Inherent limits on the identification of a neural basis for general intelligence

2007 ◽  
Vol 30 (2) ◽  
pp. 154-155 ◽  
Author(s):  
Clancy Blair
Keyword(s):  
Theoretical Model ◽  
Test Performance ◽  
Cognitive Abilities ◽  
Intelligence Test ◽  
General Intelligence ◽  
Neural Basis ◽  
Generative Theory ◽  
Target Article

AbstractThe target article provides a thoughtful review and synthesis of studies examining the neural basis of cognitive abilities associated with intelligence test performance. In its attempt to present a new or generative theory of the neural basis for intelligence, however, the review faces specific limits to its theoretical model that relate to processes of development and the role of automaticity in cognition.

scholarly journals Revisiting the Role of Worries in Explaining the Link Between Test Anxiety and Test Performance

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Frieder L. Schillinger ◽  
Jochen A. Mosbacher ◽  
Clemens Brunner ◽  
Stephan E. Vogel ◽  
Roland H. Grabner
Keyword(s):  
University Students ◽  
Standardized Tests ◽  
Test Anxiety ◽  
Test Performance ◽  
Inverse Relationship ◽  
Curvilinear Relationship ◽  
General Intelligence ◽  
Mathematical Competencies ◽  
And Performance

AbstractThe inverse relationship between test anxiety and test performance is commonly explained by test-anxious students’ tendency to worry about a test and the consequences of failing. However, other cognitive facets of test anxiety have been identified that could account for this link, including interference by test-irrelevant thoughts and lack of confidence. In this study, we compare different facets of test anxiety in predicting test performance. Seven hundred thirty university students filled out the German Test Anxiety Inventory after completing a battery of standardized tests assessing general intelligence and mathematical competencies. Multiple regressions revealed that interference and lack of confidence but not worry or arousal explained unique variance in students’ test performance. No evidence was found for a curvilinear relationship between arousal and performance. The present results call for revisiting the role of worries in explaining the test anxiety-performance link and can help educators to identify students who are especially at risk of underperforming on tests.

What Is IQ? Life Beyond “General Intelligence”

2019 ◽  
Vol 28 (2) ◽  
pp. 189-194 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kristof Kovacs ◽  
Andrew R. A. Conway
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Ability ◽  
Cognitive Abilities ◽  
Latent Trait ◽  
Cognitive Activity ◽  
General Intelligence ◽  
General Cognitive Ability ◽  
Neural Basis ◽  
Standard View ◽  
Different Content ◽  
Recent Account

For more than a century, the standard view in the field of human intelligence has been that there is a “general intelligence” that permeates all human cognitive activity. This general cognitive ability is supposed to explain the positive manifold, the finding that intelligence tests with different content all correlate. Yet there is a lack of consensus regarding the psychological or neural basis of such an ability. A recent account, process-overlap theory, explains the positive manifold without proposing general intelligence. As a consequence of the theory, IQ is redefined as an emergent formative construct rather than a reflective latent trait. This implies that IQ should be interpreted as an index of specific cognitive abilities rather than the reflection of an underlying general cognitive ability.

7. Does intelligence matter in the school and the workplace?

2020 ◽  
pp. 91-101
Author(s):  
Ian J. Deary
Keyword(s):  
United Kingdom ◽  
Cognitive Abilities ◽  
Educational Outcomes ◽  
Test Scores ◽  
Psychometric Testing ◽  
Intelligence Test ◽  
After School ◽  
General Intelligence ◽  
Cognitive Abilities Test ◽  
Intelligence Test Scores

Do intelligence test scores have some predictive power? Can they predict who will do well in achieving more and better educational qualifications, and after school, can they predict who will perform well in the workplace? ‘Does intelligence matter in the school and the workplace?’ looks at the use of the Cognitive Abilities Test in United Kingdom schools and its correlation with GCSE results five years later. The correlation is high: people’s intelligence differences at age 11 are a powerful predictor of their differences in educational outcomes at age 16. In the workplace, the use of general intelligence/psychometric testing in selecting people for work is worthwhile. Intelligence predicts occupational and educational successes.

What about the neural basis of crystallized intelligence?

2007 ◽  
Vol 30 (2) ◽  
pp. 159-161 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kun Ho Lee ◽  
Yu Yong Choi ◽  
Jeremy R. Gray
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
General Intelligence ◽  
Reasoning Ability ◽  
Neural Basis ◽  
Crystallized Intelligence ◽  
Target Article ◽  
Fluid Reasoning ◽  
Mental Abilities ◽  
The Brain ◽  
Insight Into

AbstractGeneral intelligence is largely based on two distinguishable mental abilities: crystallized intelligence (gC) and fluid reasoning ability (gF). The target article authors' P-FIT model emphasizes a network of regions throughout the brain as the neural basis for fluid reasoning and/or working memory. However, it provides little significant insight into the neural basis of gC, or how or why gC is more stable than gF across the life span.

Toward a revised theory of general intelligence: Further examination of fluid cognitive abilities as unique aspects of human cognition

2006 ◽  
Vol 29 (2) ◽  
pp. 145-153 ◽  
Author(s):  
Clancy Blair
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Abilities ◽  
Human Cognition ◽  
General Intelligence ◽  
Theory Of Intelligence ◽  
Empirical Base ◽  
Target Article

Primary issues raised by the commentaries on the target article relate to (1) the need to differentiate distinct but overlapping aspects of fluid cognition, and (2) the implications that this differentiation may hold for conceptions of general intelligence. In response, I outline several issues facing researchers concerned with differentiation of human cognitive abilities and suggest that a revised and expanded theory of intelligence is needed to accommodate an increasingly diverse and varied empirical base.

The integrated memory model: A new framework for understanding the mechanisms of change in psychotherapy

2015 ◽  
Vol 38 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard D. Lane ◽  
Lynn Nadel ◽  
Leslie Greenberg ◽  
Lee Ryan
Keyword(s):  
Emotional Arousal ◽  
Memory Model ◽  
Mechanisms Of Change ◽  
Neural Basis ◽  
Target Article ◽  
New Framework

AbstractIn this response to commentaries on our target article, we highlight and clarify a variety of issues and respond to several comments, challenges, and misconceptions. Topics covered include the mechanisms of enduring change, the nature of memory, the conditions in which memories are updated, the role of emotional arousal in change, and current limitations in our understanding of the neural basis of change in psychotherapy. It is our hope that through research stimulated by this exchange the latter may be advanced.

How similar are fluid cognition and general intelligence? A developmental neuroscience perspective on fluid cognition as an aspect of human cognitive ability

2006 ◽  
Vol 29 (2) ◽  
pp. 109-125 ◽  
Author(s):  
Clancy Blair
Keyword(s):  
Young Children ◽  
Test Performance ◽  
Cognitive Skills ◽  
Genetic Research ◽  
Compensatory Education ◽  
Human Populations ◽  
General Intelligence ◽  
Developmental Neuroscience ◽  
Target Article ◽  
Stress Response System

This target article considers the relation of fluid cognitive functioning to general intelligence. A neurobiological model differentiating working memory/executive function cognitive processes of the prefrontal cortex from aspects of psychometrically defined general intelligence is presented. Work examining the rise in mean intelligence-test performance between normative cohorts, the neuropsychology and neuroscience of cognitive function in typically and atypically developing human populations, and stress, brain development, and corticolimbic connectivity in human and nonhuman animal models is reviewed and found to provide evidence of mechanisms through which early experience affects the development of an aspect of cognition closely related to, but distinct from, general intelligence. Particular emphasis is placed on the role of emotion in fluid cognition and on research indicating fluid cognitive deficits associated with early hippocampal pathology and with dysregulation of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis stress-response system. Findings are seen to be consistent with the idea of an independent fluid cognitive construct and to assist with the interpretation of findings from the study of early compensatory education for children facing psychosocial adversity and from behavior genetic research on intelligence. It is concluded that ongoing development of neurobiologically grounded measures of fluid cognitive skills appropriate for young children will play a key role in understanding early mental development and the adaptive success to which it is related, particularly for young children facing social and economic disadvantage. Specifically, in the evaluation of the efficacy of compensatory education efforts such as Head Start and the readiness for school of children from diverse backgrounds, it is important to distinguish fluid cognition from psychometrically defined general intelligence.

Refining our understanding of the “elephant in the room”

2020 ◽  
Vol 43 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew Whiten
Keyword(s):  
Social Cognition ◽  
Cultural Evolution ◽  
Cognitive Abilities ◽  
Critical Factors ◽  
Technological Culture

Abstract The authors do the field of cultural evolution a service by exploring the role of non-social cognition in human cumulative technological culture, truly neglected in comparison with socio-cognitive abilities frequently assumed to be the primary drivers. Some specifics of their delineation of the critical factors are problematic, however. I highlight recent chimpanzee–human comparative findings that should help refine such analyses.

Choosing a Markov blanket

2020 ◽  
Vol 43 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas Parr
Keyword(s):  
Markov Blanket ◽  
Target Article ◽  
The Relationship

Abstract This commentary focuses upon the relationship between two themes in the target article: the ways in which a Markov blanket may be defined and the role of precision and salience in mediating the interactions between what is internal and external to a system. These each rest upon the different perspectives we might take while “choosing” a Markov blanket.

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