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Individual Differences in Relational Reasoning

Abstract

Relational processing has been linked to cognitive capacitymeasures, such as working memory and fluid intelligence.Sufficient capacity, however, does not ensure attention torelational structure, as propensity for relational processing mayalso be driven by an individual’s cognitive style. The currentstudy took an individual-differences approach to investigate theprerequisites for relational processing. College studentscompleted a battery of standardized tests of individualdifferences related to fluid intelligence and cognitive style, aswell as a series of experimental tasks that require relationalreasoning. Moderate correlations were obtained betweenrelational processing and measures of cognitive capacity, whilethe influence of cognitive style was restricted to individuals withgreater cognitive capacity. These results support the hypothesisthat a capacity threshold exists, above which cognitive styleimpacts relational processing.

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