What Kind of Thinker are You? Poll Data Summary

A discussion of the major modalities that form the distinctions of the questions can be found in a previous blog post: A Structural Model of Mind and Cognition. Discussion of the functioning and interaction of modalities and pathways of the model will be posted in the near future.

The poll data is presented in the table. The proportion of people’s preference for each is represented as a percentage in the bottom-left and top-right corners of each cell. The statistical probability of the Chi² test is presented in the top-left corner and highlighted green if it is less than the benchmark of .05, and the total number of respondents to each distinction is presented in the bottom-right corner of each cell.

Results

Major Modality Distinctions

Statistically Significant Differences

Six out of ten of the distinctions were found to have a statistically significant difference in the proportions of people favouring them. These were for the following questions;

·         Do you think mainly about your emotions or reasons?

o    37.9% Emotions

§  Represents the Motivational Modality

o    62.1% Reasons

§  Represents the Orientational Modality

·         Do you think more about quality or details?

o    64.5% Quality

§  Represents the Motivational Modality

o    35.5% Details

§  Represents the Environmental Modality

·         When you think do you imagine scenarios, or dialogues more often?

o    68.3% Scenarious

§  Represents the Orientational Modality

o    31.7% Dialogues

§  Represents the Communicational Modality

·         Do you think more about a person's communication, or, their behaviour?

o    80.8% Behaviour

§  Represents the Behavioural Modality

o    19.2% Communication

§  Represents the Communicational Modality

·         Do you think more about what action to take, or, what events are happening?

o    69.9% Actions

§  Represents the Behavioural Modality

o    30.1% Events

§  Represents the Environmental Modality

·         Do you think mainly in words or pictures?

o    39.6% Words

§  Represents the Communicational Modality

o    60.4% Pictures

§  Represents the Environmental Modality

There was an overall trend in the distinctions that showed a statistically significant difference in people’s preferences. All of these distinctions showed a preference towards internal-management (or ‘top-down’) modalities over external-sensory modalities for thinking. Motivational and Orientational modality thinking were favoured over the external-sensory modalities of Communicational and Environmental. The Behavioural modality, which is theoretically both internal-management and external-sensory, was also generally favoured for thinking over the external-sensory modalities. Finally, between the external-sensory modalities, people generally favoured Environmental modality thinking over Communicational thinking.

Equivalent Distinctions

There was no overall difference in preference for the remaining four modalities, represented in these questions;

·         Do you think more about your motivation or your action?

o    54.0% Motivation

§  Motivational Modality

o    46.0% Action

§  Behavioural Modality

·         Do you think more about what steps to take, or the objectives to obtain?

o    50.5% Objectives

§  Orientational Modality

o    49.5% Steps

§  Behavioural Modality

·         Do you think more about the motivation behind communication, or, the message itself?

o    50.4% Motivation

§  Motivational Modality

o    49.6% Message

§  Communicational Modality

·         Do you think more about the Elements of, or your Approach to, a situation?

o    55.7% Approach

§  Orientational Modality

o    44.3% Elements

§  Environmental Modality

People’s preferences were balanced for these distinctions; however the nominal trend was still towards internal-management modalities over external-sensory modalities.

Additional Exploration

Three questions about distinctions between major information processing routes, and a hypothetical difference between hemispheric lateralisation were also included. These were;

·         Do you think more about the broad domain, or, the general quality of things, situations, places?

o    Internal-Management Modalities

o    Contextualising Information

o    76.4% Quality

§  Motivational Modality

o    23.6% Domain

§  Orientational Modality

o    p < .01

o    N = 55

·         Do you think more about the values or principles behind things?

o    Internal-Management Modalities

o    Specifying Information

o    52.3% Values

§  Motivational Modality

o    47.7% Principles

§  Orientational Modality

o    p = .63

o    N = 107

·         Do you think more about certainty or possibility?

o    Hemispheric lateralisation

o    82.9% Possibility

§  Static-relational, Left-Hemisphere

o    17.1% Certainty

§  Dynamic-Referents, Right-Hemisphere

o    p < .01

o    N = 123

People showed a statistically significant preference for Motivational thinking for processing that involved broad contextual information, but no preference between Motivational and Orientational thinking for processing that involved specific instances or details. This result was somewhat in the opposite direction to the overall group preference for Orientational thinking when compared to Motivational thinking.

There was a significant preference for thinking that involved the application of fixed-relationships to find ‘possibilities’ when thinking. This style of information processing is hypothetically linked to the left-hemisphere due to hemispheric lateralisation and specialisation of language and communication which are characteristically relational following fixed syntactic patterns. Conversely, dynamic-referent thinking is characterised by fluidly applying fixed points of reference in search of ‘certainty’. This style of thinking is linked with the right hemisphere due to lateralisation and specialisation of spatial processing which is characteristically about coordinate reference points.

Discussion

People generally show a preference towards internal-management modalities for thinking, supporting the idea that internal-management modalities are critically involved for evaluation, planning, and the regulation of external-sensory modalities.

Between motivational and orientational modalities, the patterns of results suggested that people’s preferences for connected external-sensory modalities were different. People showed no preference between communicational thinking and motivational thinking, but did show a preference for motivational thinking over environmental thinking. Conversely, people showed no preference for environmental thinking and orientational thinking, but showed a preference for orientational thinking over communicational thinking. This juxtaposed arrangement is suggestive of different cognitive thinking styles and perhaps modality interconnectivity in cognition.

Whilst overall people showed a preference for Orientational thinking when internal-management modalities were compared, the direction of preference reversed when the comparison was for thinking about broad contexts. The number of respondents for this question however was relatively small compared to other questions (N = 55) which could suggest difficulties in the ease at which the question was understood. There was also no particular preference for either type of thinking for specific instances. Further investigation is required before conclusions can be drawn about processing pathways at the internal-management level.

The hypothetical question comparing left and right hemispheric thinking styles showed a strong and significant preference towards the left-hemisphere. The strength of this preference approached the population statistic of handedness (10% left, 90% right), and even closer if mixed-handedness is considered (5-6% of the population). This result supports the utility of the question, and the general proposition of left-hemispheric dominance in the population.

Overall, preferences were fairly evenly spread across the various modality distinctions made. This even spread of preferences supports the utility of modality based thinking distinctions for measuring personality.

Limitations

Ipsative, forced-choice, poll data is fairly insensitive in that it does not measure the extent of individual’s preferences or biases. It is possible that some of the proportions in preference could disappear or be reduced if people had the option to answer with ‘a balance of the two’. As such, this data and results can be little more than suggestive, utilisable only for qualitative and anecdotal purposes.

Further limitations that arose, judged by comments made by respondents, are that the framing and wording of these distinctions could affect people’s preferences. For example, questions oriented towards thinking about the ‘self’ could incur different preferences compared to thinking about ‘others’ or thinking about subjects that are not to do with people at all. The social attractiveness of some word labels, e.g., ‘Quality’ and ‘Behaviour’, also appeared to be associated with stronger preferential bias from the group.

Conclusions

Suggestive evidence for the existence of cognitive styles based on distinctive profiles for internal-management and external-sensory thinking was found. These styles may follow the conceptual distinction between ‘explorers’ (motivational preference, opportunistic and focused on the environment) and ‘planners’ (orientational preference, directive and focused on communication) - following the exploratory-exploitative decision making strategy that is outlined in the broader research literature. Future investigation should include measures of strength of preference and focus on interrelationships between preferences within individuals. Results from a short-form pilot questionnaire that included these elements will be presented in the near future.

A Structural Model of Mind and Cognition

This article refines and extends the ideas discussed in a previous article - An Overview of Cognition: The Hardware - and is the basis for the Cognitive Styles Pilot Questionnaire in the last blog posting. Future posts will discuss the functioning of the model, and how it compares to other popular models (i.e., Baddeley's Working Memory model). Summary of results obtained by poll questions about preferences for different types of thinking, and the pilot questionnaire will also be posted in the near future.

Note: Some aspects of this model have been more validated by background literature research than others.

Major theoretical elements and factors:

Based on general distinctions in types of information (modalities), and gross divisions in major information processing routes (pathways) of the brain's cerebral cortex, gleaned loosely from cognitive neuroscience, I present here a model of mind and it's functioning in cognition. It should be noted however, that neuroscience is not the primary focus here, but has been included to be suggestive of ways in which parsimony between the more subjective informational states and processing systems of cognition may link up with the more objective, biological, and anatomical architecture of the brain. As such, any reference to anatomical brain regions should not be taken as definitive, but instead as suggestive. This said, it is from a point of reference to anatomical structure from which this model will be discussed and constructed. The main aim here being to provide an organisational structure by which to understand and order the broad and diverse information that is inherent to cognitive science.

The structure of the human mind and brain can be grossly divided into 4 functional regions, consisting of 5 modalities, with 3 major processing pathways. The 4 major functional regions are internal-management, external-sensory, static-relations, and dynamic-referents. The 5 major modalities are spread across the first two regions and throughout all of the latter two, they are; motivation, orientation, behavioural, communication, and environmental. Finally, the 3 major processing pathways are contextualising, specifying, and translational. All of these functional, modal, and processing pathway structures are interconnected and interact in the production of cognition and thought.

The 4 major functional regions are associated with anatomical divisions of the brain. The first region of internal-management deals with information and processes that are involved in decision making, evaluation, and volitional control. The internal-management region is associated with the frontal, rostral-anterior regions of the cortex in both hemispheres. The second region of external-sensory processes information related to external sensory organs, the eyes and ears. This region is associated with the rear, caudal-posterior regions of the cortex in both hemispheres. The third static-relations region deals with information about fixed interrelationships and is associated with the left-hemisphere. The fourth and final functional region is dynamic-referents, which deals with coordinate, reference point information, and is associated with the right-hemisphere.

The internal-management region consists mainly of two information processing modalities. These modalities are motivation and orientation. The motivation modality processes and stores information about value outcomes, and the orientation modality processes and stores information about domains. The external-sensory region consists mainly of two other modalities. These modalities are communication and environmental. The communication modality stores and processes information about audio, sound, and language, whereas the environmental modality stores and processes information about visual elements like space, hue, and texture. The fifth processing modality is located between the internal-management and external-sensory regions and occupies space in both regions. It is thus considered as both internal-management and external-sensory. This modality is behavioural and processes and stores information about bodily movement.

These modalities are found in both the static-relations and dynamic-referent, hemispheric regions. Individual modalities may however be dominant in one of these regions over the other. For example, the communication modality is dominant in the static-relational region, the left hemisphere. The environmental modality however may well be dominant in the dynamic-referent region, the right hemisphere.

Within hemispheres there are three major information processing routes or pathways. The first pathway runs along the top of the brain, across its superior surface and is called the contextualising pathway. This pathway processes information into contexts and interrelationships and is largely associated with spatial information. The second pathway runs along the lower, inferior surfaces of the brain and is called the specifying pathway. This pathway processes information into specific elements, details, and discrete objects. The final pathway runs from the outer surfaces to the inner surfaces of the brain, lateral to medial, and is called the translational pathway. The outer surfaces of the brain deal with information to do with the reception and apprehension of information, whilst those in the middle deal with information about expression and assertion of information into other regions and modalities.

The 5 modalities can be distinguished into two sub-modalities based on the contextualising and specifying pathways which define different types of information. For the motivation modality the upper, or superior, sub-modality of the contextualising pathway processes information about qualities. The lower, or inferior, sub-modality of the specifying pathway processes information about values. The sub-modalities of the orientation modality are domain (contextualising) and principle (specifying). For the behavioural modality they are coordination (contextualising) and response (specifying). The communication modality has tonal (contextualising) and articulation (specifying). Finally, the environmental modality is divided into spatial (contextualising) and material (specifying).

Overall, functional regions describe the broad purposes of the modalities that they contain. Modalities describe the general types of information that are stored and processed within the long-term memory networks of the cerebral cortex associated with them. Pathways describe information flow in cognitive processing within and across modalities. Lastly, sub-modalities define specific types of information that lend themselves to the logical flow of information in a cognitive process. For example, valued principles applied to a domain produce a sense of quality; value information interacting with principle information within a domain substantiates an evaluation of quality.