The Influence of the Reflective-Impulsive Cognitive Style on Visual Inspection

Abstract

Thirty-nine subjects participated in an experiment designed to evaluate the influence of the reflective-impulsive cognitive style on visual inspection. The Matching Familiar Figures Test (MFFT) was used to classify subjects as reflectives (longer times, fewer errors), impulsives (shorter times, more errors), fast-accurates (shorter times, fewer errors), and slow-inaccurates (longer times, more errors). Following administration of the MFFT, subjects participated in a laboratory visual inspection task. Results from the inspection task indicate that the MFFT groups coalesced along an accuracy rather than a speed dimension. The more accurate groups (reflectives and fast-accurates) were significantly faster than the inaccurates (impulsives and slow-inaccurates) in detecting certain flaws, and they made fewer size-judgment errors. However, the inaccurates detected more flaws, (i.e., made fewer search errors) than did the accurates. These results are interpreted in terms of the possible cognitive styles affecting inspection performance.

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