The purpose of this study was to further investigate performance differences between reflective and impulsive subjects on a recogni tion memory task. Other researchers have proposed that these differences are based on visual analysis and that they are relatively inde pendent of verbal processes. To test this contention, a sentence recognition task was presented either visually or auditorily to twenty reflective and twenty impulsive undergraduate subjects. Results indicated that verbal recognition memory is sensitive to both cognitive tempo and stimulus presentation mode. INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES in cognitive style have prompted an extensive amount of research in recent years. Kagan's reflection-impulsivity (R-I) distinction has received much attention as a potentially useful dimension along which to conceptualize such differences. Many early studies in this area indicated that reflection impulsivity may have important educational implications. First, it appears to be influential in any problem-solving situation in which the subject possesses the basic skills necessary to solve the problem but experiences at least a moderate degree of response uncertainty. In most such cases, response time correlates negatively and substan tially with errors (10). Secondly, the dimension has been consistently shown to be stable over time and across tasks (10, 11,12,14, 18) and relatively independent of verbal intelligence, particularly in young children (9,13, 16, 17). Consequently, Kagan contends that R-I is a broad, pervasive disposition that influences both cognitive and affective behavior (10). Many studies have indeed shown differences in the performances of reflective and impul sive subjects on a wide variety of tasks, including word recognition (10), problem-solving strategies (2,6), induc tive reasoning (12), and tests of creativity (8). The superior performance of reflectives in all these situations has led some researchers to seek differences in specific perceptual and/or cognitive processes which may underlie the R-I dichotomy. The ability to sustain attention (21), high information processing speeds (20), efficient visual scanning strategies (3,7, 19), and cognitive flexibility in adapting to task demands (4) have all been found to con tribute to the reflective disposition. While such findings would seem to support Kagan's proposal that cognitive tempo is a pervasive and useful This content downloaded from 207.46.13.71 on Sat, 22 Oct 2016 05:09:37 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms HOLMAN-SNOWMAN-DEICHMANN 225 dimension, other evidence has appeared to challenge this position. Kirasic and Siegel (15), for example, argued that the R-I distinction was due solely to the ability to perform detailed visual analysis. Twenty-two reflective and twenty two impulsive college students were given ninety-six cards, each containing a line drawing of some common animal or object. They were instructed to look at the cards, going through the entire deck at their own pace. The test con sisted of ninety-six cards, on each of which were two pictures. One of these had appeared in the presentation deck; the other was either a different object (DO) or a picture that differed from the original by 1, 2, or 4 fea tures (1FD, 2FD, or 4FD). The task was to choose the picture that was in the original deck. As predicted, performances on the DO and 4FD con ditions were equivalent and significantly higher than those on the 1FD and 2FD conditions. Also as predicted, reflec tives performed significantly better than impulsives only in conditions 1FD and 2FD, those requiring detailed visual analysis. These results, however, may be questioned on several points. Since a verbal task was not used, it may be pre mature to assume that differences in visual analysis form the basis of cognitive tempo or reflect the extent of its influence. Also, the conditions in which reflective and impulsive performance differences did not occur (DO and 4FD) employed easily distinguishable pictures. Presenting the correct and incorrect choices simultaneously in the forced choice procedure further simplified the task. If R-I differences appear only on tasks which produce a moderate degree of response uncertainty, these items may have been too easy. This task would be particularly simple for adult subjects who do not generally demonstrate the extreme impulsivity and resulting performance deficits found in some young children. In order to test the above hypotheses and further explore the extent of R-I influence, the present study employed two procedures which, to our knowledge, have not been used previously in investigations of cognitive tempo. First, a sentence recognition task was used to determine if R-I differences extend to verbal memory. If reflective subjects perform significantly better than impulsive ones on such a task, Kagan's position that cog nitive tempo reflects a broad cognitive predisposition would be supported. Secondly, the sentences were pre sented auditorily to one group and visually to another. If reflectives and impulsives score differently under the auditory presentation, Kirasic and Siegel's contention that conceptual tempo is based solely on visual processes could be challenged as being too strict an interpretation.