Culture and cognition

•Cultures shape basic cognition, such as attention, perception, categorization, memory and heuristics.•Differences in social orientation, among other factors, can account for cultural differences in cognition.•Culture-specific thinking styles guide our judgments and decision-making processes.•Future studies can examine culture more broadly, and further explore mediators and moderators.

In this paper, we review the latest developments in cultural influences on attention, perception, categorization, memory and cognitive heuristics. We then explore the origin of these cultural differences, and highlight the implications of such culture-specific thinking styles for people's judgment and decision-making processes. We conclude this review by discussing some of the future research directions to further advance our understanding in culture and cognition.