Field Dependence-Independence on the Children's Embedded Figures Test: Cognitive Style or Cognitive Level?

In research at the interface of personality and intellectual development, an important issue concerns the distinction between cognitive ability and cognitive style. Achenbach and Weisz (1975). recently demonstrated that the distinction is rather difficult to draw with respect to the cognitive style dimension of impulsivity-reflectivity. Another widely studied cognitive style construct that deserves such scrutiny in the globalarticulated dimension, which Witkin and others (cf. Witkin, Oltman, Raskin, & Karp, 1971) have investigated through tests of perceptual field dependence-independence. Witkin's view that fielddependent persons are relatively poor at imposing structure upon experience has been supported in part by the finding that ability to structure Rorschach responses correlates significantly with field independence. Yet Zigler (e.g., 1963) has argued that many such correlations between field dependence and other measures may result from a common relationship between the measures employed and level of cognitive ability, or mental age (MA). Studies of Rorschach structuring ability and of field dependence in children do indicate that both are related to general development as measured by chronological age (CA). This fact suggests that the Zigler hypothesis bears further examination; such an examination was the major purpose of the present investigation. In contrast to studies in which age was the only measure of development, the present study was designed to separate the effects of CA and MA by employing them as orthogonal factors. Four groups (shown in Table 1) formed a 2 X 2 (MA, 9 and 12 years vs. CA, 9 and 12 years) factorial design. The CA 9-MA 12 group contained five boys and seven girls, the other groups six boys and six girls each. In the first of two sessions an experienced