Intelligence and temporal accuracy of behaviour: unique and shared associations with reaction time and motor timing

Abstract

Intelligence is associated with accuracy in a wide range of timing tasks. One source of such associations is likely to be individual differences in top-down control, e.g., sustained attention, that influence performance in both temporal tasks and other cognitively controlled behaviours. In addition, we have studied relations between intelligence and a simple rhythmic motor task, isochronous serial interval production (ISIP), and found a substantial component of that relation, which is independent of fluctuations in top-down control. The main purpose of the present study was to investigate whether such bottom-up mechanisms are involved also in the relation between intelligence and reaction time (RT) tasks. We thus investigated whether common variance between the ISIP and RT tasks underlies their respective associations with intelligence. Two hundred and twelve participants performed a simple RT task, a choice RT task and the ISIP task. Intelligence was assessed with the Raven SPM Plus. The analysed timing variables included mean and variability in the RT tasks and two variance components in the ISIP task. As predicted, RT and ISIP variables were associated with intelligence. The timing variables were positively intercorrelated, and a principal component analysis revealed a substantial first principal component that was strongly related to all timing variables, and positively correlated with intelligence. Furthermore, a commonality analysis demonstrated that the relations between intelligence and the timing variables involved a commonality between the timing variables as well as unique contributions from choice RT and ISIP. We discuss possible implications of these findings and argue that they support our main hypothesis, i.e., that relations between intelligence and RT tasks have a bottom-up component.