Cognitive Styles

Cognitive style refers to a person's consistent, characteristic way of dealing with their environment, and it significantly affects the way that person goes on to perceive that environment. Psychologists have identified several different cognitive styles that people use in perceiving the world around them; one of the most extensively studied is the "field-dependent and field-independent" cognitive style. Field-dependent people tend to perceive the external world in its totality -- in a global or holistic manner. Field-independent people, by contrast, tend to perceive the external world by breaking it down into smaller units -- in an analytic or differentiated manner. …