The Chinese object-oriented philosophical notion in light of Oneness of Man and Nature differs from English egocentricity notion based on philosophy of Man is the Measure of All Things. Such philosophical contrast leads to cognitive contrast between Chinese cognitive style that is characteristic of ground-preference and English cognitive style that is characteristic of figure-preference. The difference in cognitive styles underlies the culture-specific priority of ground or figure, which underlies the discordance between Chinese and English spatial and temporal cognition, discount calculation, construing of ditransitive structure, and so on. The differing priority of ground or figure steers the discrepant ways of comprehension of the counterparts between Chinese and English in cross-cultural communication, which leads to mutual misunderstanding with each other.

As little attention have been paid on such kind of research so far, relevant cognitive-style-based strategies have to be taken into account to assure the success of cross-cultural communication.