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9 - The use of strategies in embedded figures: Tasks by boys with and without organic mild mental retardation: A review and some experimental evidence

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 August 2010

By
Anastasia Alevriadou  and
Helen Tsakiridou
Edited by
Marcia A. Barnes
Marcia A. Barnes
Affiliation:
University of Texas Health Science Center, Houston
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Summary

The field dependent–independent cognitive style and role of simultaneous and successive processes

Educators and researchers have long recognized the unique differences among individuals and the effects these differences can have on learning. Concern for these differences led to research on the cognitive variables or cognitive styles that individuals possess (Tamaoka, 1985). Green (1985) defines cognitive style as consistencies in the ways in which people perceive, think, respond to others, and react to their environment. He contends that cognitive styles are bipolar, value neutral, consistent across domains, and stable over time. With nearly 5,000 references in the literature, field dependence/independence has received the most attention by researchers of all the cognitive styles (Chinien & Boutin, 1993; Harold, 1996; Kent-Davis & Cochran, 1989).

The Field Dependent–Independent cognitive style was hypothesized by Herman Witkin (e.g., Witkin, 1950; Witkin & Goodenough, 1981) and refers to the extent to which a person is dependent vs. independent in organization of the surrounding perceptual field. Measures of cognitive style provide a more extensive and more functional characterization of the child than could be derived from IQ tests alone (Messick, 1984).

A principal measure of field dependence–independence is the Embedded Figures Test (e.g., Children's Embedded Figures Test by Karp & Konstadt, 1971; The Diagnostic Embedded Figures Test by Aalders & Pennings, 1981), in which children locate a previously seen simple figure within a larger, complex figure (pattern). Bowd (1976) stated that embedded figures tests are the most widely used measures designed to assess field dependence–independence in children.

Type
Chapter
Information
Genes, Brain and Development
The Neurocognition of Genetic Disorders
 , pp. 199 - 215
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2010

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