Task-domain and hemisphere-asymmetry effects in cisgender and transmale individuals

The present research examined the extent to which transmale individuals’ functional brain organization resembles that of their assigned sex or gender identity. Cisgender-female, cisgender-male, and transmale participants, who were assigned female sex but did not have a female gender identity, were compared in terms of effects that have been observed in cisgender individuals: task-domain effects, in which males perform better than females on spatial tasks and females perform better than males on verbal tasks; and hemisphere-asymmetry effects, in which males show larger differences between the left and right hemispheres than females. In addition, the present research measured participants’ intelligence in order to control for potential moderating effects. Participants performed spatial (mental rotation) and verbal (lexical decision) tasks presented to each hemisphere using a divided-visual field paradigm, and then completed an intelligence assessment. In the mental-rotation task, cismale and transmale participants performed better than cisfemale participants, however this group difference was explained by intelligence scores, with higher scores predicting better performance. In the lexical-decision task, cismale and transmale participants exhibited a greater left-hemisphere advantage than cisfemales, and this difference was not affected by intelligence scores. Taken together, results do not support task-domain effects when intelligence is accounted for; however, they do demonstrate a hemisphere-asymmetry effect in the verbal domain that is moderated by gender identity and not assigned sex.

The Correlation between Emotional Intelligence and Academic Listening Skills of Pre-Service Teachers

In the present study, emotional intelligence and academic listening skill levels of pre-service teachers and the correlations between these variables were determined. Furthermore, the emotional intelligence levels and academic listening competencies of pre-service teachers were also investigated based on the variables of gender, department, and the preference of the department of study. The study group included 361 freshmen pre-service teachers attending the Faculty of Education and the study was conducted with survey method, a quantitative research method. The study data were collected with the “Academic Listening Skill Competency Scale” and “Rotterdam Emotional Intelligence Scale”. In the study, the regression analysis was conducted to determine the causality between emotional intelligence scores and academic listening skill scores revealed significant findings. The study findings demonstrated that “Total Emotional Intelligence” scores of the students reflected above average emotional intelligence levels. It was determined that the academic listening skill competency scores of the pre-service teachers were above average in both scale sub-dimensions and the total scale score. The results of regression analysis showed that the causality between Total Emotional Intelligence and Total Academic Listening Skills was significant.

Act Natural: Functional Connectivity from Naturalistic Stimuli fMRI Outperforms Resting-State in Predicting Brain Activity

The search for an 'ideal' approach to investigate the functional connections in the human brain is an ongoing challenge for the neuroscience community. While resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) has been widely used to study individual functional connectivity patterns, recent work has highlighted the benefits of collecting functional connectivity data while participants are exposed to naturalistic stimuli, such as watching a movie or listening to a story. For example, functional connectivity data collected during movie-watching were shown to predict cognitive and emotional scores more accurately than resting-state-derived functional connectivity. We have previously reported a tight link between resting-state functional connectivity and task-derived neural activity, such that the former successfully predicts the latter. In the current work we use data from the Human Connectome Project to demonstrate that naturalistic-stimulus-derived functional connectivity predicts task-induced brain activation maps more accurately than resting-state-derived functional connectivity. We then show that activation maps predicted using naturalistic stimuli are better predictors of individual intelligence scores than activation maps predicted using resting-state. We additionally examine the influence of naturalistic-stimulus type on prediction accuracy. Our findings emphasize the potential of naturalistic stimuli as a promising alternative to resting-state fMRI for connectome-based predictive modelling of individual brain activity and cognitive traits.

Predicting Individual Traits from Unperformed Tasks

Relating individual differences in cognitive traits to brain functional organization is a long-lasting challenge for the neuroscience community. Individual intelligence scores were previously predicted from whole-brain connectivity patterns, extracted from functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data acquired at rest. Recently, it was shown that task-induced brain activation maps outperform these resting-state connectivity patterns in predicting individual intelligence, suggesting that a cognitively demanding environment improves prediction of cognitive abilities. Here, we use data from the Human Connectome Project to predict task-induced brain activation maps from resting-state fMRI, and proceed to use these predicted activity maps to further predict individual differences in a variety of traits. While models based on original task activation maps remain the most accurate, models based on predicted maps significantly outperformed those based on the resting-state connectome. Thus, we provide a promising approach for the evaluation of measures of human behavior from brain activation maps, that could be used without having participants actually perform the tasks.

The relationship between emotional intelligence with student's mathematics representation ability

This study aims to determine the relationship between students' emotional intelligence and students' mathematical representation abilities. The population in the study were all eighth grade students of SMP Negeri 1 Sukoharjo, Sukoharjo sub-district, Pringsewu Regency for the 2020/2021 academic year which were distributed in nine classes. The research sample was selected by purposive sampling technique and 32 students were selected for class VIII-A. The design used is a correlational research design. The research data is in the form of quantitative data in the form of students' emotional intelligence scores obtained through filling out questionnaires on students' emotional intelligence and students' mathematical representation ability scores obtained through circle material test activities. The data analysis technique in this study uses the Pearson product moment correlation test. The conclusion of this study is that there is a significant relationship between students' emotional intelligence and students' mathematical representation abilities, with a Pearson product moment correlation index number of 0.698, meaning that the higher the emotional intelligence of students, the higher the students' mathematical representation ability.

Distribution across Age of Raw and Scaled Intelligence Scores - the DARSIS model

The mean raw score on intelligence tests rises steeply in childhood before stabilizing for adolescents and adults, Little is known however about how the different percentiles, let alone the entire raw score distribution, changes from early childhood to adulthood. This study will show that there is a regular, mathematical relationship between age, raw scores and scaled scores on intelligence test subtests with a high g-loading. Using the norm tables from 60 subtests from 19 different intelligence tests normed in 5 different countries between 1984-2020, a relatively simple model with three coefficients and a variable ’difficulty’ parameter is shown to explain almost all of the variance in the norm tables. Smaller errors are found for the mean of norm tables, and for higher performance, but not for greater age. The year in which a test was normed also did not appear to influence the fit of the model. Possible applications of the DARSIS model, such as the creation of norms for above-level testing, creating extended norms, a reduced parameter space when norming new intelligence tests and calculating reference ages are discussed.

Pengaruh Yoga Anak Terhadap Kecerdasan Spiritual Anak Pra Sekolah di Desa Kebonromo Kecamatan Ngrampal Kabupaten Sragen

Optimizing spiritual intelligence requires a long process and requires practice, the earlier the child is trained to develop spiritual intelligence, the greater the benefits include being able to recognize themselves, being able to recognize the strengths and weaknesses that exist in themselves, being sensitive to the surrounding environment, having a sense of empathy and compassion for God’s creation and will have peace of mind. The purpose of this research is to find out the effect of children’s yoga on pre-school children’s spiritual intelligence in Kebonromo village, Ngrampal sub-district, Sragen district. The design used in this research is Pre-Experimental with the One Group Pre-Post Test Design approach. The population of this study were pre-school children’s in Kebonromo village, Ngrampal sub-district, Sragen district. Sample of 10 pre-school children respondents. Spiritual intelligence questionnaire instruments and children’s yoga SOP. Data analysis used univariate and bivariate analysis. The bivariate test results show that the Zcount value of the Wilcoxon Signed Ranks Test is -2.825 with a significance value (p-value) of 0.005. The significance value of the test is less than 0.05 (0.005 < 0.05) so that the test decision is H0 rejected, which means there is a significant difference in spiritual intelligence scores between the pre test and post test. The conclusion is there is an effect of children’s yoga on pre-school children’s spiritual intelligence in Kebonromo village, Ngrampal sub-district, Sragen district. The suggestion from this research is that it is hoped that children will be able to carry out child yoga regularly to get the benefits of children’s yoga, especially to develop children’s spiritual intelligence. ABSTRAK Dalam mengoptimalkan kecerdasan spiritual diperlukan proses panjang serta memerlukan latihan, semakin dini anak dilatih untuk mengembangkan kecerdasan spiritual maka akan semakin besar manfaatnya antara lain anak mampu mengenali diri sendiri, mampu mengenali kelebihan dan kekurangan yang ada pada dirinya, peka terhadap lingkungan sekitar, memiliki rasa empati dan belas kasih terhadap ciptaan Tuhan serta akan memiliki ketenangan dalam berpikir. Salah satu cara untuk meningkatkan kecerdasan spiritual dengan melakukan yoga. Tujuan penelitian ini adalah untuk mengetahui pengaruh yoga anak terhadap kecerdasan spiritual anak pra sekolah di Desa Kebonromo Kecamatan Ngrampal Kabupaten Sragen. Desain yang digunakan dalam penelitian ini adalah Pra Eksperimental dengan pendekatan One Group Pra-Post Test Design. Populasi dari penelitian ini adalah anak pra sekolah di Desa Kebonromo Kecamatan Ngrampal Kabupaten Sragen. Sampel 10 responden anak pra sekolah. Instrumen angket kecerdasan spiritual dan SOP yoga anak. Analisis data menggunakan Analisis Univariat dan bivariat. Hasil uji bivariat menunjukkan bahwa nilai Zhitung uji Wilcoxon Signed Ranks Test adalah sebesar -2,825 dengan nilai signifikansi (p-value) 0,005. Nilai signifikansi uji ternyata lebih kecil dari 0,05 (0,005 < 0,05) sehingga keputusan uji adalah H0 ditolak yang bermakna terdapat perbedaan yang signifikan skor kecerdasan spiritual antara pre test dan post test. Kesimpulannya adalah ada pengaruh yoga anak terhadap kecerdasan spiritual anak pra sekolah di Desa Kebonromo Kecamatan Ngrampal Kabupaten Sragen. Saran dari penelitian ini adalah diharapkan anak-anak mampu melaksanakan yoga anak ini secara rutin untuk mendapatkan manfaat dari yoga anak terutama untuk mengembangkan kecerdasan spiritual anak.

Brain Functional Correlates of Intelligence Score in ADHD Based on EEG

It has been shown that intelligence as a general mental ability is related to structure and function of the brain regions. However, specificity of this regional dependencies to the intelligence scores in the typical and atypical developed individuals needs to be well understood. In this study, we hypothesized that neural correlates of IQ should not have a fixed pattern rather it must follow a dynamic pattern to compensate the functional deficits caused by a neurodevelopmental disorder. Therefore, EEG correlates of normal IQ in various subtypes of attention deficit hyperactive disorder (ADHD) were compared to a group of healthy controls. Sixty-three ADHD subjects comprising of combined, inattentive, and hyperactive individuals diagnosed by a psychiatrist using structural clinical interview for DSM-V, and 46 healthy controls with similar normal IQ scores were recruited in this study. The subjects’ EEG data were then recorded during an eye-closed resting condition. The subjects’ intelligence level was measured by the Raven’s standard progressive matrices. Then, association between IQ and power of EEG signal were computed in the conventional frequency bands. Subsequently, topographical representations of these associations were compared between the groups. Our results demonstrated that association between IQ score and EEG power is not the same in various ADHD subtypes, and healthy controls. This finding suggests a compensatory mechanism in ADHD individuals for changing the regional oscillatory pattern to maintain the IQ within a normal range.