Hagemann Dirk, Ihmels Max, Bast Nico, Neubauer Andreas B, Schankin Andrea, Schubert Anna-Lena
Institute of Psychology, University of Heidelberg, 69117 Heidelberg, Germany.
Department of Psychology, University of Tübingen, 72076 Tübingen, Germany.
J Intell. 2023 Apr 6;11(4):70. doi: 10.3390/jintelligence11040070.
Empirical evidence suggests a great positive association between measures of fluid intelligence and working memory capacity, which implied to some researchers that fluid intelligence is little more than working memory. Because this conclusion is mostly based on correlation analysis, a causal relationship between fluid intelligence and working memory has not yet been established. The aim of the present study was therefore to provide an experimental analysis of this relationship. In a first study, 60 participants worked on items of the Advanced Progressive Matrices (APM) while simultaneously engaging in one of four secondary tasks to load specific components of the working memory system. There was a diminishing effect of loading the central executive on the APM performance, which could explain 15% of the variance in the APM score. In a second study, we used the same experimental manipulations but replaced the dependent variable with complex working memory span tasks from three different domains. There was also a diminishing effect of the experimental manipulation on span task performance, which could now explain 40% of the variance. These findings suggest a causal effect of working memory functioning on fluid intelligence test performance, but they also imply that factors other than working memory functioning must contribute to fluid intelligence.
实证证据表明，流体智力测量与工作记忆容量之间存在很强的正相关，这让一些研究人员认为流体智力只不过是工作记忆。由于这一结论主要基于相关分析，流体智力与工作记忆之间的因果关系尚未确立。因此，本研究的目的是对这种关系进行实验分析。在第一项研究中，60名参与者在完成高级渐进矩阵（APM）项目的同时，还要参与四项次要任务中的一项，以负荷工作记忆系统的特定组成部分。负荷中央执行功能对APM表现有递减效应，这可以解释APM分数中15%的方差。在第二项研究中，我们采用了相同的实验操作，但用来自三个不同领域的复杂工作记忆广度任务取代了因变量。实验操作对广度任务表现也有递减效应，现在这可以解释40%的方差。这些发现表明工作记忆功能对流体智力测试表现有因果效应，但它们也意味着除工作记忆功能之外的因素必定对流体智力有影响。
