Abstract: Cognitive style represents individuals’ consistence in information acquisition and information processing. It affects individual’s cognitive functioning, such as memory, attention, and problem-solving. To describe the developmental trend of children’s cognitive style and to investigate how cognitive style affects children’s problem-solving behaviors, we measured 98 4- to 8-year-old children’s wholistic-analytic dimension of cognitive style and the strategies they used in problem-solving. Participants were categorized into three age groups: preschoolers of the middle class and the senior class, as well as first-grade primary students. A computer program-based Cognitive Style Analysis (CSA) test was used to measure participants’ cognitive style. The stimuli were presented in a ThinkPad Yoga laptop with a resolution of 1920×1080. Participants were required to judge whether two figures were identical in the wholistic subtask and whether the simple figure was embedded in the complicated figure in the analytic subtask. Task order was counterbalanced among participants. Cube-based Puzzle Game was used to measure the participants’ problem-solving strategies. In the task, participants were required to build the same pattern as in the task card. First, regarding the cognitive style analysis test, we found that primary school children had higher accuracy and shorter reaction time in both the wholistic and the analytic subtasks than preschoolers, which indicates that cognitive ability grows with age rapidly. However, there was no significant difference between preschoolers of the middle class and the senior class. Second, we compared the cognitive style (wholistic-analytic ratio, calculated as the performance on the wholistic task divided by the performance on the analytic task) among children of the three age groups. One-way ANOVA showed that there was no significant age differences, and the average wholistic-analytic ratio was 1.84, suggesting that children aged 4 to 8 overall tended to be wholistic. Meanwhile, the analytic style gradually develops with age, as Pearson correlation results showed that age was significantly negatively correlated with the wholistic-analytic ratio. Finally, we divided participants into the high and low ratio group according to the median of the wholistic-analytic ratio. Mann-Whitney U Test results showed that the high ratio group (relatively wholistic style) used Subject Reference strategy (first complete the main part and then the background) more frequently than low ratio group (relatively analytic style), while low ratio group preferred Clue Inference strategy (complete the puzzle in the order of rows or columns strictly) and Local Positioning strategy( place the cube where it should be without obvious sequence). This study is one of the first research to explore how cognitive style develops in young children and how it influences the problem-solving strategy in early childhood. We found that 4- to 8-year-old children tended to be wholistic cognitive style; meanwhile, the analytic cognitive style increased with age. Importantly, cognitive style influenced children’s problem-solving strategies: children with relatively wholistic cognitive style tended to use Subject Reference strategy in problem-solving, while children with relatively analytic cognitive style tended to use Clue Inference strategy and Local Positioning strategy. The research facilitates our understanding of children's development of cognitive style and its effect on problem-solving behaviors. It may also provide theoretical evidence for early childhood parenting practices and education for children’s problem-solving.

Key words: wholistic-analytic cognitive style, problem-solving, puzzle game, young children

摘要： 认知风格是个体获取和加工信息的一贯模式，影响诸多认知活动。本研究测量了98名4-8岁儿童的认知风格和积木拼图中的问题解决行为，主要发现:（1）4-8岁儿童总体上表现为整体型认知风格，但分析型认知风格随着年龄增长在逐渐发展；（2）认知风格影响问题解决策略：越偏整体型认知风格的儿童越多使用主体参照策略（即先拼主体图形再补充其他部分），并且越少使用线索推断策略（按照行/列的线索顺序依次拼图）和局部定位策略（根据某一局部图案的具体位置摆放积木）。本实验首次探索了低龄儿童认知风格的年龄差异，发现认知风格在发展早期就已影响问题解决行为。研究结果有助于理解儿童认知风格的发展及其作用，为儿童问题解决能力的培养实践提供一定的理论依据。

关键词: 认知风格，整体-分析型，问题解决，拼图游戏