Cognitive abilities profiles of Caucasian vs Japanese subjects in the Hawaii Family Study of Cognition

General intelligence (the unrotated first principal component) was partialled out of the cognitive abilities factors—verbal ability, spatial ability, perceptual speed, and visual memory—obtained for the 15 tests of cognitive abilities used in the Hawaii Family Study of Cognition (HFSC). The resulting cognitive abilities profiles indicated that HFSC subjects of Caucasian ancestry scored higher relative to subjects of Japanese ancestry on the verbal and visual memory factors, but lower on the spatial and perceptual speed factors. This ethnic group difference in the shape of the cognitive abilities profiles was found to be highly consistent across sexes and generations, in spite of the large mean differences across these groups in factor scores.     

Improvement in working memory is not related to increased intelligence scores

The acknowledged high relationship between working memory and intelligence suggests common underlying cognitive mechanisms and, perhaps, shared biological substrates. If this is the case, improvement in working memory by repeated exposure to challenging span tasks might be reflected in increased intelligence scores. Here we report a study in which 288 university undergraduates completed the odd numbered items of four intelligence tests on time 1 and the even numbered items of the same tests one month later (time 2). In between, 173 participants completed three sessions, separated by exactly one week, comprising verbal, numerical, and spatial short-term memory (STM) and working memory (WMC) tasks imposing high processing demands (STM–WMC group). 115 participants also completed three sessions, separated by exactly one week, but comprising verbal, numerical, and spatial simple speed tasks (processing speed, PS, and attention, ATT) with very low processing demands (PS-ATT group). The main finding reveals increased scores from the pre-test to the post-test intelligence session (more than half a standard deviation on average). However, there was no differential improvement on intelligence between the STM-WMC and PS-ATT groups.     

Sex and cross-cultural differences in the estimated multi-faceted intelligence quotient score for self, parents and siblings

Over four hundred young people from Britain, Hawaii and Singapore estimated their own, their parents and their siblings IQ score on each of Gardner (1983) fundamental human intelligences: verbal (linguistic), logical (mathematical), spatial, musical, body-kinesthetic, interpersonal and intrapersonal. They also answered six simple questions concerning intelligence tests. There were both cultural and sex differences in the estimation of overall own intelligence score. Males gave higher scores than females (109 vs 107) while the British gave the highest score (109) compared with the Singaporeans (106) and Hawaiians (104). Factor analysis of the seven dimensions yielded either a two or three factor solution, the latter being verbal (verbal, inter-intrapersonal), mathematical (mathematical and spatial), and musical (musical, body-kinesthetic). There were consistent sex differences in the estimations of the three factors for self, but not of parents, and only marginally of sisters. Males more than females, and the British more than the other groups, were more likely to believe in sex and race difference in intelligence.     

Hippocampal structure and human cognition: Key role of spatial processing and evidence supporting the efficiency hypothesis in females

Here we apply a method for automated segmentation of the hippocampus in 3D high-resolution structural brain MRI scans. One hundred and four healthy young adults completed twenty one tasks measuring abstract, verbal, and spatial intelligence, along with working memory, executive control, attention, and processing speed. After permutation tests corrected for multiple comparisons across vertices (p < .05), significant relationships were found for spatial intelligence, spatial working memory, and spatial executive control. Interactions with sex revealed significant relationships with the general factor of intelligence (g), along with abstract and spatial intelligence. These correlations were mainly positive for males but negative for females, which might support the efficiency hypothesis in women. Verbal intelligence, attention, and processing speed were not related to hippocampal structural differences.     

Individual differences in working memory within a nomological network of cognitive and perceptual speed abilities

It has become fashionable to equate constructs of working memory (WM) and general intelligence (g). Few investigations have provided direct evidence that WM and g measures yield similar ordering of individuals. Correlational investigations have yielded mixed results. The authors assess the construct space for WM and g and demonstrate that WM shares substantial variance with perceptual speed (PS) constructs. Thirty-six ability tests representing verbal, numerical, spatial, and PS abilities; the Raven Advanced Progressive Matrices; and 7 WM tests were administered to 135 adults. A nomological representation for WM is provided through a series of cognitive and PS ability models. Construct overlap between PS and WM is further investigated with attention to complexity, processing differences, and practice effects.     

Self- and other-estimates of multiple abilities in Britain and Turkey: a cross-cultural comparison of subjective ratings of intelligence

This study is part of a programmatic research effort into the determinants of self-assessed abilities. It examined cross-cultural differences in beliefs about intelligence and self- and other-estimated intelligence in two countries at extreme ends of the European continent. In all, 172 British and 272 Turkish students completed a three-part questionnaire where they estimated their parents', partners' and own multiple intelligences (Gardner (10) and Sternberg (3)). They also completed a measure of the 'big five' personality scales and rated six questions about intelligence. The British sample had more experience with IQ tests than the Turks. The majority of participants in both groups did not believe in sex differences in intelligence but did think there were race differences. They also believed that intelligence was primarily inherited. Participants rated their social and emotional intelligence highly (around one standard deviation above the norm). Results suggested that there were more cultural than sex differences in all the ratings, with various interactions mainly due to the British sample differentiating more between the sexes than the Turks. Males rated their overall, verbal, logical, spatial, creative and practical intelligence higher than females. Turks rated their musical, body-kinesthetic, interpersonal and intrapersonal intelligence as well as existential, naturalistic, emotional, creative, and practical intelligence higher than the British. There was evidence of participants rating their fathers' intelligence on most factors higher than their mothers'. Factor analysis of the ten Gardner intelligences yield two clear factors: cognitive and social intelligence. The first factor was impacted by sex but not culture; it was the other way round for the second factor. Regressions showed that five factors predicted overall estimates: sex (male), age (older), test experience (has done tests), extraversion (strong) and openness (strong). Results are discussed in terms of the growing literature in the field.     

Cross‐sectional study on the relationship between music training and working memory in adults

Learning to play musical instruments has been shown to enhance a wide variety of cognitive domains. The present study investigated the specific aspects of working memory (WM) that differed between adult musicians and non‐musicians. Twenty‐four musicians and 30 non‐musicians matched for age, gender, years of formal education, and verbal intelligence performed several WM tasks. A multivariate analysis of covariance, wherein family income was controlled, revealed that musicians outperformed non‐musicians in tasks related to visual–motor coordination, visual scanning ability, visual processing speed, and spatial memory. However, no significant differences were found in phonological and visual memory capacity. This study supports the view that music training is associated to specific (and not general) WM skills.     

Cognitive components of a mathematical processing network in 9‐year‐old children

We determined how various cognitive abilities, including several measures of a proposed domain‐specific number sense, relate to mathematical competence in nearly 100 9‐year‐old children with normal reading skill. Results are consistent with an extended number processing network and suggest that important processing nodes of this network are phonological processing, verbal knowledge, visuo‐spatial short‐term and working memory, spatial ability and general executive functioning. The model was highly specific to predicting arithmetic performance. There were no strong relations between mathematical achievement and verbal short‐term and working memory, sustained attention, response inhibition, finger knowledge and symbolic number comparison performance. Non‐verbal intelligence measures were also non‐significant predictors when added to our model. Number sense variables were non‐significant predictors in the model and they were also non‐significant predictors when entered into regression analysis with only a single visuo‐spatial WM measure. Number sense variables were predicted by sustained attention. Results support a network theory of mathematical competence in primary school children and falsify the importance of a proposed modular ‘number sense’. We suggest an ‘executive memory function centric’ model of mathematical processing. Mapping a complex processing network requires that studies consider the complex predictor space of mathematics rather than just focusing on a single or a few explanatory factors.     

Age changes in processing speed as a leading indicator of cognitive aging

Bivariate dual change score models were applied to longitudinal data from the Swedish Adoption/Twin Study of Aging to compare the dynamic predictions of 2-component theories of intelligence and the processing speed theory of cognitive aging. Data from up to 5 measurement occasions covering a 16-year period were available from 806 participants ranging in age from 50 to 88 years at the first measurement wave. Factors were generated to tap 4 general cognitive domains: verbal ability, spatial ability, memory, and processing speed. Model fitting indicated no dynamic relationship between verbal and spatial factors, providing no support for the hypothesis that age changes in fluid abilities drive age changes in crystallized abilities. The results suggest that, as predicted by the processing speed theory of cognitive aging, processing speed is a leading indicator of age changes in memory and spatial ability, but not verbal ability.     

Using contextual analysis to investigate the nature of spatial memory

The present study investigated the properties of episodic spatial memory by conducting contextual analysis on spatial memory tasks in a large sample of individuals (N = 778) between the ages of 18 and 92. The results suggest that episodic spatial memory as measured by a dot location task is not uniquely influenced by memory but is strongly influenced by fluid ability (Gf). The spatial memory–Gf relationship is evident and robust even when spatial memory is operationalized with a very simple single-dot location task, suggesting that allocation of attention across space may play a role in the relationship. Results also indicate that the spatial memory–Gf relations are not dependent on complexity of processing, because Gf has a similar magnitude of relations with a more complex version of the dot location task. Collectively, the results suggest that spatial memory likely represents some aspect of fluid intelligence and is not uniquely related to measures of verbal memory.     

Functional cerebral asymmetries and cognitive abilities in musicians, painters, and controls

The relative participation of left- and right-hemisphere functions in verbal and spatial processing with musical composers, instrumentalists, painters, and non-musicians from student and junior high school populations was investigated. Hemispheric lateralization was related to the outcome of tests measuring spatial orientation, spatial visualization, tactile-visual discrimination, and verbal fluency. The relationship between lateral dominance and cognitive variables was influenced by sex and musical talents and the ability to paint. Males, irrespective of talents, were lateralized stronger than females. These sex differences were due to nonmusicians, only. Male and female composers, instrumentalists, and painters did not differ in language lateralization. Female left-handers showed a marked tendency for reversed language lateralization; left-handed males did not.     

Intelligence and executive functioning in adult age: Effects of sibship size and birth order

Several studies have demonstrated that social influences from having been brought up in a family with few siblings and early in birth order result in higher scores on intelligence tests in childhood and adolescence as compared to having been brought up in large sibships. The present study examined whether influences of such social factors would have long-lasting effects on intelligence (block design and word comprehension) and executive functions (working memory and verbal fluency) in adulthood and old age, i.e., long after the individuals had moved out of the family structure they were born in. After having controlled for socioeconomic status and a variety of health conditions affecting cognition in adult life, a sibship size effect was demonstrated for executive functions but not for intelligence. The social influences of birth order affected only executive functions and working memory in particular; earlier born individuals performed better than later born individuals in tests assessing executive function but not in tests assessing intelligence. Implications for the relationship between executive functioning and intelligence, and implications for the Confluence and Resource Dilution Models (Blake, 1981; Downey, 1995, 2001; Zajonc, 1976) are discussed.     

Characteristics of 12th-grade students seriously deficient in spatial ability

When spatial ability was regressed on a measure of general intelligence in a large national sample of 12th-graders, there was a distinct downturn in the regression line at about -2 SD units. A bimodal distribution of spatial ability was found among these low scoring students, suggesting 2 qualitatively different types of individuals. Relative to students of expected spatial ability, those below expected in spatial ability were high on verbal skills and low on performance skills. Students unexpectedly low in spatial ability performed relatively well on cognitive tests that required answering unambiguous questions by retrieving information directly from long term memory, whereas they performed relatively poorly on tests requiring inference and perception of relations among novel stimuli. Students unexpectedly low in spatial ability performed especially poorly at tests involving visual-spatial perception skills. Results were similar for both sexes. The relatively poor performance of those unexpectedly low in spatial ability does not appear to be related to health problems, personality, interest differences, or biographical data. An organic impairment possibly related to lateralization represents a reasonable causal hypothesis for these data.     

Memory span and general intelligence: A latent-variable approach

There are several studies showing that working memory and intelligence are strongly related. However, working memory tasks require simultaneous processing and storage, so the causes of their relationship with intelligence are currently a matter of discussion. The present study examined the simultaneous relationships among short-term memory (STM), working memory (WM), and general intelligence (g). Two hundred and eight participants performed six verbal, quantitative, and spatial STM tasks, six verbal, quantitative, and spatial WM tasks, and eight tests measuring fluid, crystallized, spatial, and quantitative intelligence. Especial care is taken to avoid misrepresenting the relations among the constructs being studied because of specific task variance. Structural equation modelling (SEM) results revealed that (a) WM and g are (almost) isomorphic constructs, (b) the isomorphism vanishes when the storage component of WM is partialed out, and (c) STM and WM (with its storage component partialed out) predict g.     

The cognitive functioning of older adult instrumental musicians and non-musicians

This study examined similarities and differences in the cognitive profiles of older adult instrumental musicians and non-musicians. We compared neuropsychological test scores among older adult non-musicians, low-activity musicians (<10 years of lessons), and high-activity musicians (≥10 years of lessons), controlling for self-reported physical and social activity, years of education, and overall health. Significant differences among groups were found on tasks of visual spatial ability, naming, and executive functioning. No significant differences were found on tests of attention/processing speed, or episodic memory. The current study supports late life cognitive benefits of early musical training, but only in select cognitive domains, including language, executive functioning, and visual spatial ability. The results are discussed in the context of cognitive reserve and aging.     

Scope of attention, control of attention, and intelligence in children and adults

Recent experimentation has shown that cognitive aptitude measures are predicted by tests of the scope of an individual's attention or capacity in simple working memory tasks and also by the ability to control attention. However, these experiments do not indicate how separate or related the scope and control of attention are. An experiment with 52 children (10 to 11 years old) and 52 college students included measures of the scope and control of attention, as well as verbal and nonverbal aptitude measures. The children showed little evidence of using sophisticated attentional control, but the scope of attention predicted intelligence in that group. In adults, both the scope and control of attention varied among individuals and accounted for considerable individual variance in intelligence. About one third that variance was shared between scope an d control, and the rest was unique to one or the other.Scope and control of attention appear to be related but distinct contributors to intelligence.     

Musical ability and non‐native speech‐sound processing are linked through sensitivity to pitch and spectral information

Is the observed link between musical ability and non‐native speech‐sound processing due to enhanced sensitivity to acoustic features underlying both musical and linguistic processing? To address this question, native English speakers (N = 118) discriminated Norwegian tonal contrasts and Norwegian vowels. Short tones differing in temporal, pitch, and spectral characteristics were used to measure sensitivity to the various acoustic features implicated in musical and speech processing. Musical ability was measured using Gordon's Advanced Measures of Musical Audiation. Results showed that sensitivity to specific acoustic features played a role in non‐native speech‐sound processing: Controlling for non‐verbal intelligence, prior foreign language‐learning experience, and sex, sensitivity to pitch and spectral information partially mediated the link between musical ability and discrimination of non‐native vowels and lexical tones. The findings suggest that while sensitivity to certain acoustic features partially mediates the relationship between musical ability and non‐native speech‐sound processing, complex tests of musical ability also tap into other shared mechanisms.     

Relations between mental performance and reaction time: New aspects of an old problem

The relation between simple and complex reaction time and psychometrically determined mental performance was reexamined with 486 subjects of above-average intelligence. Various standardized tests measuring aspects of cognitive ability, memory and ability to concentrate were used. Simple and complex reaction times were measured using the Klebelsberg modification of the Mierke apparatus. Correlations between complex reaction time and mental performance as observed by other investigators were mostly confirmed. We found, however, the strongest and most consistent correlations with tests measuring short-term memory; ability to concentrate and spatial ability. On the other hand, tests known and shown again in this paper to load highly on Spearman's general factor g, such as verbal abilities; combinatoric thinking; abstraction; or calculation gave only trivial, and, in most cases, nonsignificant correlations with complex reaction time. We even observed a negative (though, for our data, not significant) correlation between g-loadings of subtests and their correlations with complex reaction time for the only complete standardized intelligence test used in this study, the “Intelligenz-Strukturtest (Amthauer).” Therefore, this study does not support the hypothesis that fast processing of complex information as measured by complex reaction time is the decisive component of the general factor of intelligence g.     

音乐训练对大学生执行功能的影响

近年来大量研究发现音乐训练对认知能力的具有积极影响,一些理论认为音乐训练的广泛迁移效应是通过执行功能起中介作用,但音乐训练与执行功能的关系至今仍存争议。研究将执行功能分为抑制控制、工作记忆和认知灵活性三个子成分,并将抑制控制进一步细分为注意抑制和反应抑制,同时区分工作记忆中主动性控制和反应性控制两种认知过程。通过对比音乐组和控制组在执行功能各任务（Go/No-go, Stroop, AX-CPT, Task-switching）上的行为表现来系统考察音乐训练与执行功能的关系。结果表明音乐训练对执行功能不同子成分的影响具有差异性,其促进效应主要体现在抑制控制中的注意抑制和工作记忆中的主动性控制,对抑制控制中的反应抑制、工作记忆中的反应性控制和认知灵活性影响较小。     

The fractionation of working memory maps onto different components of intelligence

One hundred thirty-eight sixth form students, aged 16–17, took tests of vocabulary, mental rotation, and abstract reasoning as markers of Gc, Gv, and Gf and also three working memory tests, one verbal, one spatial, and one numerical (mental counters). Consistent with a number of earlier results, we found that verbal working memory correlated with the vocabulary test and spatial working memory with the mental rotation test, but there was only a weak relationship between these two domains. Performance on the reasoning test was associated most strongly with the mental counters working memory test but was also related to performance on both verbal and spatial tests. Confirmatory factor analysis supported a three-factor solution of these data, with one ability test and one working memory test loading onto each factor. This suggests that although working memory may be partly general, it is also at least in part domain-specific with three of these domains corresponding to Gc, Gv, and Gf.