Fluid Intelligence Tasks Research Articles

The interaction of ability and motivation: Average working memory is required for Need for Cognition to positively benefit intelligence and the effect increases with ability

This study examined the role of working memory in the relationship between Need for Cognition (NFC) and intelligence. We previously reported that NFC is associated with intelligence but not working memory. This was unexpected as working memory has a strong relationship with fluid intelligence. 167 participants completed the NFC short scale, WAIS-III, and experimental working memory and fluid intelligence tasks. Moderation analyses revealed significant interaction effects between NFC, intelligence, and working memory. Working memory appeared to serve as a moderator between NFC and intelligence such that the positive effect of NFC on intelligence was only present for individuals with at least average working memory ability. There was evidence that the positive association between NFC and intelligence was increased with higher working memory.

The role of practice and strategy in mental rotation training: transfer and maintenance effects.

Research in the domain of spatial abilities is now focusing on whether spatial abilities can be trained, and whether this can produce gains and maintenance effects in other, untrained skills. The aim of the present study was to assess the benefit and maintenance effects of two types of mental rotation training, one based on mental rotation practice alone, the other combining mental rotation practice with the use of a spatial (rotation) strategy. Seventy-two females took part in the study: 24 practiced with a rotation task that involved comparing pairs of 3D objects [the mental rotation (MR) group], 24 were taught to use the rotation strategy while practicing with the rotation task [the strategy+mental rotation (S+MR) group], and 24 were involved in parallel non-spatial activities (the active control group). Transfer effects were sought on both untrained spatial tasks (testing object rotation and perspective taking) and fluid ability tasks; self-reported strategy use was also examined. Our results showed short-term benefits and maintenance effects in the MR and the S+MR groups in terms of their accuracy in both the MR tasks considered (a 3D same/different task, and the Mental Rotations Test). The S+MR group was more accurate at follow-up than at post-test in both MR tasks, and reported using the rotation strategy in association with the tasks; this group was also more accurate at follow-up than at pre-test in the perspective-taking and fluid intelligence tasks. These findings are discussed from the spatial cognition standpoint and with reference to the (rotation) training literature.

Working memory - not processing speed - mediates fluid intelligence deficits associated with attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder symptoms.

Attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is a psychological condition characterized by inattention and hyperactivity. Cognitive deficits are commonly observed in ADHD patients, including impaired working memory, processing speed, and fluid intelligence, the three of which are theorized to be closely associated with one another. In this study, we aimed to determine if decreased fluid intelligence was associated with ADHD, and was mediated by deficits in working memory and processing speed. This study tested 142 young adults from the general population on a range of working memory, processing speed, and fluid intelligence tasks, and an ADHD self-report symptoms questionnaire. Results showed that total and hyperactive ADHD symptoms correlated significantly and negatively with fluid intelligence, but this association was fully mediated by working memory. However, inattentive symptoms were not associated with fluid intelligence. Additionally, processing speed was not associated with ADHD symptoms at all, and was not uniquely predictive of fluid intelligence. The results provide implications for working memory training programs for ADHD patients, and highlight potential differences between the neuropsychological profiles of ADHD subtypes.

Strategy use fully mediates the relationship between working memory capacity and performance on Raven's matrices.

Working memory capacity consistently correlates with fluid intelligence. It has been suggested that this relationship is partly attributable to strategy use: Participants with high working memory capacity would use more effective strategies, in turn leading to higher performance on fluid intelligence tasks. However, this idea has never been directly investigated. In 2 experiments, we tested this hypothesis by directly manipulating strategy use in a combined experimental-correlational approach (Experiment 1; N = 250) and by measuring strategy use with a self-report questionnaire (Experiment 2; N = 93). Inducing all participants to use an effective strategy in Raven's matrices decreased the correlation between working memory capacity and performance; the strategy use measure fully mediated the relationship between working memory capacity and performance on the matrices task. These findings indicate that individual differences in strategic behavior drive the predictive utility of working memory. We interpret the results within a theoretical framework integrating the multiple mediators of the relationship between working memory capacity and high-level cognition.

The influence of transcranial alternating current on fluid intelligence. A fMRI study

The aim of this study was to investigate the influence of transcranial alternating current stimulation (tACS) on fluid intelligence (gf). Furthermore, the study is the first to explore the relevance of the parietal cortex for fluid reasoning processes by means of tACS and fMRI. In a double-blind sham-controlled experiment 20 participants performed fluid intelligence tasks (matrices task, and paper folding) after theta transcranial alternating current stimulation was applied to the left parietal cortex. Stimulation induced brain activity changes were recorded during the task processing using fMRI. The results indicated a difficulty-specific stimulation effect: When solving difficult items of the matrices test verum tACS significantly increased fluid reasoning performance, as compared to sham tACS. No such difference was observed for items with easy item difficulty. Whole-brain analyses showed that left parietal brain stimulation was accompanied by less right sided activation in the areas of the frontal lobe, the fusiform gyrus and the occipital lobe, as well as left sided in the area of the middle occipital gyrus. Additional ROI analyses revealed a tendency for less activation in the left inferior parietal lobule. The results are discussed within the theoretical framework of the neural efficiency hypothesis as well as of the parieto-frontal-integration theory.

A-03 * Cognitive Resilience and Cognitive Decline with Aging on Fluid Intelligence Tasks

Objective: Cognitive resilience refers to the phenomenon of bright people maintaining their cognitive abilities well into various forms of dementia. There is also age-related cognitive decline, as noted especially on tasks of fluid intelligence. Is age-related loss uniform regardless of intellect, or does cognitive resilience reduce the initial decline for those who are brighter, or is the decline more precipitous? To look at this we traced the performance age trajectory for those with 12 and 18 years of education on the Category Test, verbal letter fluency (FAS), Paced Auditory Serial Addition Test, and the Block Design subtest. Method: The normative data from Heaton, Miller, Taylor, and Grant (2004) were used. At each age for each of the four tests and at the two levels of education, the 50th percentile scaled score was determined, and then from this the equivalent T-score at the youngest group (20–34, 12 years of education) was determined. Results: There was no evidence for age-related cognitive resilience. As expected, those with more education performed better when younger, but there was no relative improvement in their performance as they aged. In fact, for three of the four tasks the difference between the two educational levels remained effectively the same, and for block design, the higher education group deteriorated slightly more than the other group. Conclusion(s): Although cognitive resilience protects those of higher intelligence through at least the initial stages of dementia, there is no such protection from deterioration of intellect seen with normal aging.

Learning and individual differences in Gf processes and Raven's

Learning processes are often associated with intelligence and induction but rarely empirically examined in relation to fluid intelligence (Gf) tasks. This study examined whether learning of Raven’s Distribution of Two (D2) rule occurs, and whether this learning contributes to individual differences. Learning sets with different numbers of D2 rule items were presented to 284 participants in three exposure conditions and then tested for transfer. Results suggest learning about a specific rule is not necessary for induction to take place. However, evidence that rule learning contributes to individual differences in Raven’s performance was observed, with those higher in Gf benefitting most from more exposure. This Gf advantage was only evident when actualized learning opportunity (successful solution) was taken into account, as opposed to potential learning opportunity (mere exposure). Mere item exposure appears insufficient for rule learning unless the individual solves items correctly and thus receives actualized learning opportunity.

Working memory training and transfer in older adults: Effects of age, baseline performance, and training gains.

Recent studies suggest that working memory training may benefit older adults; however, findings regarding training and transfer effects are mixed. The current study aimed to investigate the effects of a process-based training intervention in a diverse sample of older adults and explored possible moderators of training and transfer effects. For that purpose, 80 older adults (65-95 years) were assigned either to a training group that worked on visuospatial, verbal, and executive working memory tasks for 9 sessions over 3 weeks or to a control group. Performance on trained and transfer tasks was assessed in all participants before and after the training period, as well as at a 9-month follow-up. Analyses revealed significant training effects in all 3 training tasks in trained participants relative to controls, as well as near transfer to a verbal working memory task and far transfer to a fluid intelligence task. Encouragingly, all training effects and the transfer effect to verbal working memory were stable at the 9-month follow-up session. Further analyses revealed that training gains were predicted by baseline performance in training tasks and (to a lesser degree) by age. Gains in transfer tasks were predicted by age and by the amount of improvement in the trained tasks. These findings suggest that cognitive plasticity is preserved over a large range of old age and that even a rather short training regime can lead to (partly specific) training and transfer effects. However, baseline performance, age, and training gains moderate the amount of plasticity.

Global Increase in Task-related Fronto-parietal Activity after Focal Frontal Lobe Lesion

A critical question for neuropsychology is how complex brain networks react to damage. Here, we address this question for the well-known executive control or multiple-demand (MD) system, a fronto-parietal network showing increased activity with many different kinds of cognitive demand, including standard tests of fluid intelligence. Using fMRI, we ask how focal frontal lobe damage affects MD activity during a standard fluid intelligence task. Despite poor behavioral performance, frontal patients showed increased fronto-parietal activity relative to controls. The activation difference was not accounted for by difference in IQ. Moreover, rather than specific focus on perilesional or contralesional cortex, additional recruitment was distributed throughout the MD regions and surrounding cortex and included parietal MD regions distant from the injury. The data suggest that, following local frontal lobe damage, there is a global compensatory recruitment of an adaptive and integrated fronto-parietal network.

Impairments in proverb interpretation following focal frontal lobe lesions

The proverb interpretation task (PIT) is often used in clinical settings to evaluate frontal “executive” dysfunction. However, only a relatively small number of studies have investigated the relationship between frontal lobe lesions and performance on the PIT. We compared 52 patients with unselected focal frontal lobe lesions with 52 closely matched healthy controls on a proverb interpretation task. Participants also completed a battery of neuropsychological tests, including a fluid intelligence task (Raven’s Advanced Progressive Matrices). Lesions were firstly analysed according to a standard left/right sub-division. Secondly, a finer-grained analysis compared the performance of patients with medial, left lateral and right lateral lesions with healthy controls. Thirdly, a contrast of specific frontal subgroups compared the performance of patients with medial lesions with patients with lateral frontal lesions. The results showed that patients with left frontal lesions were significantly impaired on the PIT, while in patients with right frontal lesions the impairments approached significance. Medial frontal patients were the only frontal subgroup impaired on the PIT, relative to healthy controls and lateral frontal patients. Interestingly, an error analysis indicated that a significantly higher number of concrete responses were found in the left lateral subgroup compared to healthy controls. We found no correlation between scores on the PIT and on the fluid intelligence task. Overall our results suggest that specific regions of the frontal lobes contribute to the performance on the PIT.

Selling points: What cognitive abilities are tapped by casual video games?

The idea that video games or computer-based applications can improve cognitive function has led to a proliferation of programs claiming to “train the brain.” However, there is often little scientific basis in the development of commercial training programs, and many research-based programs yield inconsistent or weak results. In this study, we sought to better understand the nature of cognitive abilities tapped by casual video games and thus reflect on their potential as a training tool. A moderately large sample of participants (n=209) played 20 web-based casual games and performed a battery of cognitive tasks. We used cognitive task analysis and multivariate statistical techniques to characterize the relationships between performance metrics. We validated the cognitive abilities measured in the task battery, examined a task analysis-based categorization of the casual games, and then characterized the relationship between game and task performance. We found that games categorized to tap working memory and reasoning were robustly related to performance on working memory and fluid intelligence tasks, with fluid intelligence best predicting scores on working memory and reasoning games. We discuss these results in the context of overlap in cognitive processes engaged by the cognitive tasks and casual games, and within the context of assessing near and far transfer. While this is not a training study, these findings provide a methodology to assess the validity of using certain games as training and assessment devices for specific cognitive abilities, and shed light on the mixed transfer results in the computer-based training literature. Moreover, the results can inform design of a more theoretically-driven and methodologically-sound cognitive training program.

Why does working memory capacity predict RAPM performance? A possible role of distraction

Current theories concerning individual differences in working memory capacity (WMC) suggest that WMC reflects the ability to control the focus of attention and resist interference and distraction. The current set of experiments tested whether susceptibility to distraction is partially responsible for the established relationship between performance on complex span tasks and the Raven's Advanced Progressive Matrices (RAPM). This hypothesis was examined by manipulating the level of distraction among the incorrect responses contained in RAPM problems, by varying whether the response bank included the most commonly selected incorrect response. When entered hierarchically into a regression predicting a composite score on span tasks, items with highly distracting incorrect answers significantly improved the predictive power of a model predicting an individual's WMC, compared to the model containing only items with less distracting incorrect responses. Additional analyses were performed examining the types of errors that were made. A second experiment used eye-tracking to demonstrate that these effects seem to be rooted in differences in susceptibility to distraction as well as strategy differences between high and low WMC individuals. Results are discussed in terms of current theories about the role of attentional control in performance on general fluid intelligence tasks.

Working memory in multilingual children: Is there a bilingual effect?

This research investigates whether early childhood bilingualism affects working memory performance in 6- to 8-year-olds, followed over a longitudinal period of 3 years. The study tests the hypothesis that bilinguals might exhibit more efficient working memory abilities than monolinguals, potentially via the opportunity a bilingual environment provides to train cognitive control by combating interference and intrusions from the non-target language. A total of 44 bilingual and monolingual children, matched on age, sex, and socioeconomic status, completed assessments of working memory (simple span and complex span tasks), fluid intelligence, and language (vocabulary and syntax). The data showed that the monolinguals performed significantly better on the language measures across the years, whereas no language group effect emerged on the working memory and fluid intelligence tasks after verbal abilities were considered. The study suggests that the need to manage several language systems in the bilingual mind has an impact on children's language skills while having little effects on the development of working memory.

Short- and long-term benefits of cognitive training.

Does cognitive training work? There are numerous commercial training interventions claiming to improve general mental capacity; however, the scientific evidence for such claims is sparse. Nevertheless, there is accumulating evidence that certain cognitive interventions are effective. Here we provide evidence for the effectiveness of cognitive (often called "brain") training. However, we demonstrate that there are important individual differences that determine training and transfer. We trained elementary and middle school children by means of a videogame-like working memory task. We found that only children who considerably improved on the training task showed a performance increase on untrained fluid intelligence tasks. This improvement was larger than the improvement of a control group who trained on a knowledge-based task that did not engage working memory; further, this differential pattern remained intact even after a 3-mo hiatus from training. We conclude that cognitive training can be effective and long-lasting, but that there are limiting factors that must be considered to evaluate the effects of this training, one of which is individual differences in training performance. We propose that future research should not investigate whether cognitive training works, but rather should determine what training regimens and what training conditions result in the best transfer effects, investigate the underlying neural and cognitive mechanisms, and finally, investigate for whom cognitive training is most useful.

The role of working memory and updating in Coloured Raven Matrices performance in typically developing children

A large body of evidence indicates that working memory correlates with performance on fluid intelligence tasks such as Raven's tests. However, light still needs to be shed on which particular aspects of working memory might be most critically related to fluid intelligence, and whether working memory updating—which appears crucial to intellectual functioning—has a prominent role. To address these issues more closely, our study presented participants (aged 5–11 years) with the Raven's Coloured Progressive Matrices, an updating task, and a battery of working memory tasks. Our findings confirm that working memory indeed plays an important part in explaining fluid intelligence, in particular that updating information in working memory is critical to fluid intelligence in the context of development.

Similar prefrontal cortical activities between general fluid intelligence and visuospatial working memory tasks in preschool children as revealed by optical topography

General fluid intelligence (gF) is a major component of intellect in both adults and children. Whereas its neural substrates have been studied relatively thoroughly in adults, those are poorly understood in children, particularly preschoolers. Here, we hypothesized that gF and visuospatial working memory share a common neural system within the lateral prefrontal cortex (LPFC) during the preschool years (4-6years). At the behavioral level, we found that gF positively and significantly correlated with abilities (especially accuracy) in visuospatial working memory. Optical topography revealed that the LPFC of preschoolers was activated and deactivated during the visuospatial working memory task and the gF task. We found that the spatio-temporal features of neural activity in the LPFC were similar for both the visuospatial working memory task and the gF task. Further, 2months of training for the visuospatial working memory task significantly increased gF in the preschoolers. These findings suggest that a common neural system in the LPFC is recruited to improve the visuospatial working memory and gF in preschoolers. Efficient recruitment of this neural system may be important for good performance in these functions in preschoolers, and behavioral training using this system would help to increase gF at these ages.

Working memory training in older adults: Evidence of transfer and maintenance effects.

Few studies have examined working memory (WM) training-related gains and their transfer and maintenance effects in older adults. This present research investigates the efficacy of a verbal WM training program in adults aged 65-75 years, considering specific training gains on a verbal WM (criterion) task as well as transfer effects on measures of visuospatial WM, short-term memory, inhibition, processing speed, and fluid intelligence. Maintenance of training benefits was evaluated at 8-month follow-up. Trained older adults showed higher performance than did controls on the criterion task and maintained this benefit after 8 months. Substantial general transfer effects were found for the trained group, but not for the control one. Transfer maintenance gains were found at follow-up, but only for fluid intelligence and processing speed tasks. The results are discussed in terms of cognitive plasticity in older adults.

On the relationship between fluid intelligence, gesture production, and brain structure

Individuals scoring high in fluid intelligence tasks generally perform very efficiently in problem solving tasks and analogical reasoning tasks presumably because they are able to select the task-relevant information very quickly and focus on a limited set of task-relevant cognitive operations. Moreover, individuals with high fluid intelligence produce more representational hand and arm gestures when describing a geometric analogy task than individuals with average fluid intelligence. No study has yet addressed the relationship between intelligence, gesture production, and brain structure, to our knowledge. That was the purpose of our study. To characterize the relation between intelligence, gesture production, and brain structure we assessed the frequency of representational gestures and cortical thickness values in a group of adolescents differing in fluid intelligence. Individuals scoring high in fluid intelligence showed higher accuracy in the geometric analogy task and produced more representational gestures (in particular more movement gestures) when explaining how they solved the task and showed larger cortical thickness values in some regions in the left hemisphere (namely the pars opercularis, superior frontal, and temporal cortex) than individuals with average fluid intelligence. Moreover, the left pars opercularis (a part of Broca's area) and left transverse temporal cortex showed larger cortical thickness values in participants who produced representational and in particular movement gestures compared to those who did not. Our results thus indicate that cortical thickness of those brain regions is related to both high fluid intelligence and the production of gestures. Results are discussed in the gestures-as-simulated-action framework that states that gestures result from simulated perception and simulated action that underlie embodied language and mental imagery.

The Roles of Working Memory Updating and Processing Speed in Mediating Age-related Differences in Fluid Intelligence

ABSTRACT This study was conducted to investigate the relative roles of working memory updating (updating) and processing speed in mediating age-related differences in fluid intelligence. A sample of 142 normal adults between 18 and 85 years of age performed a set of updating, processing speed, and fluid intelligence tasks. Hierarchical regression analyses indicated that the proportion of unique age-related variance in updating measures was related to the complexity of speed measures. There was a larger proportion of unique age-related variance in updating measures after controlling for the variance in simpler speed measures. Moreover, structural equation modeling showed that updating mediated almost all the age-related effects on fluid intelligence. These results suggest that updating, but not speed, is the critical mediator between age and fluid intelligence. In addition, the speed mediation of age-related differences in fluid intelligence as indicated by previous studies is at least partially derived from the executive component of speed measures.

Interindividual Differences in Learning Performance: The Effects of Age, Intelligence, and Strategic Task Approach

ABSTRACT The present study investigated fluid and crystallized intelligence as well as strategic task approaches as potential sources of age-related differences in adult learning performance. Therefore, 45 young and 45 old adults were asked to learn pictured objects. Overall, young participants outperformed old participants in this learning test. However, more than 2/3 of the interindividual variability in learning performance was explained by interindividual differences in fluid intelligence and strategic task approach, with age not being a reliable predictor. Results indicate that personal resources and task approach influence learning performance directly and independently.