Learning implications of field dependence-independence: Cognitive style versus cognitive ability

The relationship between field dependence-independence and learning has been the subject of much research. In particular it has been suggested that matching teachers and students on cognitive style may produce beneficial results. Much research has also related cognitive style to the way students learn, the way teachers teach, and the way students make choices and perform in various academic areas. While cognitive style has provided the theoretical framework, it is found upon re-examination that a contrasting interpretation in terms of cognitive ability is readily applicable.     

Mechanisms of aural encoding: VIII. Phonetic interference and context-sensitive coding in short-term memory

In previous experiments Ss were presented for ordered recall with sequences of five consonant phonemes paired with /a/ in which the middle three consonant phonemes shared the same manner of articulation (voiced, unvoiced, nasal), the same place of articulation (front, middle, back), or neither the same manner nor place of articulation (control sequences). Compared to performance in control sequences, the middle consonant phoneme was always more difficult to recall in manner of articulation sequences but not in place of articulation sequences. The results suggested that for these sequences consonant phonemes were not remembered in terms of their place of articulation. In the present experiment, sequences of consonant-vowel (CV) or vowel-consonant (VC) syllables were presented for recall in which each consonant phoneme was paired with a different vowel. When consonant phonemes in the different sequence types were presented for recall with different vowels, phonetic interference was observed for the middle consonant in place of articulation sequences as well as manner of articulation sequences, and the effect was observed in both CV and VC groups. It was suggested that vowels are encoded in short-term memory in terms of their place of articulation and that presenting consonant phonemes for recall with different vowels caused Ss to use this dimension to code consonant phonemes in short-term memory.     

Individual differences in field articulation as a factor in language comprehension

Previous research has suggested that performance differences associated with field independence/field articulation (FA) reflect differences in the efficiency of a limited capacity “working memory” (WM) system. An information-processing analysis of language comprehension suggests the involvement of WM. This experiment tested the hypothesis that performance differences in a language comprehension task could be predicted on the basis of level of FA and the mediating role of WM. Three levels of memory load were established by varying the logical structure of sets of semantically related sentences which subjects were required to integrate. In the low memory load condition, there was no difference between high and low FA subjects on a test of integration (inference) and specific memory (recognition). In the high memory load condition, there was a decline in performance for low FA subjects on both inference and recognition. Other aspects of the results suggested that the breakdown in information processing, for low FA subjects in the high memory load condition, occurred during or shortly after initial encoding of the sentences.     

Influence of instructions and cognitive articulation on reducing the Müller-Lyer illusion with a repeated trial

The role of specific, suggestive instructions and of the subject's cognitive articulation in fostering modifications of Müller-Lyer illusory effect was studied. 60 female students were divided into four subgroups on the basis of (a) Witkin's GEFT scores and (b) instructions given to the subjects for the repeated trial. Analysis shows no statistically significant difference between the more and less articulated subjects on the first trial, for influence of both cognitive articulation and instructions or their interaction on the reduction of the illusion. Data are interpreted in terms of some theoretical explanations of geometrical illusions, such as 'centration theory' and 'assimilation theory'.     

Methodological practices in cognitive style research: Insights and recommendations from the field of business and psychology

This study provides insights and recommendations concerning methodological practices of cognitive style research applied to the field of business and psychology. Based on a carefully designed selection process, 139 style-related articles published between 1986 and 2010 were content-analysed. In terms of research design, we found the field to be dominated by quantitative, cross-sectional, and single-source designs that relied heavily on self-reports, sample surveys, and student samples. While this might indicate a potential vulnerability in terms of internal and external validity, a strong emphasis on construct validity was also found, exemplified by high attention to reliability, and exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses. With regard to construct measurement, although more than 30 different instruments were used, the field was dominated by three of these. Regarding data analysis, traditional approaches have been mainly used and more advanced and novel approaches have not yet permeated through the cognitive style field. Implications and suggestions for future research are offered. This is the first review of methodological practices in cognitive style research and represents an important step in the advancement of the field.     

Erratum

The main aims of this study were a) to assess the cerebellar deficit hypothesis examining children's performance in cerebellar and cognitive tasks associated with the dyslexic syndrome and b) to investigate if there is a differentiation in articulation speed in children with dyslexia. A battery consisted of five cerebellar tests, five cognitive tests, and an articulation speed test was administered to three age- and sex-matched groups of dyslexics, children with attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and normal readers aged 8–12 years. The dyslexics showed significant impairment in one cerebellar test compared with the control group and in two cognitive tests compared with both the control and the ADHD group. Additionally, the dyslexic children performed significantly worse than the control group during the articulation speed test; such a difference was not observed between the control and the ADHD group. The present study provides clues to support the cerebellar deficit hypothesis and the possible relationship between reading impairment and speed of articulation. Further research is considered essential to clarify the relationship between cerebellar function, dyslexia, and oral language speed.     

Intuition and entrepreneurial behaviour

Entrepreneurs can be differentiated from non-entrepreneurs on the basis of intention, but intention is not always translated into performance that produces entrepreneurial outcomes. It is proposed that an alternative basis for differentiation is cognitive style (preferred approach to information processing). The present study hypothesizes that those owner managers who are, in practice, successful at identifying and exploiting opportunities for growth and capital accumulation (i.e., successful entrepreneurs) are (1) more intuitive in their cognitive style than the general population of managers; (2) no different in cognitive style from senior managers and executives; and (3) more intuitive than middle and junior managers. A questionnaire containing the Cognitive Style Index (CSI), a measure of the intuitive-analytic dimension, was distributed to the 437 founders of high growth companies listed in the latest edition of the publication Local Heroes (Scottish Enterprise, 1997). The 156 replies (representing a response rate of 35% were compared with those of 546 managers from various organizations who had completed the questionnaire previously. Results showed that all three hypotheses were upheld. Although the study was essentially exploratory, the findings are encouraging. They suggest fertile ground for further research by highlighting the importance of cognitive aspects of entrepreneurial behaviour.     

Cognitive style and customer orientation

Cognitive style, the ways in which we take in information from the environment and process that information, has been shown to influence interactions in various behavioral fields. This paper investigates whether cognitive style would impact an individual's orientation toward the customer or toward the sale, as measured by the SOCO scale. The results suggest that cognitive style can influence one's orientation. This knowledge should prove useful to sales managers in designing training programs for new sales personnel, as well as in assigning sales personnel to specific selling tasks.     

Leadership Style and Sales Performance: A Test of the Situational Leadership® Model

This paper presents an empirical examination of the Situational Leadership® Model (SLM), which is used extensively in management training programs by major corporations and government agencies. Data from 675 salespersons and 41 branch managers in the insurance industry did not support the hypothesis that leadership styles prescribed by the SLM were associated with superior sales performance. The four styles described by the SLM were also tested, with an exploratory regression, in terms of their relative effects on sales performance. Agents working for managers who preferred the high-task, low-relationship style performed better than did agents working for managers who preferred other styles. Some implications for future research and practice are discussed.     

Age,sex, training,and the measurement of field dependence

This study was designed to: (a) examine the effects of age and sex on a person's susceptibility to field dependence training; (b) determine whether the field dependence phenomenon is a function of “cognitive style” or of a person's general inability to make correct judgments in the face of too much confusing and inaccurate information. Traditional Rod and Frame scoring is based on the latter assumption. Interpretation of results, however, has traditionally been based on the “cognitive style” assumption. Results indicate that Rod and Frame results are not a function of cognitive style. This seems particularly true of two aspects of the field dependence phenomenon: (a) the sex difference effect and (b) the correlation between Rod and Frame and Embedded Figures results. Age, more than sex, may be a function of both cognitive style and general ability to perceive the upright. A training effect was not demonstrated. Hypotheses were put forward to explain the nature of field dependence, the magnitude of field dependence errors, and the lack of a training effect.     

Field dependence-independence and social traditionalism

Three independent variables—ethnicity, sex, and urbanism—were used to investigate differences in the cognitive style, field dependence-independence, among six ethnic subcultures of Trinidad. It was assumed that differences in field dependence-independence reflected differences in adherence to values of social traditionalism among the six subcultures. The major hypothesis of the study was that a field-dependent cognitive style would be functional for the maintenance of social traditionalism, whereas a field-independent cognitive style would facilitate modernization. It was found that ethnicity, sex and urbanism were significant predictors of field dependence-independence, but because of a significant interaction effect, the results were not uniform. Ethnicity was the strongest predictor of cognitive style, for example, but whether it did, in fact, significantly predict field dependence-independence depended on the sex and the urbanism of the subjects. Consequently, the hypothesized rank order of ethnic groups by field dependence-independence held only for urban males.     

Hypnotic blindness and the relevance of cognitive style

Real, hypnotized and simulating, unhypnotized subjects were instructed to use either a constructive or a concentrative cognitive style when attempting to respond to a suggestion for hypnotic blindness; also, some subjects were administered the suggestion without any instructions about cognitive style. More reals who received the constructive rather than the concentrative instructions reported complete blindness; a similar number of simulators who received the different instructions reported complete blindness. Moreover, reals who received the constructive instruction reported a more rapidly developed belief in their blindness. The findings are discussed in terms of the relevance of cognitive style to subjects' reports of hypnotic blindness, and the possibility is considered that both reports of and belief in hypnotic blindness are determined in part by cognitive style.     

Influence of articulation rate on two memory tasks in young and older adults

This study investigated the relation between phonological loop functioning and age. Phonological loop is a time-based subsystem of the Working Memory Model of Baddeley and Wilson, which uses rehearsal of information as an active process to avoid phonological decay. Performance differences were examined between young and older adults in two speech-based memory tasks, such as the immediate serial recall of words and the Digit Ordering Task. Analysis showed that performance on both tasks was lower for the older group. Articulation rate was also measured to test the hypothesis that the impairment of some cognitive functions in adults can be associated to their slowness or the greater time needed by older adults for the rehearsal process. A significant negative correlation was found for articulation rate with age. When the effect of articulation rate on Serial Recall and Digit Ordering Tasks was partialled out, the difference between the two groups was eliminated.     

Effect of ingroup membership on organizational meta-representation

The present study considers the importance of analyzing what very powerful or influential people think about their employees. We assumed that belonging to a specific category has a differential effect on the perception of others' thoughts in the organization ("meta-representation"). Therefore, experts in organization and human resources from diverse organizations and institutions assessed seven dimensions which structure the organizational image (context, structure, organizational processes, working climate, culture, satisfaction and efficacy). The results showed that belonging to a group (managers or leaders, academicians, consultants, technicians or employees' representatives) modulated the meta-representation, as the experts' opinion about what they think that the employees consider important was related to their group. This was specifically the case for the managers' and leaders' representations, which differed from the other groups and especially from that of the technicians and employees' representatives. The implications of the present findings are discussed.     

认知操作、认知方式与外倾性人格特质的关系

对28名外倾被试和28名内倾被试进行实验性认知测试,以考察认知操作、认知方式与外倾性人格特质的关系。结果表明,内外倾被试在含有社会认知操作、非社会认知操作的认知任务的测试总分上没有差异,而在社会认知一非社会认知方式的评价分数上存在显著差异。外倾被试更多地倾向于社会认知型认知方式,内倾被试更多地倾向于非社会认知型认知方式。研究结果支持了外倾性与智力关系的假设：外倾性与社会认知一非社会认知的认知方式存在相关关系,而与认知操作测试总分无关。     

Cross-national stability of a leadership model

This study explored 60 Greek-Cypriot managers' perceptions of different dimensions of leadership. Analyses using structural equation modeling were performed to examine the invariance of the Flamholtz six-factor leadership model. The same leadership styles observed in samples from countries previously studied were present in the sample from Cyprus. In terms of the importance assigned to each style of leadership, Cypriot managers emphasized the more directive styles to a greater extent than other styles.     

Cognitive Vulnerability to Persistent Depression

Abstract

The account of cognitive vulnerability to depression offered by Beck's cognitive model is summarised. As this account currently lacks consistent empirical support, an alternative, related, account is presented. This proposes that, once a person is initially depressed, an important factor that determines whether their depression remains mild or transient, or becomes more severe and persistent, is the nature of the negative cognitive processes and constructs that become active and accessible in the depressed state. These interact with the nature of environmental difficulties, available social support, and biological factors, to determine whether a depression-maintaining cognitive-affective vicious cycle will be set up.

Results from studies specifically designed to test predictions from this account have yielded positive results. Findings consistent with the hypothesis have also been obtained in other prospective studies which have shown that cognitive measures, administered in the depressed state, predict the future course of depression independently of initial levels of depression.

The hypothesis is elaborated to incorporate the demonstrated relationship of elevated neuroticism to risk and persistence of depression. Recent views on the nature of sex differences in rates of depression, and on the relationship of attributional style to depression are also compatible with the hypothesis. It is concluded that the hypothesis has encouraging preliminary support.

SUMMARY

Two broad aspects of cognitive vulnerability to depression can be distinguished. The first is the tendency to evaluate certain types of life event in ways which will produce intense rather than mild depression. This is the aspect of vulnerability on which Beck's cognitive model appears to concentrate. There are considerable difficulties in assessing this aspect of Beck's model and it is not consistently supported by comparison of recovered depressed patients with control groups.

The second aspect of cognitive vulnerability relates to the cognitive processes and constructs that become active and accessible once a person is in a state of depression. Within this approach, vulnerability to onset and vulnerability to persistence of depression can be roughly distinguished, depending on whether the focus is on the period when the depression has been present for only a brief period, or is mild, or whether depression has already existed for some time and reached at least moderate severity. The account presented here proposes that a crucial factor determining whether an initially mild or transient depressed state remains mild or soon disappears, or becomes more severe and persistent, is whether a vicious cycle based on a reciprocally reinforcing relationship between depressed mood and negative cognitive processing can become established. The probability that this cycle will become established is, in turn, a function of a complex interaction between the environmental difficulties facing a person, the support available to them, their biological state, and the nature of the cognitive processes and constructs that are active and accessible in the depressed state. The kind of cognitive process and constructs that are most active and accessible in the depressed state will be a function both of the patterns of cognitive processing that are characteristic of the person in their normal mood state (such as those related to neuroticism), and of the patterns of cognitive processing that become active in the depressed state. It is on these latter that the differential activation hypothesis concentrates. It suggests that individual differences in the cognitive processes and constructs that become active and accessible in the depressed' state can make an important contribution to whether an initial state of depression becomes more intense, or fades away, and whether, once established, depression of moderate severity persists a long time or a short time. In particular, it is proposed that processes and constructs related to global negative characterological evaluations of the self or that, in other ways, lead to interpretations of experience as highly aversive and uncontrollable are likely to act to intensify and maintain depression.

Two investigations specifically designed to test predictions from the differential activation hypothesis yielded positive results. Further supportive evidence is available from a number of other studies which have examined the relationship between cognitive measures, administered in the depressed state, and the future course of depression. Such studies haverecurringly found that persistence or return of depression is associated with initially high scores on measures of negative cognition, and this association remains when the effects of initial depression level are partialled out.

In addition to this encouraging preliminary empirical support, the differential activation hypothesis has the further attraction that it can incorporate into this account the well established finding that neuroticism is associated with risk of becoming depressed, and of depression persisting. Further, it is quite consistent with recent proposals related to sex differences in rates of depression, and to the relationship of attributional style to depression.     

Linguistic humor comprehension in children with articulation impairments

This study investigated the ability of children with articulation disorders to comprehend linguistic humor. It was hypothesized that children with articulation disorders would have more difficulty understanding humor based on phonological differences than humor based on lexical differences. A second hypothesis predicted that children with articulation disorders would have more difficulty understanding riddles in which the phoneme they misarticulated, either /s/ or /r/, was the source of ambiguity than riddles in which the source of ambiguity did not involve the phoneme they misarticulated. Results did not confirm the first hypothesis as there were no statistically significant differences between groups with regard to the children's ability to understand phonological vs lexical humor. The second hypothesis was supported. Children had significantly more difficulty understanding riddles in which the source of ambiguity related to the phoneme they misarticulated, either /s/ or /r/ than they did understanding phonological humor involving nonerror phonemes.     

Who sees trees before forest? The obsessive-compulsive style of visual attention

It has been suggested that individuals with obsessive-compulsive personalities tend to focus on small local details in their surroundings, whereas histrionic individuals are characterized by more global information processing. Using the global-local hierarchical-letters paradigm, we were able to provide support for the first but not the second hypothesis. Measures related to obsessive-compulsive personality disorder were associated with excessive visual attention to small details of the hierarchical letters. Specifically, the obsessive-compulsive cognitive style was associated with local interference, which reflects the effects of distraction by to-be-ignored small details on identification of global information.     

The relationship of attitudes,habit and loyalty to market share in relation to a staple good in a local grocery store: An exploratory study

The influence of brand attitudes, brand loyalty and habit on market share is analyzed. The data were generated from a sample of bar soap purchasers in a store, where there were no variations in price or promotional displays during the field study. Results indicate that brand attitudes and habit are both directly and indirectly related to market share with the indirect path occurring through brand loyalty. The results are discussed in terms of their significance for researchers and managers.