More Evidence for Three Types of Cognitive Style: Validating the Object-Spatial Imagery and Verbal Questionnaire Using Eye Tracking when Learning with Texts and Pictures.

There is some indication that people differ regarding their visual and verbal cognitive style. The Object-Spatial Imagery and Verbal Questionnaire (OSIVQ) assumes a three-dimensional cognitive style model, which distinguishes between object imagery, spatial imagery and verbal dimensions. Using eye tracking as a means to observe actual gaze behaviours when learning with text-picture combinations, the current study aims to validate this three-dimensional assumption by linking the OSIVQ to learning behaviour. The results largely confirm the model in that they show the expected correlations between results on the OSIVQ, visuo-spatial ability and learning behaviour. Distinct differences between object visualizers, spatial visualizers and verbalizers could be demonstrated.