Measuring Fluid Intelligence in Healthy Older Adults.

Mohammed K Shakeel,Vina M Goghari

doi:10.1155/2017/8514582

Mohammed K Shakeel, Vina M Goghari

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1155/2017/8514582

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Abstract

The present study evaluated subjective and objective cognitive measures as predictors of fluid intelligence in healthy older adults. We hypothesized that objective cognitive measures would predict fluid intelligence to a greater degree than self-reported cognitive functioning. Ninety-three healthy older (>65 years old) community-dwelling adults participated. Raven's Advanced Progressive Matrices (RAPM) were used to measure fluid intelligence, Digit Span Sequencing (DSS) was used to measure working memory, Trail Making Test (TMT) was used to measure cognitive flexibility, Design Fluency Test (DFT) was used to measure creativity, and Tower Test (TT) was used to measure planning. The Cognitive Failures Questionnaire (CFQ) was used to measure subjective perceptions of cognitive functioning. RAPM was correlated with DSS, TT, and DFT. When CFQ was the only predictor, the regression model predicting fluid intelligence was not significant. When DSS, TMT, DFT, and TT were included in the model, there was a significant change in the model and the final model was also significant, with DFT as the only significant predictor. The model accounted for approximately 20% of the variability in fluid intelligence. Our findings suggest that the most reliable means of assessing fluid intelligence is to assess it directly.

Highlights

There has been a lot of interest in recent years in the use of subjective reports of cognitive functioning to predict the likelihood that a person will suffer from dementia [1]
This demonstrates that the data was over 5 times more likely to occur under a model where Cognitive Failures Questionnaire was not related to Raven’s Advanced Progressive Matrices, rather than a model in which they were related
When the cognitive variables (Cognitive Failures Questionnaire, Digit Span Sequencing, Trail Making Test, Design Fluency Test, and Tower Test) were included in block 2, the results remained similar to the first regression analysis with the cognitive variables resulting in a significant final model (F(6, 85) = 3.78, p = .002) of Raven’s Advanced Progressive Matrices. These results demonstrated that measures of working memory, cognitive flexibility, and creativity were significantly associated with fluid intelligence, but planning and subjective report of cognitive functioning were not

Summary

Introduction

There has been a lot of interest in recent years in the use of subjective reports of cognitive functioning to predict the likelihood that a person will suffer from dementia [1]. The findings have been equivocal [2] This may be in part because people are poor judges of their own mental functions [3], and this may be especially true of those who already have poor cognitive functioning [4]. This view has important implications for the use of subjective reports in dementias, which are characterized by cognitive, as well as metacognitive, deficits [5, 6]. Though widely used, research has demonstrated that asking patients about their own mental functions may not be a fruitful approach [7, 8]

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