Domain-general Cognitive Abilities Research Articles

Aging of lexical access in Chinese spoken word production: A picture-word interference study.

It remains unknown how language-production processes decline with age. Using a picture-word interference task, the aim of this study was to investigate the influence of aging on lexical access and the contributions of language-specific and domain-general factors to semantic, phonological, and orthographic effects in Chinese spoken word production. After controlling for years of education, language comprehension, and domain-general cognitive abilities, we found a larger semantic interference effect for older speakers than for younger speakers, while the phonological effect and orthographic effect were comparable for the two age groups, supporting the transmission deficit hypothesis. Furthermore, discourse comprehension and general cognitive abilities were found to contribute to the phonological effect in older adults, but not in younger adults. Our findings indicate that both language-specific factors and domain-general factors contribute to the aging of spoken word production together.

Multiple domain-general assessments of cognitive functions in elite athletes: Contrasting evidence for the influence of expertise, sport type and sex

Converging evidence has shown that domain-general cognitive abilities, especially executive functions (EF), tend to be superior in sport experts. However, recent studies have questioned this cognitive advantage and found inconsistent findings when comparing sport type and sex. This study aimed to compare the impact of sport expertise, sport type, and sex on various domains of cognitive functions. Two hundred and thirty elite athletes (nFemale=124, nMale=106) representing three sport categories (Team [n=91], Precision-skill dependent [n=63], and Speed-strength [n=76] sports) were assessed using a computerized neuropsychological test battery including tests of EF (working memory, inhibition, cognitive flexibility and planning), as well as tests of selective and sustained attention. T-scores and raw values were used to analyze performance through t-tests and ANCOVA with age as covariate. Athletes demonstrated better performance than the normative mean on 5 out of 11 cognitive test variables (p<0.005). However, their performance fell within the average range when considering the results along a normative scale, except for sustained attention and working memory where they performed just above average (<1 SD). There was a significant main effect of sport category on only one EF variable (p=0.003). Males performed significantly faster than females on motor reaction time measures of attention and inhibition (all p<0.001). In this study, the 'expert advantage' on domain-general cognitive tests was less prominent when utilizing a normative scale and controlling for age or speed-accuracy trade-offs, except for sustained attention and working-memory. Cognitive functions did not appear to differ meaningfully based on athletes' sport type or sex.

Short-term memory, attentional control and brain size in primates.

Brain size variability in primates has been attributed to various domain-specific socio-ecological factors. A recently published large-scale study of short-term memory abilities in 41 primate species (ManyPrimates 2022 Anim. Behav. Cogn. 9, 428-516. (doi:10.26451/abc.09.04.06.2022)) did not find any correlations with 11 different proxies of external cognitive demands. Here, we found that the interspecific variation in test performance shows correlated evolution with total brain size, with the relationship becoming tighter as species with small sample sizes were successively removed, whereas it was not predicted by the often-used encephalization quotient. In a subsample, we also found that the sizes of brain regions thought to be involved in short-term memory did not predict performance better than overall brain size. The dependence on brain size suggests that domain-general cognitive processes underlie short-term memory as tested by ManyPrimates. These results support the emerging notion that comparative studies of brain size do not generally identify domain-specific cognitive adaptations but rather reveal varying selections on domain-general cognitive abilities. Finally, because attentional processes beyond short-term memory also affect test performance, we suggest that the delayed response test can be refined.

Effects of working memory and visual search skill on Chinese reading comprehension: examining the simple view of reading

AbstractTo investigate the longitudinal effects of two domain-general cognitive abilities, namely verbal working memory and visual search skill, on Chinese reading comprehension. To evaluate whether decoding and linguistic comprehension mediate such effects. A total of 202 first-grade Chinese-speaking children from mainland China (Mage = 86 months, SD = 4.9 months; 126 boys) completed tasks that measured verbal working memory, visual search, expressive vocabulary, morphological awareness, Chinese character recognition, and word reading fluency. One year later, they completed a passage comprehension task and a nonverbal intelligence test. Structural equation modeling was conducted with decoding and linguistic comprehension being included as latent variables and mediating factors explaining the effects of working memory and visual search. The children with better verbal working memory and visual search skill exhibited better reading comprehension performance. The effect of working memory on reading comprehension was fully mediated by linguistic comprehension (captured by vocabulary and morphological awareness) but not decoding (measured by word reading accuracy and fluency). However, decoding fully mediated the impact of visual search skill. Our findings suggest that the reading comprehension ability of beginning Chinese readers is associated with verbal working memory and visual search ability. These general cognitive abilities influence reading comprehension through distinct pathways. In line with the simple view of reading theory, decoding and linguistic comprehension skills explain such impacts. This research underlines the value of simultaneously examining general cognitive abilities and exploring their interconnectedness with linguistic skills in the context of reading comprehension.

Biological and cognitive mechanisms and the role of culture in theory of mind development: In need of an integrative, biocultural perspective?

The present paper attempts a comprehensive approach to the biological, cognitive, as well as cultural foundations of theory of mind development. A critical analysis and synthesis of contemporary research findings serves as a basis for revisiting key theoretical accounts regarding the nature and development of this valuable sociocognitive faculty. Are the findings best interpreted within frameworks which consider developmental change and individual differences in the domain-general cognitive abilities (executive functions) that may underlie performance on theory of mind tasks (processing account)? Or is it more fruitful to discuss the development of theory of mind based on domain-specific mechanisms or capacities: an innate, modular mechanism that is underpinned by neurological maturation (modularity theories), or an inborn capacity to form naïve, intuitive theories about the mind, which are then subject to conceptual change as a function of experience (theory theory account), or a mechanism that serves simulations of mental states and related attributions (simulation theories)? Where possible, biological and neurocognitive processes, and experiential influences are discussed in combination. A disentanglement of general cultural influences from more proximal, social or familial effects on theory of mind development is also attempted. The aim is to highlight the value of an integrative, interdisciplinary approach to its study: a biocultural perspective could essentially serve this purpose by shifting attention to the interplay of biological, cognitive, and environmental forces shaping the lifespan dynamics of human theory of mind.

Domain-specific knowledge and domain-general abilities in children's science problem-solving.

Problem-solving in early and middle childhood is of high relevance for cognitive developmental research and educational support. Previous research on science problem-solving has focussed on the process and strategies of children handling challenging tasks, but less on providing insights into the cognitive network that enables science problem-solving. In this study, we aimed to investigate whether performance in science problem-solving is mainly determined by domain-specific rule knowledge, by domain-general cognitive abilities or both. In our study, 215 6- to 8-year-old children completed a set of three domain-specific rule knowledge tasks and three corresponding problem-solving tasks that were content-coherent, as well as a vocabulary task, and a reasoning task. Correlational and regression analyses revealed a negligible impact of domain-specific rule knowledge on corresponding problem-solving tasks. In contrast, the associations between problem-solving performance in different domains and the associations between problem-solving performance and domain-general abilities (vocabulary and reasoning) were comparably strong. The findings suggest that science problem-solving in primary school children primarily relies on domain-general cognitive abilities. Implications of these findings are discussed with regard to cognitive theories and early science education.

The ten-million-year explosion: Paleocognitive reconstructions of domain-general cognitive ability (G) in extinct primates

The ten-million-year explosion: Paleocognitive reconstructions of domain-general cognitive ability (G) in extinct primates

The behavioral and neurobiological relationships between executive function and reading: A review and preliminary findings.

Despite decades of prior research, the mechanisms for how skilled reading develops remain elusive. Numerous studies have identified word recognition and oral language ability as key components to explain later reading comprehension performance. However, these components alone do not fully explain differences in reading achievement. There is ongoing work exploring other candidate processes important for reading, such as the domain-general cognitive ability of executive function (EF). Here, we summarize our work on the behavioral and neurobiological connections between EF and reading and present preliminary neuroimaging findings from ongoing work. Together, these studies suggest 1) that EF plays a supportive and perhaps indirect role in reading achievement and 2) that EF-related brain regions interface with the reading and language networks. While further work is needed to dissect the specifics of how EF interacts with reading, these studies begin to reveal the complex role that EF plays in reading development.

The importance of domain-specific number abilities and domain-general cognitive abilities for early arithmetic achievement and development.

Children's numerical and arithmetic skills differ greatly already at an early age. Although research focusing on accounting for these large individual differences clearly demonstrates that mathematical performance draws upon several cognitive abilities, our knowledge concerning key abilities underlying mathematical skill development is still limited. First, to identify key cognitive abilities contributing to children's development of early arithmetic skills. Second, to examine the extent to which early arithmetic performance and early arithmetic development rely on different or similar constellations of domain-specific number abilities and domain-general cognitive abilities. In all, 134 Swedish children (Mage = 6 years and 4 months, SD = 3 months, 74 boys) participated in this study. Verbal and non-verbal logical reasoning, non-symbolic number comparison, counting knowledge, spatial processing, verbal working memory and arithmetic were assessed. Twelve months later, arithmetic skills were reassessed. A latent change score model was computed to determine whether any of the abilities accounted for variations in arithmetic development. Arithmetic performance was supported by counting knowledge, verbal and non-verbal logical reasoning and spatial processing. Arithmetic skill development was only supported by spatial processing. Results show that young children's early arithmetic performance and arithmetic development are supported by different cognitive processes. The findings regarding performance supported Fuchs et al.'s model (Dev Psychol, 46, 2010b, 1731) but the developmental findings did not. The developmental findings align partially to Geary et al.'s (J Educ Psychol, 109, 2017, 680) hypothesis stating that young children's early arithmetic development is more dependent on general cognitive abilities than number abilities.

Development of Achieving Constancy in Lexical Tone Identification With Contextual Cues.

The aim of this study was to explore when and how Mandarin-speaking children use contextual cues to normalize speech variability in perceiving lexical tones. Two different cognitive mechanisms underlying speech normalization (lower level acoustic normalization and higher level acoustic-phonemic normalization) were investigated through the lexical tone identification task in nonspeech contexts and speech contexts, respectively. Besides, another aim of this study was to reveal how domain-general cognitive abilities contribute to the development of the speech normalization process. In this study, 94 five- to eight-year-old Mandarin-speaking children (50 boys, 44 girls) and 24 young adults (14 men, 10 women) were asked to identify ambiguous Mandarin high-level and mid-rising tones in either speech or nonspeech contexts. Furthermore, in this study, we tested participants' pitch sensitivity through a nonlinguistic pitch discrimination task and their working memory using the digit span task. Higher level acoustic-phonemic normalization of lexical tones emerged at the age of 6 years and was relatively stable thereafter. However, lower level acoustic normalization was less stable across different ages. Neither pitch sensitivity nor working memory affected children's lexical tone normalization. Mandarin-speaking children above 6 years of age successfully achieved constancy in lexical tone normalization based on speech contextual cues. The perceptual normalization of lexical tones was not affected by pitch sensitivity and working memory capacity.

Low discriminative power of WISC cognitive profile in developmental dyscalculia

The role of domain-general cognitive abilities in the etiology of Developmental Dyscalculia (DD) is a hotly debated issue. In the present study, we tested whether WISC-IV cognitive profiles can be useful to single out DD. Using a stringent 2-SD cutoff in a standardized numeracy battery, we identified children with DD (N=43) within a clinical sample referred for assessment of learning disability and compared them in terms of WISC cognitive indexes to the remaining children without DD (N=100) employing cross-validated logistic regression. Both groups showed higher Verbal Comprehension and Perceptual Reasoning than Working Memory and Processing Speed, and DD scores were generally lower. Predictive accuracy of WISC indexes in identifying DD individuals was low (AUC = 0.67) and it dropped to chance level in discriminating DD from selected controls (N=43) with average math performance but matched on global IQ. The inclusion of a visuospatial memory score as an additional predictor did not improve classification accuracy. These results demonstrate that cognitive profiles do not reliably discriminate DD from non-DD children, thereby weakening the appeal of domain-general accounts.

Common brain activation and connectivity patterns supporting the generation of creative uses and creative metaphors

Recent studies and reviews suggest that creative thinking is at least partly a domain-general cognitive ability, dependent on consistent patterns of brain activity including co-activation of the executive control and default mode networks. However, the degree to which the generation of ideas in different creative tasks relies on common brain activity remains unknown. In this fMRI study, participants were asked to generate creative ideas in both a uses generation task and a metaphor production task. Whole-brain analysis showed that generation of creative uses (relative to conventional uses) activated the bilateral inferior frontal gyrus (IFG), medial prefrontal cortex, left supplementary motor area, left angular gyrus (AG), left thalamus, and bilateral cerebellum posterior lobe. The generation of creative metaphors (relative to conventional metaphors) activated dorsal medial prefrontal cortex (dmPFC) and left AG. Importantly, regions active in both creative use and creative metaphor generation included the dmPFC and left AG. Psycho-physiological interactions analysis showed that the left AG was positively connected to the right precentral gyrus, and the dmPFC to the left IFG in both creative tasks. Our findings provide evidence that the generation of creative ideas relies on a core creative network related to remote semantic association-making and conceptual integration, offering new insight into the domain-general mechanisms underlying creative thinking.

Cortical thickness, gray matter volume, and cognitive performance: a crosssectional study of the moderating effects of age on their interrelationships.

In a sample comprising younger, middle-aged, and older cognitively healthy adults (N = 375), we examined associations between mean cortical thickness, gray matter volume (GMV), and performance in 4 cognitive domains-memory, speed, fluency, and crystallized intelligence. In almost all cases, the associations were moderated significantly by age, with the strongest associations in the older age group. An exception to this pattern was identified in a younger adult subgroup aged <23 years when a negative association between cognitive performance and cortical thickness was identified. Other than for speed, all associations between structural metrics and performance in specific cognitive domains were fully mediated by mean cognitive ability. Cortical thickness and GMV explained unique fractions of the variance in mean cognitive ability, speed, and fluency. In no case, however, did the amount of variance jointly explained by the 2 metrics exceed 7% of the total variance. These findings suggest that cortical thickness and GMV are distinct correlates of domain-general cognitive ability, that the strength and, for cortical thickness, the direction of these associations are moderated by age, and that these structural metrics offer only limited insights into the determinants of individual differences in cognitive performance across the adult lifespan.

The cultural evolution of teaching.

Teaching is an important process of cultural transmission. Some have argued that human teaching is a cognitive instinct - a form of 'natural cognition' centred on mindreading, shaped by genetic evolution for the education of juveniles, and with a normative developmental trajectory driven by the unfolding of a genetically inherited predisposition to teach. Here, we argue instead that human teaching is a culturally evolved trait that exhibits characteristics of a cognitive gadget. Children learn to teach by participating in teaching interactions with socialising agents, which shape their own teaching practices. This process hijacks psychological mechanisms involved in prosociality and a range of domain-general cognitive abilities, such as reinforcement learning and executive function, but not a suite of cognitive adaptations specifically for teaching. Four lines of evidence converge on this hypothesis. The first, based on psychological experiments in industrialised societies, indicates that domain-general cognitive processes are important for teaching. The second and third lines, based on naturalistic and experimental research in small-scale societies, indicate marked cross-cultural variation in mature teaching practice and in the ontogeny of teaching among children. The fourth line indicates that teaching has been subject to cumulative cultural evolution, i.e. the gradual accumulation of functional changes across generations.

Among-individual differences in auditory and physical cognitive abilities in zebra finches.

Among-individual variation in performance on cognitive tasks is ubiquitous across species that have been examined, and understanding the evolution of cognitive abilities requires investigating among-individual variation because natural selection acts on individual differences. However, relatively little is known about the extent to which individual differences in cognition are determined by domain-specific compared with domain-general cognitive abilities. We examined individual differences in learning speed of zebra finches across seven different tasks to determine the extent of domain-specific versus domain-general learning abilities, as well as the relationship between learning speed and learning generalization. Thirty-two zebra finches completed a foraging board experiment that included visual and structural discriminations, and then these same birds went through an acoustic operant discrimination experiment that required discriminating between different natural categories of acoustic stimuli. We found evidence of domain-general learning abilities as birds’ relative performance on the seven learning tasks was weakly repeatable and a principal components analysis found a first principal component that explained 36% of the variance in performance across tasks with all tasks loading unidirectionally on this component. However, the few significant correlations between tasks and high repeatability within each experiment suggest the potential for domain-specific abilities. Learning speed did not influence an individual’s ability to generalize learning. These results suggest that zebra finch performance across visual, structural, and auditory learning relies upon some common mechanism; some might call this evidence of “general intelligence”(g), but it is also possible that this finding is due to other noncognitive mechanisms such as motivation.Supplementary InformationThe online version contains supplementary material available at 10.3758/s13420-022-00520-w.

Numeracy skills in young children as predictors of mathematical competence.

As mathematical competence is linked to educational success, professional achievement, and even a country's economic growth, researchers have been interested in early predictors for quite some time. Although there have been numerous studies on domain-specific numerical abilities predicting later mathematical competence in preschool children, research in toddlers is scarce, especially regarding additional influential aspects, such as domain-general cognitive abilities and the children's social background. Using a large-scale dataset, the present study examined predictive effects of numeracy skills in 17-month-olds for later mathematical achievement. We found small, positive effects, even when controlling for child-related variables (i.e., age and sex) and the children's social background (i.e., maternal education and household language). Additionally, we compared results with a domain-general categorization task and found no distinct effect on mathematical competence. The present results are discussed with regard to the specificities of the dataset, as well as implications for future studies on predictors of mathematical competence.

A connectome-based neuromarker of nonverbal number acuity and arithmetic skills.

The approximate number system (ANS) is vital for survival and reproduction in animals and is crucial for constructing abstract mathematical abilities in humans. Most previous neuroimaging studies focused on identifying discrete brain regions responsible for the ANS and characterizing their functions in numerosity perception. However, a neuromarker to characterize an individual's ANS acuity is lacking, especially one based on whole-brain functional connectivity (FC). Here, based on the resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (rs-fMRI) data obtained from a large sample, we identified a distributed brain network (i.e. a numerosity network) using a connectome-based predictive modeling (CPM) analysis. The summed FC strength within the numerosity network reliably predicted individual differences in ANS acuity regarding behavior, as measured using a nonsymbolic number-comparison task. Furthermore, in an independent dataset of the Human Connectome Project (HCP), we found that the summed FC strength within the numerosity network also specifically predicted individual differences in arithmetic skills, but not domain-general cognitive abilities. Therefore, our findings revealed that the identified numerosity network could serve as an applicable neuroimaging-based biomarker of nonverbal number acuity and arithmetic skills.

The approximate number system and mathematics achievement: it's complicated. A thorough investigation of different ANS measures and executive functions in mathematics achievement in children

ABSTRACT The ability to represent approximate numerical magnitudes is often referred to as the approximate number system (ANS) and has regularly been proposed as foundational to mathematics achievement. However, some argue that the relation between ANS acuity and mathematics achievement ceases to exist when controlling for domain-general cognitive abilities. The current debate in the literature on whether ANS acuity remains a predictor to mathematics after strict control is applied leads to the need to simultaneously investigate domain-specific and domain-general foundational abilities in different ages. 174 Children took part in two computerised ANS tasks, two executive function tasks, a verbal skills task, two intelligence subscales, and a mathematics achievement task (i.e. global, formal, and informal mathematics achievement). Results demonstrated that, when controlling for intelligence and visuospatial memory, the relation between ANS acuity and mathematics achievement ceased to exist, and that ANS acuity might only play a predictive role in early informal mathematics.

Mathematical skills of 11-year-old children born very preterm and full-term

Preterm birth affects the academic development of children, especially in mathematics. Remarkably, only a few studies have measured specific effects of preterm birth on mathematical skills in primary school. The aim of this study was to compare 11-year-old children, with an IQ above 70, born very preterm (N=64) and full-term (N=72) on a variety of 5th grade mathematical skills and cognitive abilities important for mathematical learning. The measures were spontaneous focusing on numerosity (SFON), spontaneous focusing on quantitative relations (SFOR), arithmetic fluency, mathematics achievement, number line estimation, rational number magnitude knowledge, mathematics motivation, reading skills, visuospatial processing, executive functions, and naming speed. The children born very preterm and full-term differed in arithmetic fluency, SFON and SFOR. Domain general cognitive abilities did not fully explain the group differences in SFON and SFOR. Retrospective comparisons of the samples at the age of five years showed large group differences in early mathematical skills and cognitive abilities. Despite lower early mathematical skills, the children born very preterm reached peer equivalent performance in many mathematical skills by the age of 11years. Nevertheless, they appear less likely to focus on implicit mathematical features in their everyday life.

Patterns of math and reading achievement in children and adolescents with autism spectrum disorder

• Study conducted a cluster analysis on math and reading abilities. • Analyses revealed 2 subgroups characterized by differences on IQ and working memory. • Reading fluency distinguished subgroups more powerfully than other variables. • Findings have important implications for inclusion in general education. There has been an increase of autistic students without intellectual disabilities (autistic WoID ) placed in general education settings (Hussar et al., 2020), but there is a lack of understanding of how to best support classroom learning for these children. Previous research has pointed to subgroups of autistic WoID children who display difficulty with mathematics and reading achievement ( Chen et al., 2018 ; Estes et al., 2011; Jones et al., 2009; Wei et al., 2015 ). Research has primarily focused on symptomatology and communication factors related to learning in subgroups of autistic children. The current study sought to expand upon this research by assessing the validity of these previous studies and by investigating the specific contribution of domain-general cognitive abilities to differences in these subgroups. Seventy-eight autistic WoID individuals ( M = 11.34 years, SD = 2.14) completed measures of mathematics and reading achievement, IQ, working memory, inferential thinking, and Theory of Mind (ToM). A hierarchical cluster analysis was performed on the math and reading measures. The analysis revealed two unique achievement groups: one group that performed lower than expected on math and reading achievement and a second group that performed higher than expected. Groups differed significantly on IQ and working memory and were distinguished by performance on reading fluency. Groups did not differ on ToM, inferential thinking, or symptomatology. These findings describe a group of autistic WoID individuals that may be more likely to experience difficulty learning, which should be accounted for in general education settings.