GLOBAL PROCESSING-TIME COEFFICIENTS CHARACTERIZE INDIVIDUAL AND GROUP DIFFERENCES IN COGNITIVE SPEED

Abstract— Forty participants performed seven different information processing tasks (choice reaction time, letter classification, visual search, abstract matching, line-length discrimination, mental rotation, and mental paper-folding) Slow (top quartile) and fast (bottom quartile) processors were selected based on their mean z scores Response times (RTs) of the slow and fast groups in the 21 conditions of the seven tasks were linear functions of the mean RTs of the entire group (both r²s = 99) In addition, individuals' RTs were well described by linear functions (median r²= 93) When tasks were ranked in order of complexity, the odd-even reliability of the ratio of an individual's RT to the average RT was 80, indicating that such ratios remain relatively stable across tasks Taken together, these findings indicate that the performance of an individual on diverse tasks can be predicted on the basis of a single processing-time coefficient Such coefficients may provide useful indices of the efficiency with which different individuals process information     

The moderating influence of variability on belief revision

The variability of the information on which a belief was initially based should moderate the degree to which the belief is revised when new disconfirming information is received. Reasoning from everyday intuitions, psychological theories of concept representation, and a rational mathematical analysis, we inferred that as variability increased, resistance to disconfirming information would also increase. Participants’ judgments of the central tendencies of distributions of numerical information confirmed this prediction.     

Concurrent validity of the WISC-R factor scores

This study investigated the efficacy of predicting academic achievement as measured by the Wide Range Achievement Test using the factor scores of the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children-Revised as potential predictors. Both instruments were administered to 200 school children referred for psychological evaluations. Factor scores for the WISC-R were computed according to equations provided by Gutkin (1978). These factor scores then were regressed in a stepwise manner on the Reading, Spelling, and Arithmetic standard scores from the Wide Range Achievement Test. Stepwise regressions also were performed using the traditional Verbal and Performance IQs as the potential predictors. A comparison was made between the results obtained by use of the factors or the more common scores. The results indicated that the Freedom From Distractibility factor score significantly aided in the prediction of Reading and Spelling achievement and was of primary importance in predicting Arithmetic achievement. When the stepwise results using the different scores were contrasted, the factor scores accounted for appreaciably more variance in Arithmetic than did the traditional Verbal and Performance IQs. Derived regression equations are reported along with a discussion of the interpretability of the Freedom From Distractibility factor.     

General cognitive slowing in the nonlexical domain: an experimental validation.

Older and younger adults were tested on 4 nonlexical tasks: choice reaction time, letter classification, mental rotation, and abstract matching. A positively accelerated relation was observed between older and younger adults' latencies. Consistent with general slowing, the relation observed with the same subjects in each condition was more than 3 times as precise as in a comparable meta-analysis. Further analyses compared the ability of various models to describe the present data and also to predict the data on the basis of parameters estimated from a previous meta-analysis. Compared with linear models, the information-loss and overhead models provided more accurate accounts of general cognitive slowing in the nonlexical domain.     

The emotionally disturbed child: Disturbed or disturbing

The notion that a child's behavior may be more disturbing than disturbed has been of interest to educators of behaviorally deviant children. Behavior indicative of deviance in children was studied with respect to the relative degree of disturbingness which each was judged to reflect. Four factor dimensions of disturbingness were identified and discussed with regard to future research and educational implications.The author wishes to thank Richard Gibson, John Salvia, and James Ysseldyke for their assistance in obtaining portions of the data represented here. A grateful acknowledgment is offered to Ron Eaves, Dave Herr, and John Salvia for their creative contributions.     

Children's attention to stimulus components with variation in relative salience of components and degree of stimulus integration

A total of 400 children at ages 5, 9, and 12 years were given a component selection task with stimuli differing in color and shape. Relative salience of these two stimulus components was manipulated across subjects in two ways: the standard shapes and colors from previous studies were compared with standard shapes in fluorescent colors, and the latter materials were compared with nonsense shapes in fluorescent colors. While fluorescence of color had little effect, the replacement of standard shapes with nonsense figures caused attention to be redirected from shape to color as the primary cue for learning. This effect was more pronounced at age 9 than at age 5. Apparently there is a greater tendency for older than for younger children to withdraw attention from a normally dominant component such as shape, when it is advantageous to adopt another feature such as color as the primary functional cue. An additional variable was integration of components (color within shape vs color as background for shape). Integration produced generally greater attention to color but did not affect the general pattern of salience effects.