Intelligence correlates with accuracy in various timing tasks. Such correlations could be due to both bottom-up mechanisms, e.g. neural properties that influence both temporal accuracy and cognitive processing, and differences in top-down control. We have investigated the timing-intelligence relation using a simple temporal motor task, isochronous…

Using more complex items than those commonly employed within the information-processing approach, but still easier than those used in intelligence tests, this study analyzed how the association between processing speed and accuracy level changes as the difficulty of the items increases. The study involved measuring cognitive ability using Raven's…

Responses to items from an intelligence test may be fast or slow. The research issue dealt with in this paper is whether the intelligence involved in fast correct responses differs in nature from the intelligence involved in slow correct responses. There are two questions related to this issue: 1. Are the processes involved different? 2. Are the…

In the present study, speeded tasks with differing assumed difficulties of the trials are regarded as a special class of simple cognitive tasks. Exploratory latent growth modeling with data-driven shape of a growth curve and nonlinear structured latent curve modeling with predetermined monotonically increasing functions were used to analyze…

The idea that information processing speed is related to cognitive ability has a long history. Much evidence has been amassed in its support, with respect to both individual differences in general intelligence and developmental trajectories. Two so-called elementary cognitive tasks, reaction time and inspection time, have been used to compile this…

A latent variable analysis was conducted to examine the nature of individual differences in lapses of attention and their relation to executive and fluid abilities. Participants performed a sustained attention task along with multiple measures of executive control and fluid abilities. Lapses of attention were indexed based on the slowest reaction…

Spatial ability tasks appear on many intelligence and aptitude tests. Although the construct validity of spatial ability tests has often been studied through traditional correlational methods, such as factor analysis, less is known about the cognitive processes involved in solving test items. This study examines the cognitive processes involved in…

Mental chronometry (MC) studies cognitive processes measured by time. It provides an absolute, ratio scale. The limitations of instrumentation and statistical analysis caused the early studies in MC to be eclipsed by the "paper-and-pencil" psychometric tests started by Binet. However, they use an age-normed, rather than a ratio scale, which…

Psychometric intelligence correlates with reaction time in elementary cognitive tasks, as well as with performance in time discrimination and judgment tasks. It has remained unclear, however, to what extent these correlations are due to top-down mechanisms, such as attention, and bottom-up mechanisms, i.e. basic neural properties that influence…

Elementary cognitive tasks (ECTs) are simple tasks involving basic cognitive processes for which speed of performance typically correlates with IQ. Inspection time (IT) has the strongest IQ correlations and is considered critical evidence for neural speed underlying individual differences in intelligence. However, results from Bors et al. [Bors,…

Measures of four-choice reaction time, inspection time, and scores on a speeded coding-substitution task obtained from 104 adults aged 54 to 85 years were found to account for almost all age-related changes in cognitive performance on a number of indices of general fluid ability. (SLD)

Information processing was measured in terms of reaction time and movement time to stimulus displays which differed in amount of information transmitted. Only reaction time increased as a linear function of number of bits in the stimulus display. Both show individual differences which significantly correlated with intelligence. (Author/RD)

Mental-rotation task response times from 12 studies involving 505 adults--251 males and 254 females--were used to evaluate 5 hypotheses concerning sex differences derived from an X-linked genetic model. The model assumes that task facilitation in speed of mental rotation is mediated by a recessive gene. Four hypotheses derived from the model were…

Experiments with 35 male/39 female college students and 220 male Navy recruits examined the nature of a general ability factor of intelligence--Spearman's "g." Patterns related to task complexity and reaction time variability were studied. "g" appears related to the ability to reconfigure working memory contents flexibly and…

The effects of controlling for individual differences in simple reaction time (RT) on the correlations of choice RT and discrimination RT with intelligence quotient were studied for 213 male college students. Simple RT was controlled by subtraction, partial correlation, and multiple correlation. (SLD)