Institute of Psychology, Heidelberg University.
J Exp Psychol Gen. 2017 Oct;146(10):1498-1512. doi: 10.1037/xge0000325. Epub 2017 Jul 13.
Individual differences in the speed of information processing have been hypothesized to give rise to individual differences in general intelligence. Consistent with this hypothesis, reaction times (RTs) and latencies of event-related potential have been shown to be moderately associated with intelligence. These associations have been explained either in terms of individual differences in some brain-wide property such as myelination, the speed of neural oscillations, or white-matter tract integrity, or in terms of individual differences in specific processes such as the signal-to-noise ratio in evidence accumulation, executive control, or the cholinergic system. Here we show in a sample of 122 participants, who completed a battery of RT tasks at 2 laboratory sessions while an EEG was recorded, that more intelligent individuals have a higher speed of higher-order information processing that explains about 80% of the variance in general intelligence. Our results do not support the notion that individuals with higher levels of general intelligence show advantages in some brain-wide property. Instead, they suggest that more intelligent individuals benefit from a more efficient transmission of information from frontal attention and working memory processes to temporal-parietal processes of memory storage. (PsycINFO Database Record
个体在信息处理速度上的差异被假设为导致一般智力上的个体差异的原因。与这一假设一致，反应时间 (RT) 和事件相关电位的潜伏期与智力呈中度相关。这些关联可以用一些大脑整体特性的个体差异来解释，例如髓鞘形成、神经振荡的速度或白质束的完整性，也可以用证据积累中的信号噪声比、执行控制或胆碱能系统等特定过程的个体差异来解释。在这里，我们在 122 名参与者的样本中显示，在两次实验室会议期间完成一系列 RT 任务，同时记录 EEG，更聪明的个体具有更高阶信息处理的更高速度，这解释了大约 80%的一般智力的方差。我们的结果不支持这样的观点，即一般智力水平较高的个体在某些大脑整体特性方面具有优势。相反，它们表明，更聪明的个体受益于从额叶注意力和工作记忆过程到记忆存储的颞顶叶过程的信息更有效传输。
