<P> Aiming to explain why aptitude tests, school grades, and classroom performance often fail to identify real ability, Robert Sternberg listed various cognitive dimensions in his book Thinking Styles . Several other models are also often used when researching cognitive styles; some of these models are described in books that Sternberg co-edited, such as Perspectives on Thinking, Learning, and Cognitive Styles . </P> <P> In the 1980s, the National Association of Secondary School Principals (NASSP) formed a task force to study learning styles . The task force defined three broad categories of style--cognitive, affective, and physiological--and 31 variables, including the perceptual strengths and preferences from the VAK model of Barbe and colleagues, but also many other variables such as need for structure, types of motivation, time of day preferences, and so on . They defined a learning style as "a gestalt--not an amalgam of related characteristics but greater than any of its parts . It is a composite of internal and external operations based in neurobiology, personality, and human development and reflected in learner behavior ." </P> <Ul> <Li> Cognitive styles are preferred ways of perception, organization and retention . </Li> <Li> Affective styles represent the motivational dimensions of the learning personality; each learner has a personal motivational approach . </Li> <Li> Physiological styles are bodily states or predispositions, including sex - related differences, health and nutrition, and reaction to physical surroundings, such as preferences for levels of light, sound, and temperature . </Li> </Ul> <Li> Cognitive styles are preferred ways of perception, organization and retention . </Li>

A model of learning style impacted by sound and light is called