Individual Differences in Cognitive Styles

University Of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia PA

Investigators

Abstract

Assumptions about learning styles and cognitive abilities inform the nation's STEM educational curricula and standards. The proposal is aimed at addressing fundamental unanswered questions about the construct, including the neural correlates of individual differences in visual, verbal, and spatial cognitive styles. The PI will examine whether cognitive styles reflect learning and reasoning strategies rather than abilities, which has important implications for the way in which individuals? needs are met in classrooms and other learning environments. Through a series of experiments, the PI will study the behavioral and neural correlates of cognitive styles as well as its effects on memory and attention. These experiments will address such specific questions as: Do cognitive styles represent orthogonal dimensions rather than opposing ends of a spectrum? What neural mechanisms underlie these styles? Does general fluid intelligence relate to an ability to switch flexibly between styles as dictated by task context? Will those who have a propensity towards a particular cognitive style show better memory retention for information presented in their preferred modality? Is successful encoding correlated with activity in predicted brain regions? At the time of encoding, does one tend to convert information presented in a non-preferred modality into a preferred modality? The project will culminate in series of experimental interventions design to study the effectiveness of training participants to adopt a new cognitive style and apply it to an untrained task. The promise of this project is that it will help synthesize and make more coherent current theories and findings on cognitive and learning styles and, supported by solid scientific methodology, lay the foundation for improved pedagogical techniques.