The influence of the reflective-impulsive cognitive style on visual inspection

Thirty-nine subjects participated in an experiment designed to evaluate the influence of the reflective-impulsive cognitive style on visual inspection. The Matching Familiar Figures Test (MFFT) was used to classify subjects as reflectives (longer times, fewer errors), impulsives (shorter times, more errors), fast-accurates (shorter times, fewer errors), and slow-inaccurates (longer times, more errors). Following administration of the MFFT, subjects participated in a laboratory visual inspection task. Results from the inspection task indicate that the MFFT groups coalesced along an accuracy rather than a speed dimension. The more accurate groups (reflectives and fast-accurates) were significantly faster than the inaccurates (impulsives and slow-inaccurates) in detecting certain flaws, and they made fewer size-judgment errors. However, the inaccurates detected more flaws, (i. e. , made fewer search errors) than did the accurates. These results are interpreted in terms of the possible cognitive styles affecting inspection performance.