Associations between cortical thickness and general intelligence in children,adolescents and young adults

Neuroimaging research indicates that human intellectual ability is related to brain structure including the thickness of the cerebral cortex. Most studies indicate that general intelligence is positively associated with cortical thickness in areas of association cortex distributed throughout both brain hemispheres. In this study, we performed a cortical thickness mapping analysis on data from 182 healthy typically developing males and females ages 9 to 24 years to identify correlates of general intelligence (g) scores. To determine if these correlates also mediate associations of specific cognitive abilities with cortical thickness, we regressed specific cognitive test scores on g scores and analyzed the residuals with respect to cortical thickness. The effect of age on the association between cortical thickness and intelligence was examined. We found a widely distributed pattern of positive associations between cortical thickness and g scores, as derived from the first unrotated principal factor of a factor analysis of Wechsler Abbreviated Scale of Intelligence (WASI) subtest scores. After WASI specific cognitive subtest scores were regressed on g factor scores, the residual score variances did not correlate significantly with cortical thickness in the full sample with age covaried. When participants were grouped at the age median, significant positive associations of cortical thickness were obtained in the older group for g-residualized scores on Block Design (a measure of visual-motor integrative processing) while significant negative associations of cortical thickness were observed in the younger group for g-residualized Vocabulary scores. These results regarding correlates of general intelligence are concordant with the existing literature, while the findings from younger versus older subgroups have implications for future research on brain structural correlates of specific cognitive abilities, as well as the cognitive domain specificity of behavioral performance correlates of normative gray matter thinning during adolescence.     

Goal orientation of team leaders: Its effects on performance and group interaction in software development projects

Abstract

Goal orientation is an action style implying the development of long-range and precise goals, and persistent pursuit of these goals. Goal orientation is not only important for a person's own performance but also for the performance of others in a co-operative work setting. This applies particularly to team leaders, whose goal orientation was predicted to correlate with both team performance and quality of group interaction within the team. In a sample of 44 team leaders and 141 other team members of software development projects it was found that team leaders' goal orientation is related to the quality of the development process, the quality of the final product, and the interaction within the team. This is true both for team leaders' estimates of the dependent variables and for aggregated scores of the team members' estimates. Interaction effects between team members' and team leaders' goal orientation were also found.     

Communication and performance in software development projects

A study of 21 software development (SD) project groups using data from 170 participants holding different positions (engineers, user representatives, project managers) and a quasi-longitudinal design shows that user participation inhibits, and standardization of methods and tools facilitates, effective SD project performance. Over and above these effects, hierarchical regression analysis reveals taskrelated internal communication to predict performance positively. Moderated regression analysis reveals that high communication facilitates project performance more strongly in late stages of the project life-cycle and when standardization of methods and tools is low. Implications for facilitating SD projects' functioning, for future research and theory building, are discussed.     

Discrimination of size by sight and tough

The experiment was designed to discover whether accuracy of discrimination differs when the discrimination is made in only one sense from when it is made across two senses. The evidence produced by the experiment does not warrant one to conclude that such a difference exists. The absence of such differences has been considered in relation to more general perceptual problems.     

Reducing faking on personality tests: Testing a new faking‐mitigation procedure in a U.S. job applicant sample

Faking has remained a major concern for organizations using self‐report personality measures for selection. Scholars recenlty developed a new middle‐warning faking‐mitigation procedure. The present replication study was the first field test in the United States using 193 applicants for an entry‐level position in a New York‐based consulting firm. Results replicated most of Fan et al.'s findings including (a) the middle‐warning significantly lowered fakers' personality scores over retesting, whereas the control message had little influence on nonfakers; (b) the above warning effect carried over to personality scales that were not retested; and (c) the persistent tendency of potential fakers rising to the top of personality score distribution was weakened. In addition, applicants' perceptions were not being negatively affected by the warning.     

The Occipital Cortex in the Blind

ABSTRACT— Studying the brains of blind individuals provides a unique opportunity to investigate how the brain changes and adapts in response to afferent (input) and efferent (output) demands. We discuss evidence suggesting that regions of the brain normally associated with the processing of visual information undergo remarkable dynamic change in response to blindness. These neuroplastic changes implicate not only processing carried out by the remaining senses but also higher cognitive functions such as language and memory. A strong emphasis is placed on evidence obtained from advanced neuroimaging techniques that allow researchers to identify areas of human brain activity, as well as from lesion approaches (both reversible and irreversible) to address the functional relevance and role of these activated areas. A possible mechanism and conceptual framework for these physiological and behavioral changes is proposed.     

Quality of Life in Mexico: A Formative Measurement Approach

Improving quality of life for community members has become increasingly important for policy makers and society in general. This article presents the results from a representative sample of citizens from south-western Mexico. Because it is argued that quality of life indexes are formative rather than reflective, an advanced statistical method (partial least square) is used to analyze the data. The quality of life index used in the study includes the domains of health, income, work, education, safety, public services, non-governmental community services, social contact, and happiness. The results suggest that monetary-oriented indicators such as income and work are less important for respondents than domains such as happiness, social contact, or community services. However, for some of the domains, age and gender inequalities are observed.     

Response priming driven by local contrast, not subjective brightness

We demonstrate qualitative dissociations of brightness processing in visuomotor priming and conscious vision. Speeded keypress responses to the brighter of two luminance targets were performed in the presence of preceding dark and bright primes (clearly visible and flanking the targets) whose apparent brightness values were enhanced or attenuated by a visual illusion. Response times to the targets were greatly affected by consistent versus inconsistent arrangements of the primes, relative to the targets (response priming). Priming effects could systematically contradict subjective brightness matches, such that one prime could appear brighter than the other but could prime as if it were darker. Systematic variation of the illusion showed that response-priming effects depended only on local flanker-background contrast, not on the subjective appearance of the flankers. Our findings suggest that speeded motor responses, as opposed to conscious perceptual judgments, access an early phase of lightness and brightness processing prior to full lightness constancy.