Do Cognitive Styles Affect Psychophysical Tasks Performance?

Abstract

Background. In order to deepen understanding of signal detection/discrimination processes we have to focus on highlighting individual differences in observers' sensory performance due to the contribution of various variables of personality and cognition spheres. The purpose of our study was to test cognitive style factors (augmenting-reducing, levelling-sharpening, flexibility-rigidity of cognitive control, equivalence range, and focusing-scanning) influencing performance of psychophysical tasks.Methods. Ninety participants performed a set of cognitive style tests as well as two psychophysical tasks on visual signal detection ('yes-no') and loudness discrimination ('same-different'). The duration of visual pattern presentation and difference between pairs of auditory stimuli were used to provide task's difficulty level, and therefore the level of uncertainty. Results. Data analysis showed several effects of cognitive styles on psychophysical tasks performance indices, in particular: sensory sensitivity, RT and its stability, and response confidence. According to our results, each style is related to its own benefits and advantages in observer's overall productivity. Furthermore, the contribution of cognitive styles differed depending on task's type and difficulty level. Conclusions. Our results support current findings, considering cognitive styles as playing a regulative role in cognitive activity. Hence, they could be acknowledged as tools, mediating individual strategies, representing different ways of coping with perceptual uncertainty.

Cognitive Styles And Psychophysical Tasks Performance: A Latent Class Analysis Study

“…Our previous study showed that these CS dimensions relate to higher accuracy of solving signal detection tasks, i.e. higher sensory sensitivity, due to their specific features in contrast to opposite dimensions of corresponding CS (Volkova & Gusev, 2017). In particular, they have an advantage in sensitivity due to their ability to: (1)…”

“…The experimental session started with two psychophysical tasks, each of which had two difficulty levels (easy and hard): (1) visual signal detection 'yes-no' (YN) task, where a distractor was added to the original procedure, and (2) 'same-different' loudness signal discrimination (SD) task. A detailed description of the tasks, including stimuli, instructions, software and apparatus, is presented in our previous paper (Volkova & Gusev, 2017). We assessed sensory sensitivity (A′), strictness of criterion index (YesRate), RT, RT stability (SDRT) and confidence (Conf) for each task.…”

“…In this paper, while we refer to our earlier work dealing with individual CS differences in psychophysical tasks performance (Volkova & Gusev, 2017), the focus is different. While in referred study we aimed at exploring how separate CS affect sensory performance, in the present study our goal is to reveal a set of subgroups characterized by multiple CS dimensions (augmenting-reducing, levelingsharpening, flexibility-rigidity of cognitive control, equivalence range, and focusing-scanning) using latent class analysis (LCA) method, and further assess between-group differences in signal detection/discrimination tasks performance.…”