Conceptual Tempo and Visual Perceptual Ability of Some Nigerian Children

The purpose of the study was to find the degree and nature of relationship between the tempo of response and accuracy on problem-solving tasks as measured by modified Matching Familiar Figures and performance on visual perceptual tasks. 200 male subjects drawn from age group of 7- and 9-yr.-olds ( n = 100 each) in Classes 2 and 4, respectively, were classified into four groups (Impulsive, Reflective, Fast-Accurate, Slow-Inaccurate) based on performance on modified Matching Familiar Figures Test. Subjects were also tested on Object-comparison and Visual-recognition tasks. Performance on modified matching familiar figures correlated significantly with performance on visual perceptual task ( r = .58 and .63 for 7- and 9-yr.-olds, respectively). 7-yr.-old subjects in the reflective and fast-accurate groups were superior in performance on the visual perceptual tasks ( F 3,102 = 4.8, p < .05). It was reasoned that poor academic performance might be related to the subject's cognitive style and visual perceptual ability.