scholarly journals Temporal stability of lower order ability scores and intelligence profiles in high ability students

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Moritz Breit ◽  
Vsevolod Scherrer ◽  
Franzis Preckel

Individuals’ general intelligence is highly stable over time and strong empirical evidencesupports its validity for diagnostic purposes. Frequently, general intelligence is assessed as acomposite of different specific cognitive abilities (e.g., verbal, numerical, figural ability). Inprevious research, these specific abilities only showed marginal stabilities, challenging theirvalidity for diagnostic purposes. However, this research was conducted with samples ofpredominantly average or low ability individuals. According to Spearman’s law of diminishingreturns, high ability individuals show more pronounced differences between subtest scores orintelligence profiles than regular ability individuals. Therefore, we aimed to investigate thestabilities of specific abilities and intelligence profiles in high ability individuals. Using theBerlin structure-of-intelligence test (BIS-HB), we investigated the 6-month mean-level change,individual-level change, differential continuity, and ipsative continuity of specific abilities in asample of 114 students (28.9% female; age M = 14.11, SD = .84) attending special gifted classes.We found significant mean-level change for all specific abilities. Reliable individual-levelincreases in performance were observed for, on average, 17% of the participants on each specificability. Differential continuity of specific abilities ranged from .72 to .84. Intelligence profilesreplicated across test–retest occasions significantly above chance levels (Mdnκ = .28). The resultsrender more precisely the usefulness of interpreting intelligence profiles, which has previouslybeen called into question in general.

PeerJ ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 8 ◽  
pp. e9290 ◽  
Author(s):  
Florian Schmiedek ◽  
Martin Lövdén ◽  
Timo von Oertzen ◽  
Ulman Lindenberger

Over a century of research on between-person differences has resulted in the consensus that human cognitive abilities are hierarchically organized, with a general factor, termed general intelligence or “g,” uppermost. Surprisingly, it is unknown whether this body of evidence is informative about how cognition is structured within individuals. Using data from 101 young adults performing nine cognitive tasks on 100 occasions distributed over six months, we find that the structures of individuals’ cognitive abilities vary among each other, and deviate greatly from the modal between-person structure. Working memory contributes the largest share of common variance to both between- and within-person structures, but the g factor is much less prominent within than between persons. We conclude that between-person structures of cognitive abilities cannot serve as a surrogate for within-person structures. To reveal the development and organization of human intelligence, individuals need to be studied over time.


2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Florian Schmiedek ◽  
Martin Lövdén ◽  
Timo von Oertzen ◽  
Ulman Lindenberger

Over a century of research on between-person differences has resulted in the consensus that human cognitive abilities are hierarchically organized, with a general factor, termed general intelligence or “g,” uppermost. Surprisingly, it is unknown whether this body of evidence is informative about how cognition is structured within individuals. Using data from 101 young adults performing nine cognitive tasks on 100 occasions distributed over six months, we find that the structures of individuals’ cognitive abilities vary among each other, and deviate greatly from the modal between-person structure. Working memory contributes the largest share of common variance to both between- and within-person structures, but the g factor is much less prominent within than between persons. We conclude that between-person structures of cognitive abilities cannot serve as a surrogate for within-person structures. To reveal the development and organization of human intelligence, individuals need to be studied over time.


Author(s):  
D. Sunshine Hillygus ◽  
Steven Snell

Longitudinal or panel surveys, in which the same individuals are interviewed repeatedly over time, are increasingly common in the social sciences. The benefit of such surveys is that they track the same respondents so that researchers can measure individual-level change over time, offering greater causal leverage than cross-sectional surveys. Panel surveys share the challenges of other surveys while also facing several unique issues in design, implementation, and analysis. This chapter considers three such challenges: (1) the tension between continuity and innovation in the questionnaire design; (2) panel attrition, whereby some individuals who complete the first wave of the survey fail to participate in subsequent waves; and (3) specific types of measurement error—panel conditioning and seam bias. It includes an overview of these issues and their implications for data quality and outlines approaches for diagnosing and correcting for these issues in the design and analysis of panel surveys.


Author(s):  
Florian Schmiedek ◽  
Martin Lövdén ◽  
Timo von Oertzen ◽  
Ulman Lindenberger

Over a century of research on between-person differences has resulted in the consensus that human cognitive abilities are hierarchically organized, with a general factor, termed general intelligence or “g,” uppermost. Surprisingly, it is unknown whether this body of evidence is informative about how cognition is structured within individuals. Using data from 101 young adults performing nine cognitive tasks on 100 occasions distributed over six months, we find that the structures of individuals’ cognitive abilities vary among each other, and deviate greatly from the modal between-person structure. Working memory contributes the largest share of common variance to both between- and within-person structures, but the g factor is much less prominent within than between persons. We conclude that between-person structures of cognitive abilities cannot serve as a surrogate for within-person structures. To reveal the development and organization of human intelligence, individuals need to be studied over time.


2017 ◽  
Vol 7 (3) ◽  
pp. 20160108 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kay E. Holekamp ◽  
Sarah Benson-Amram

Although intelligence should theoretically evolve to help animals solve specific types of problems posed by the environment, it is unclear which environmental challenges favour enhanced cognition, or how general intelligence evolves along with domain-specific cognitive abilities. The social intelligence hypothesis posits that big brains and great intelligence have evolved to cope with the labile behaviour of group mates. We have exploited the remarkable convergence in social complexity between cercopithecine primates and spotted hyaenas to test predictions of the social intelligence hypothesis in regard to both cognition and brain size. Behavioural data indicate that there has been considerable convergence between primates and hyaenas with respect to their social cognitive abilities. Moreover, compared with other hyaena species, spotted hyaenas have larger brains and expanded frontal cortex, as predicted by the social intelligence hypothesis. However, broader comparative study suggests that domain-general intelligence in carnivores probably did not evolve in response to selection pressures imposed specifically in the social domain. The cognitive buffer hypothesis, which suggests that general intelligence evolves to help animals cope with novel or changing environments, appears to offer a more robust explanation for general intelligence in carnivores than any hypothesis invoking selection pressures imposed strictly by sociality or foraging demands.


Intelligence ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 86 ◽  
pp. 101538
Author(s):  
Moritz Breit ◽  
Vsevolod Scherrer ◽  
Franzis Preckel

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