Volu m e II - Purdue University Calumet

the mask through asking for a one word description (see figures 22 and 23).
Were I to ever re-administer this survey, I would place this question at the very beginning so as to
minimize the amount of time participants have to rationalize what they are seeing. However, the results
yielded from this question are still of value. Both survey groups indicated very similar summations in very
similar proportions. The general consensus was that this mask was old, strange, and interesting.
This body of research paints a complex portrait of modern American conceptions of both American
culture and African culture. The most compelling correlation to me was the link between
“Ancient/Old/Wise” in the final survey question for the control group. It seems that there is a perception
of Africa as an old and ancient place, focused on people, wise. Compared to the experimental group’s
industrial answers to the same question, this establishes an interesting dichotomy between perceptions of
developing and developed nations, perhaps even suggesting that in a country and culture where
extraordinary technologies exist to connect people, the technologies actually take precedence over the
human connections they were intended to propagate. That Americans might tend to view African culture,
people-centric as it is, as something wise could be indicative of the growing sense of isolation in a postmodern
world – people lost among the machines of industrialized life.
Were I to embark on this kind of research again, I would change several aspects of my
methodology. To begin with, I would try to bring the actual mask into the classroom with me. As some
participants pointed out, the images I provided on the survey form were not adequate in expressing
dimension, color, or texture, all integral aspects for analysis.
Secondly, I would eliminate two part open-ended questions from the survey, perhaps splitting
these questions in half, as they made the assignment of connotation-based groupings all the more complex.
Lastly, while I would maintain the timed aspect of the survey, I would tweak the time allotted. I found that
many participants finished answering well before time was up.
This paper will conclude with a purely visually based assertion as to the cultural origin of the
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