Cultural Differences in Cognitive Style Development

Children in several cultures seem to develop a similar cognitive style on the Matching Familiar Figures Test (MFFT). At first, they become more reflective (slow-accurate), then more fast-accurate. However, there are two impressions that qualify this account. First, the early MFFT development of Japanese children seems distinctive in that they become far more accurate on the MFFT, with small increases in latency. Second, in several cultures, error decreases may dominate latency increases in early development, implying that the MFFT measures cognitive competence as well as cognitive style. Evaluating either impression requires some way of quantifying speed and accuracy on the MFFT so that they can be directly compared across age and culture groups. We illustrate such an analysis with the MFFT records of 100 Chinese-American children, ages 6-10, and then reanalyze existing data to compare MFFT performance across four cultures. In all four cultures, error rates decrease more than latency increases. However, Japanese children's unique development on the MFFT is supported. Although similar results have led some researchers to dismiss the MFFT as a style measure, we discuss why such a strong conclusion seems premature.