ABSTRACT
How man comes to know and learn about the world around him has intrigued us since the ancient philosophers Plato and Aristotle. That people and cultures differ in their styles of thinking and learning has been the subject of much speculation: Analytic vs. holistic (Bretherton, McNew, Snyder, & Bates, 1983), sequential vs. simultaneous (Das, Kirby, & Jarman, 1979; Kaufman & Kaufman, 1983), serial vs. holistic (Pask & Scott, 1972), word vs. picture (Levin, Devine-Hawkins, Kerst, & Guttmann, 1974), verbal vs. nonverbal (Paivio, 1974), field dependent vs. field-independent (Witkin & Berry, 1975; Witkin, Dyk, Faterson, Goodenough, & Karp, 1962), have been ways dichotomizing the working styles of the human mind. The theories are at times elaborate (e.g., Witkin et al., 1962), while the evidence is weak. However, if there are such different learning/thinking styles of the mind, the educational ramifications could be far reaching. Would not tailoring the instruction to processing or learning styles facilitate learning? If some children, for instance, are better visual processors than auditory processors would changes in reading instruction, tailored to each style result in learning to read more readily? Should one not have different curricula for children with different styles of thinking, either building upon their strengths or strengthening their weaknesses?
