Does culture affect how we see the world? Researchers from the University of Michigan think so, according to this AP article reproduced on Wired.com:
Asians and North Americans really do see the world differently. Shown a photograph, North American students of European background paid more attention to the object in the foreground of a scene, while students from China spent more time studying the background and taking in the whole scene, according to University of Michigan researchers.
Not too surprising - there were studies done in Japan in the late 70s about how reading kanji stimulated both hemispheres of the brain, whereas reading roman alphabet or katakana was less symmetrical.