Samar Zebian
Samar Zebian received a PhD in Cognitive Science from the University of Western Ontario in Canada. Her research broadly concerns the influences of culture on brain processes, including the influences from artifacts, specific social practices and collectively held meaning systems. In one line of research, she examines how specific literacy practices affect number sense. In another line of research she investigates how public historical events, as well as internalised collective narratives, affect the structure of autobiographical memories. In addition to her Cultural Cognition work, Samar is engaged in research on the medieval and modern history of Psychologyand psychological discourse in the Arab world.
She is the recipient of the International Triandis Dissertation Award which is awarded to culture and psychology scholars.
Samar Zebian is an executive member of the Lebanese Psychological Association, and a member of several international associations. As part of her commitment to promoting a local research culture and interest in the cognitive/brain sciences, she recently launched a column with Information Monthly Magazine, entitled The Amazing Brain: Brain Sciences and Society.
Phone: Voice mail: ++961-1-786-456/464, ext 1850
Address: Lebanese American University
Social Science Department
Orme Gray, #504
Chouran, 1102 2801
P.O. Box 13-5053
Beirut, Lebanon
Email: [email protected],
She is the recipient of the International Triandis Dissertation Award which is awarded to culture and psychology scholars.
Samar Zebian is an executive member of the Lebanese Psychological Association, and a member of several international associations. As part of her commitment to promoting a local research culture and interest in the cognitive/brain sciences, she recently launched a column with Information Monthly Magazine, entitled The Amazing Brain: Brain Sciences and Society.
Phone: Voice mail: ++961-1-786-456/464, ext 1850
Address: Lebanese American University
Social Science Department
Orme Gray, #504
Chouran, 1102 2801
P.O. Box 13-5053
Beirut, Lebanon
Email: [email protected],
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Papers by Samar Zebian
between culturally sensitive research and developing an appropriate psychology.
there is yet to be a study that surveys display rules across a wide range of cultures. This article reports such a study. More than 5,000 respondents in 32 countries completed the Display Rule Assessment
Inventory. The authors examined five hypotheses concerning the relationship between display rules and individualism-collectivism (IC). The findings indicated the existence of several universal effects, including greater expression toward in-groups versus out-groups, and an overall regulation effect. Individualistic and collectivistic cultures differed on overall expressivity endorsement and in norms concerning specific
emotions in in-group and out-group situations.
autobiographical memory. The LiH effect was studied in two Lebanese samples: a Beiruti sample that
lived in the epicentre of the 15-year Lebanese Civil War (19751990) and another group from the Bi’qa
region who lived in an area that was indirectly exposed for most of the civil war but experienced one
short-term period of war during the Israeli invasion. Using the two-phase word-cueing task to elicit dated
autobiographical memories, we observed a significantly stronger LiH effect in the Beirut sample but also
a significant yet weaker LiH effect in the Bi’qa sample. In addition to the main finding we offer evidence
that the LiH effect waxes and wanes with the level of conflict in an area and that reported personal
experiences of war exposure predict the strength of the LiH effect. Our findings suggest that collective
transitional events which produce a marked change in the fabric of daily living engender historically
defined autobiographical periods which give structure and organisation to how individuals remember
their past."
provides a unique opportunity to examine interactions between phylogenetically ancient systems of semantic repre- sentations and those that are the product of enculturation. While nonsymbolic representations of numerical magnitude are processed similarly by humans and nonhuman animals, symbolic representations of numerical magnitude (e.g., Hindu–Arabic numerals) are culturally invented symbols that are uniquely human. Here, we report a comparison of symbolic and nonsymbolic numerical magnitude processing in two groups of participants who differ substantially in their level of literacy. In this study, level of literacy is used as an index of level of school-based numeracy skill. The data from these groups demonstrate that while the processing of nonsymbolic numerical magnitude (numerical distance effect) is unaffected by an individual’s level of literacy, the process- ing of Hindu–Arabic numerals differs between literate and illiterate individuals. These findings reveal that nonsymbolic numerical magnitude processing is unaffected by encultura- tion, while the processing of numerical symbols is modulated by literacy
between culturally sensitive research and developing an appropriate psychology.
there is yet to be a study that surveys display rules across a wide range of cultures. This article reports such a study. More than 5,000 respondents in 32 countries completed the Display Rule Assessment
Inventory. The authors examined five hypotheses concerning the relationship between display rules and individualism-collectivism (IC). The findings indicated the existence of several universal effects, including greater expression toward in-groups versus out-groups, and an overall regulation effect. Individualistic and collectivistic cultures differed on overall expressivity endorsement and in norms concerning specific
emotions in in-group and out-group situations.
autobiographical memory. The LiH effect was studied in two Lebanese samples: a Beiruti sample that
lived in the epicentre of the 15-year Lebanese Civil War (19751990) and another group from the Bi’qa
region who lived in an area that was indirectly exposed for most of the civil war but experienced one
short-term period of war during the Israeli invasion. Using the two-phase word-cueing task to elicit dated
autobiographical memories, we observed a significantly stronger LiH effect in the Beirut sample but also
a significant yet weaker LiH effect in the Bi’qa sample. In addition to the main finding we offer evidence
that the LiH effect waxes and wanes with the level of conflict in an area and that reported personal
experiences of war exposure predict the strength of the LiH effect. Our findings suggest that collective
transitional events which produce a marked change in the fabric of daily living engender historically
defined autobiographical periods which give structure and organisation to how individuals remember
their past."
provides a unique opportunity to examine interactions between phylogenetically ancient systems of semantic repre- sentations and those that are the product of enculturation. While nonsymbolic representations of numerical magnitude are processed similarly by humans and nonhuman animals, symbolic representations of numerical magnitude (e.g., Hindu–Arabic numerals) are culturally invented symbols that are uniquely human. Here, we report a comparison of symbolic and nonsymbolic numerical magnitude processing in two groups of participants who differ substantially in their level of literacy. In this study, level of literacy is used as an index of level of school-based numeracy skill. The data from these groups demonstrate that while the processing of nonsymbolic numerical magnitude (numerical distance effect) is unaffected by an individual’s level of literacy, the process- ing of Hindu–Arabic numerals differs between literate and illiterate individuals. These findings reveal that nonsymbolic numerical magnitude processing is unaffected by encultura- tion, while the processing of numerical symbols is modulated by literacy