Abstract
Rammsayer & Brandler (2002) have proposed that auditory temporal discrimination tasks provide a measure of temporal resolution of the CNS which is argued to be partly responsible for higher order cognitive functioning. We report on two studies designed to elicit the nature of the functions underpinning these auditory tasks. Study 1 assessed whether temporal generalisation (TG) might be better considered as a measure of working memory rather than of temporal resolution of the CNS. In N = 66 undergraduates TG did not predict speed of processing tasks; however, there was evidence of a relationship between TG and working memory. Study 2 reanalyzed pre- viously published data on temporal discrimination tasks and showed that the relationship between auditory tem- poral tasks and intelligence reflects memory functions and processing speed. Auditory temporal discrimination tasks are confounded by speed and memory and should not be considered as measures of temporal resolution of the CNS.
Highlights
The last few decades have seen a shift in focus from the taxonomic study of cognitive abilities to the identification of lower-order cognitive and physiological correlates of human intelligence (Neubauer & Fink, 2005)
After collating the data it was apparent that two participants did not complete Dot Matrix (DM), one participant failed to complete Auditory Temporal discrimination (ATd) and another participant failed to complete Symbol Digit (SD)
We have argued that the processes underpinning performance on temporal discrimination tasks might best align with memory functions, and previous research has established a strong and consistent relationship between working memory (WM) and reasoning ability; as measured by intelligence tests (e.g. Burns, Nettelbeck, & McPherson, 2009; Kyllonen & Christal, 1990)
Summary
The last few decades have seen a shift in focus from the taxonomic study of cognitive abilities to the identification of lower-order cognitive and physiological correlates of human intelligence (Neubauer & Fink, 2005). This shift has been driven by a desire to identify the biological roots of higher order cognition (Stankov, 2005). In order to measure lower-order cognitive processes, researchers have turned to a class of tasks termed Elementary Cognitive Tasks (ECTs) The impetus for this is that ECTs are characteristically easy tasks which putatively rely on a limited number of mental processes or operations (Carroll, 1993). They supposedly provide cleaner measures of biological processes than traditional, more complex tests (Stankov, 2005)
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