The nature of contextual facilitation effects for items derived from Raven's Progressive Matrices was investigated in two experiments. For these, the original matrices were modified, creating either abstract versions with high element salience, or versions which comprised realistic entities set in familiar contexts. In order to replicate and…

We examined whether fluid intelligence (Gf) is better predicted by the storage capacity of active memory or by the effectiveness of executive control. In two psychometric studies, we measured storage capacity with three kinds of task which required the maintenance of a visual array, the monitoring of simple relations among perceptually available…

Evidence is presented in support of psychometric "g," arguing that it accounts for most of the prediction of educational and vocational criteria that is possible from a battery of tests of cognitive tasks. Providing the best measure of "g" is explored. (SLD)

Recent psychometric results [Mem. Cogn. 29 (2001) 745] have supported a distinction between mental abilities that require a spatial transformation of a perceived object (e.g., mental rotation) and those that involve imagining how a scene looks like from different viewpoints (e.g., perspective taking). Two experiments provide further evidence for…

Measurement and psychometric quality of the Sternberg task (S. Sternberg, 1966, 1969), a memory search task, was investigated with 78 undergraduates. Individual performance was fairly homogeneous across responses, fairly unstable over time, and fairly stable across stimulus content. Implications for individual differences research are discussed.…

A measurement and psychometric examination of cognitive tasks was carried out with 195 undergraduates, investigating stability of latencies and number correct scores over a 2-week period and relations with standardized test and ability measure scores. Results are discussed in terms of the need for evaluating cognitive task measurement properties.…