ABSTRACT
A distinction between analytic and holistic cognitive processes has long concerned psychologists, and is now enjoying a productive revival. The conceptualization of analytic and holistic processing that guides much of this current work comes from a distinction in the perceptual literature between dimensional separability and integrality (Garner, 1974; Lockhead, 1972; Shepard, 1964). In brief, analytic processing involves treating the stimulus in terms of its constituent properties—comparing stimuli by their values on independent dimensions that may be selectively attended. Holistic processing, by contrast, implies treating the stimulus as an integral whole or “blob” (Lockhead, 1972)—comparing stimuli in terms of their overall similarity relations rather than according to their values on independent dimensions.
