Canelos, J. J., Taylor, W. D. & Gates, R. B. (1980). The effects of three levels of visual stimulus complexity on the information processing of field-dependents and field-independents when acquiring information for performance on three types of instructional objectives. Journal of Instructional Psychology, 7(2), 65-70.

The present study examined the effects of three levels of visual stimulus complexity upon the learning of field-dependents and field-independents from an instructional slide-tape program which provided information about the parts and operation of the human heart. Levels of visual stimulus complexity formed the visual portion of the slide-tape instructional program. The three complexity levels were: (1) a simple line drawing with a color background, (2) an artist's illustration in color and (3) a realistic color photograph. A particular area of interest in this study was the effects of visual stimulus complexity upon the information processing of field-dependent subjects and field-independent subjects. The learning performance of each level of the cognitive style variable was also examined on three specific types of instructional objectives or learning outcomes: (1) a list learning task, (2) a spatial information learning task and (3) a conceptual learning task. The general conclusion resulting from the present experiment is that field-dependents tended to have more difficulty abstracting relevant information from the instruction required for performance on more difficult learning outcomes.