adapted game environments are spatially comparable to game environments from other East Asian games, indicating a considered design approach to the design of three-dimensional environments for a different cultural market.

The question of whether cultural influence on the design of each game space is tacit or explicit is also considered. Local spatial characteristics that a designer may visually manipulate, where correlated with global spatial characteristics a designer cannot visually determine. The findings indicate cognitive differences in the design of three-dimensional space are present between the groups of Western and East Asian game environments. Results also indicate that these can be discussed in terms of known cultural cognitive differences in the interpretation of two- dimensional imagery.