Common experiences and learning of beliefs, values, cognitive schema, and behavioral habits in groups of people often underlie the formation of cultures. However, the neurobiological processes supporting this fundamental human experience of cultural learning remain poorly understood.
In this Research Topic, we are motivated by the need to understand the mechanics and implications of how brain function is acculturated. Our interest spans the most basic forms of cultural learning, such as learning one’s native culture or new cultures over the lifespan, to the most extreme forms of cultural learning, such as radicalization. We aim to bring together existing theoretical and empirical work on cultural learning and its neural mechanisms. Additionally, we welcome studies that explore the practical applications of this knowledge in fields such as, but not limited to, education and healthcare. All forms of submissions are invited from works based on population, cross-sectional, longitudinal, or experimental data, to modeling, to theoretical papers. In addition, we note that human technological advancements reduce physical boundaries and increase opportunities for novel cross-cultural exchanges across different environmental contexts (including with the technology itself). In view of this, we also invite work that explores broad and dynamic notions of culture. In a world where cultural interaction occurs on an increasingly massive and rapid basis, understanding how individual brains adapt to this is of urgent concern.
We expect this set of works to provide basic understanding of the bidirectional influences between cultural experience and brain function as well as inform interventions aimed at modifying or reacting to cultural learning when it is maladaptive.
Common experiences and learning of beliefs, values, cognitive schema, and behavioral habits in groups of people often underlie the formation of cultures. However, the neurobiological processes supporting this fundamental human experience of cultural learning remain poorly understood.
In this Research Topic, we are motivated by the need to understand the mechanics and implications of how brain function is acculturated. Our interest spans the most basic forms of cultural learning, such as learning one’s native culture or new cultures over the lifespan, to the most extreme forms of cultural learning, such as radicalization. We aim to bring together existing theoretical and empirical work on cultural learning and its neural mechanisms. Additionally, we welcome studies that explore the practical applications of this knowledge in fields such as, but not limited to, education and healthcare. All forms of submissions are invited from works based on population, cross-sectional, longitudinal, or experimental data, to modeling, to theoretical papers. In addition, we note that human technological advancements reduce physical boundaries and increase opportunities for novel cross-cultural exchanges across different environmental contexts (including with the technology itself). In view of this, we also invite work that explores broad and dynamic notions of culture. In a world where cultural interaction occurs on an increasingly massive and rapid basis, understanding how individual brains adapt to this is of urgent concern.
We expect this set of works to provide basic understanding of the bidirectional influences between cultural experience and brain function as well as inform interventions aimed at modifying or reacting to cultural learning when it is maladaptive.