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…

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…

The ranking of Wechsler subtests in terms of their "g" loadings is equivalent to ranking them in terms of the cognitive complexity of the tasks measured. Lower performing groups do not always fall behind higher performing groups the more complex the task. But that is the general rule, no matter whether the cause of the lower performance…

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…

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…

The transition of speed into accuracy was investigated by studying different degrees of transformation in a task requiring different numbers of simple exchanges. Results with 100 university students indicate that accuracy is associated with cognitive ability to a greater extent in complex tasks than in simple tasks. (SLD)

Strategy use, task performance, and perceptions of difficulty were studied for 34 mildly retarded children and 34 who were not retarded. Results showed that retarded children rated tasks more difficult than nonretarded students and responded less well to brief task training. Metacognitive variables predicted recall performance independently of…

Correlations between elementary sensory tasks and IQ scores support Galtonian theories of intelligence, which emphasize speed of signal encoding and transmission in the nervous system. Research involving 73 male Navy recruits indicates that such theories are warranted only when elementary tasks are viewed separately. Task complexity in…

The Ravens Standard Progressive Matrices Test was administered to 48 subjects who then performed a card-sorting task under single- and competing-task conditions. Hick's Law and the Roth-Jensen procedure were used in task development. Complexity should have a more central role in speed of processing models of intelligence than ability to divide…

Whether forward and backward serial recall performance reflects different codes, or different levels of processing complexity, was studied with 122 undergraduates. Results suggest that a phonological code was used for both forward and backward recall, and that a similar level of processing complexity was required for both. (SLD)

Effects on the event-related potential (ERP) waveform of differences in stimuli (task difficulty) and threshold were studied with 35 undergraduates performing a visual inspection time task and 30 performing a pitch discrimination task. In both tasks, ERP differences related to threshold were temporally localized differences in waveform shape. (SLD)

The latency and amplitude of the P300, an event-related potential, during the performance of a memory-scanning task were used as indices of the efficiency of information processing that may mediate individual differences in intelligence. Results with 61 female college students contradict a pure speed of processing explanation of the relationship…

The relation between intelligence and speed of auditory discrimination was investigated during an auditory oddball task with backward masking. In target discrimination conditions that varied in the interval between the target and the masking stimuli and in the tonal frequency of the target and masking stimuli, higher ability participants (HA)…

Various experiments demonstrated that the difficulty level of several performance-type intelligence test tasks is determined directly by stimulus and task variables that vary the information to be processed. The implications of these findings for intelligence and the problems of an experimental approach to the measurement of intelligence are…