Assessment 1: Real-World Examples

ECON1341
Part 1 – What is Cognitive Style?

The term ‘cognitive style’, was first used by Allport (1937) who described it as a person’s natural or
habitual mode of thinking perceiving and remembering.

Curry (1983) later proposed a framework called the onion model which consisting of three layers
where the outer two layers consists of the ‘instructional preference’ and the ‘information processing
style’ which can both be influenced by an individual’s environment directly or indirectly. However, at
the core of Curry’s onion model, was the ‘cognitive and personality style’ which is considered as the
most stable and resistant to change. Therefore, according to this framework, if multiple people were
all placed in the same environment their whole lives, the way they think, perceive and absorb
information would still vary due to different natural cognitive style.

Riding and Cheema (1991) later argued that there were essentially 2 fundamental cognitive style
dimensions, the ‘wholist-analytic’ and the ‘verbaliser-imager’. They researched various different
dimensions of cognitive style including dependence-independence, impulsivity-reflectivity,
convergent-divergent, leveller-sharpener and holists-serialists. Using these five different dimensions,
correlations were found to fit a single cognitive style which they named the wholist-analytic
dimension as outlined below.

Figure 1: Table of different cognitive styles correlating within the wholist-analytic dimension (Riding and Cheema 1991)

This dimension describes Wholists as people who tend to perceive information with the big picture,
finding connections and patterns among different parts. They prefer to understand problems as a
whole before learning specific parts and details. The other side of the dimension describes Analytic
people as the opposite who tend to break down information into smaller parts and analysing them
before creating a larger understanding.

The verbaliser-imager dimension further helped explore how individuals prefer to represent and
process information. The verbaliser style prefers to use language and words to think and
communicate and often excel at tasks involving reading, writing, speaking and listening. On the other
hand, the Imager style prefers mental images, pictures and visual representations such as charts and
graphs. Individuals with this style would often have stronger visual memory and excel at tasks that
involve visualisation and creative problem solving.
Part 2 – Real-world Example

A real-world example of cognitive style in a workplace would be my personal experience in a training

classroom for a role at a bank. In this training program there was a blend of verbal and visual learning
materials, along with some interactive activities and scenario-based simulations. It was here where I
experienced the vast difference of cognitive styles and its effect on information retention between
different people in the classroom. There were some of my colleagues who could absorb information
very quickly from verbal explanations and PowerPoint presentations which Riding (1991) would
describe as verbal and analytical. Comparatively, some other colleagues and I thrived on visual
representations such as charts and graphs or real-world examples using a simulation program to
mirror what the job would look like. This would categorise our cognitive styles as visualiser and
wholistic according to Riding (1991) as we preferred the use of visual information and valued context
to help retain information.

This experience highlighted the importance of incorporating diverse learning materials and activities
in order to foster a learning environment so all employees in a workplace can effectively think,
perceive and remember information.

Word count: 536

Reference –

Riding R and Cheema I (1991) ‘Cognitive styles – an overview and integration’, Educational
Psychology, Vol11: 193-211