Multitasking performance is relevant in everyday life and job analyses highlight the influence of multitasking over several diverse occupations. Intelligence is the best single predictor of overall job performance and it is also related to individual differences in multitasking. However, it has been shown that working memory capacity (WMC) is…

Researchers interested in working memory have debated whether it should be considered a single latent cognitive ability or a set of essentially independent latent abilities distinguished by domain-specific memory and/or processing resources. Simultaneously, researchers interested in cognitive aging have established that there are substantial…

The present report assesses information processing in the toddler years (24 and 36 months), using a cohort of preterms (less than 1750 g) and full-terms initially seen in infancy. The children received a battery of tasks tapping 11 specific abilities from four domains--memory, processing speed, attention, and representational competence. The same…

The acknowledged high relationship between working memory and intelligence suggests common underlying cognitive mechanisms and, perhaps, shared biological substrates. If this is the case, improvement in working memory by repeated exposure to challenging span tasks might be reflected in increased intelligence scores. Here we report a study in which…

Item responses to Digit Span and Letter-Number Sequencing were analyzed to develop a better-refined model of the two working memory tasks using the finite mixture (FM) modeling method. Models with ordinal latent traits were found to better account for the independent sources of the variability in the tasks than those with continuous traits, and…

Although it is well established that preterms as a group do poorly relative to their full-term peers on tests of global cognitive functioning, the basis for this relative deficiency is less understood. The present paper examines preterm deficits in core cognitive abilities and determines their role in mediating preterm/full-term differences in IQ.…

The worst performance rule for cognitive tasks [Coyle, T.R. (2003). IQ, the worst performance rule, and Spearman's law: A reanalysis and extension. "Intelligence," 31, 567-587] in which reaction time is measured is the result that IQ scores correlate better with longer (i.e., 0.7 and 0.9 quantile) reaction times than shorter (i.e., 0.1 and 0.3…

The current study examined basic cognitive abilities that are related to or included in the concept of working memory (WM): different WM components, three executive functions, simple short-term storage (STM), and sustained attention. Tasks were selected from well-established models and balanced in terms of content. The predictive power of storage…

Recent evidence suggests the existence of multiple cognitive mechanisms that support the general cognitive ability factor (g). Working memory and processing speed are the two best established candidate mechanisms. Relatively little attention has been given to the possibility that associative learning is an additional mechanism contributing to g.…

The working memory (WM) construct is conceptualized similarly across domains of psychology, yet the methods used to measure WM function vary widely. The present study examined the relationship between WM measures used in the laboratory and those used in applied settings. A large sample of undergraduates completed three laboratory-based WM measures…

This study investigated intellectual development in 4-7 years old Greek and Chinese children. They were examined on speeded performance, working memory, reasoning, and self-awareness tasks in order to investigate possible effects of learning the Chinese logographic system on possible differences in intellectual development between these ethnic…

Neuro-imaging studies of intelligence implicate the importance of a parietal-frontal network. One unresolved issue is whether this network underlies a general factor of intelligence ("g") or other specific cognitive factors. A second unresolved issue is whether males and females use different parts of this network. Here we obtained intelligence…

Working memory and the general factor of intelligence (g) are highly related constructs. However, we still don't know why. Some models support the central role of simple short-term storage, whereas others appeal to executive functions like the control of attention. Nevertheless, the available empirical evidence does not suffice to get an answer,…

To explore the possible neural foundations of individual differences in intelligence test scores, we examined the associations between Raven's Matrices scores and two tasks that were administered in a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) setting. The two tasks were an n-back working memory (N = 37) task and inspection time (N = 47). The…

Raven's Progressive Matrices is a frequently used intelligence test, and it has been suggested that the major determinant of difficulty for each item is its numbers of elements and rules, and its rule complexity. The current study investigated another potential source of difficulty--element salience--items are harder where their elements are…