individual differences

Face coding varies by gender, sexual orientation, & handedness

July, 2010

Why are women better at recognizing faces? Apparently it has to do with using both sides of your brain, and homosexual men tend to do it too.

Why do women tend to be better than men at recognizing faces? Two recent studies give a clue, and also explain inconsistencies in previous research, some of which has found that face recognition mainly happens in the right hemisphere part of the face fusiform area, and some that face recognition occurs bilaterally. One study found that, while men tended to process face recognition in the right hemisphere only, women tended to process the information in both hemispheres. Another study found that both women and gay men tended to use both sides of the brain to process faces (making them faster at retrieving faces), while heterosexual men tended to use only the right. It also found that homosexual males have better face recognition memory than heterosexual males and homosexual women, and that women have better face processing than men. Additionally, left-handed heterosexual participants had better face recognition abilities than left-handed homosexuals, and also tended to be better than right-handed heterosexuals. In other words, bilaterality (using both sides of your brain) seems to make you faster and more accurate at recognizing people, and bilaterality is less likely in right-handers and heterosexual males (and perhaps homosexual women). Previous research has shown that homosexual individuals are 39% more likely to be left-handed.

Reference: 

Proverbio AM, Riva F, Martin E, Zani A (2010) Face Coding Is Bilateral in the Female Brain. PLoS ONE 5(6): e11242. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0011242

[1611] Brewster, P. W. H., Mullin C. R., Dobrin R. A., & Steeves J. K. E.
(2010).  Sex differences in face processing are mediated by handedness and sexual orientation.
Laterality: Asymmetries of Body, Brain and Cognition.

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Is practice sufficient for expertise?

July, 2010

A study of sight-reading ability in pianists confirms the importance of many hours of practice, but also suggests that working memory capacity makes a difference.

A new study challenges the popular theory that expertise is simply a product of tens of thousands of hours of deliberate practice. Not that anyone is claiming that this practice isn’t necessary — but it may not be sufficient. A study looking at pianists’ ability to sight-read music reveals working memory capacity helps sight-reading regardless of how much someone has practiced.

The study involved 57 volunteers who had played piano for an average of 18.6 years (range from one to 57 years). Their estimated hours of overall practice ranged from 260 to 31,096 (average: 5806), and hours of sight-reading practice ranged from zero to 9,048 (average: 1487 hours). Statistical analysis revealed that although hours of practice was the most important factor, nevertheless, working memory capacity did, independently, account for a small but significant amount of the variance between individuals.

It is interesting that not only did WMC have an effect independent of hours of practice, but hours of practice apparently had no effect on WMC — although the study was too small to tell whether a lot of practice at an early age might have affected WMC (previous research has indicated that music training can increase IQ in children).

The study is also too small to properly judge the effects of the 10,000 hours deliberate practice claimed necessary for expertise: the researchers did not advise the number of participants that were at that level, but the numbers suggest it was low.

It should also be noted that an earlier study involving 52 accomplished pianists found no effect of WMC on sight-reading ability (but did find a related effect: the ability to tap two fingers rapidly in alternation and to press a computer key quickly in response to visual and acoustic cues was unrelated to practice but correlated positively with good sight-readers).

Nevertheless, the findings are interesting, and do agree with what I imagine is the ‘commonsense’ view: yes, becoming an expert is all about the hours of effective practice you put in, but there are intellectual qualities that also matter. The question is: do they matter once you’ve put in the requisite hours of good practice?

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Gender gap persists at highest levels of math and science testing

July, 2010

SAT and ACT results demonstrate a dramatic drop in gender ratio on math and science tests from 1981 to 1995, but little change since then.

Analysis of 30 years of SAT and ACT tests administered to the top 5% of U.S. 7th graders has found that the ratio of 7th graders scoring 700 or above on the SAT-math has dropped from about 13 boys to 1 girl to about 4 boys to 1 girl. The ratio dropped dramatically between 1981 and 1995, and has remained relatively stable since then. The top scores on scientific reasoning, a relatively new section of the ACT that was not included in the original study, show a similar ratio of boys to girls.

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Infectious disease burden may be a major factor in determining national IQ differences

July, 2010

Analysis of global data shows that differences in national IQs are most strongly predicted by the country's infectious disease burden.

A new analysis of data first published in 2002 in a controversial book called IQ and the Wealth of Nations and then expanded in 2006, argues that national differences in IQ are best explained not by differences in national wealth (the original researchers’ explanation), but by the toll of infectious diseases. The idea is that energy used to fight infection is energy taken from brain development in children. Using 2004 data on infectious disease burden from the World Health Organization, and factors that have been linked to national IQ, such as nutrition, literacy, education, gross domestic product, and temperature, the analysis revealed that infectious disease burden was more closely correlated to average IQ than the other variables, alone accounting for 67% of the worldwide variation in intelligence. The researchers also suggest that the Flynn effect (the rise in IQs seen in developed countries during the 20th century) may be caused in part by the decrease in the intensity of infectious diseases as nations develop.

Reference: 

[1619] Eppig, C., Fincher C. L., & Thornhill R.
(2010).  Parasite prevalence and the worldwide distribution of cognitive ability.
Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences.

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Cognitive ability, not age, predicts risky decisions

July, 2010

A new study provides evidence that it's not age per se that affects the quality of decision-making, but individual differences in processing speed and memory.

A study involving 54 older adults (66-76) and 58 younger adults (18-35) challenges the idea that age itself causes people to become more risk-averse and to make poorer decisions. Analysis revealed that it is individual differences in processing speed and memory that affect decision quality, not age. The stereotype has arisen no doubt because more older people process slowly and have poorer memory. The finding points to the need to identify ways in which to present information that reduces the demand on memory or the need to process information very quickly, to enable those in need of such help (both young and old) to make the best choices. Self-knowledge also helps — recognizing if you need to take more time to make a decision.

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1 in 40 of us really can multitask

March, 2010

A study assessing multitasking ability has found that a very few (5 out of 200) were unaffected by doing two complex tasks simultaneously (indeed their performance on the memory task improved!).

A study assessing the performance of 200 people on a simulated freeway driving task, with or without having a cell phone conversation that involved memorizing words and solving math problems, has found that, as expected, performance on both tasks was significantly impaired. However, for a very few, performance on these tasks was unaffected (indeed their performance on the memory task improved!). These few people — five of them (2.5%) — also performed substantially better on these tasks when performed alone.

Reference: 

Watson, J.M. & Strayer, D.L. 2010. Supertaskers: Profiles in extraordinary multitasking ability. Psychonomic Bulletin and Review. In Press.

Full text is available at http://www.psych.utah.edu/lab/appliedcognition/publications/supertaskers...

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The secret of sharp memory in old age

March, 2010

Examination of the brains from 9 “super-aged” — people over 80 whose memory performance was at the level of 50-year-olds — has found that some of them had almost no tau tangles. Are they genetically protected, or reaping the benefits of a preventive lifestyle?

Examination of the brains from 9 “super-aged” — people over 80 whose memory performance was at the level of 50-year-olds — has found that some of them had almost no tau tangles. The accumulation of tau tangles has been thought to be a natural part of the aging process; an excess of them is linked to Alzheimer’s disease. The next step is to work out why some people are immune to tangle formation, while others appear immune to the effects. Perhaps the first group is genetically protected, while the others are reaping the benefits of a preventive lifestyle.

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The findings were presented March 23 at the 239th National Meeting of the American Chemical Society (ACS).

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Foster care associated with improved growth, intelligence compared to orphanage care

April, 2010

A study involving healthy institutionalized infants from six Romanian orphanages has found that those randomly assigned to a foster care program showed rapid increases in height and weight, and that this was associated with better caregiving quality and significantly improved verbal IQ.

A study involving 136 healthy institutionalized infants (average age 21 months) from six orphanages in Bucharest, Romania, has found that those randomly assigned to a foster care program showed rapid increases in height and weight (but not head circumference), so that by 12 months, all of them were in the normal range for height, 90% were in the normal range for weight, and 94% were in the normal range of weight for height. Caregiving quality (particularly sensitivity and positive regard for the child, including physical affection) positively correlated with catch-up. Children whose height caught up to normal levels also appeared to improve their cognitive abilities. Each incremental increase of one in standardized height scores between baseline and 42 months was associated with an average increase of 12.6 points in verbal IQ.

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Morningness a predictor of better grades in college

January, 2008

A survey of 824 undergraduate students has found that those who were evening types had lower average grades than those who were morning types.

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The finding was presented at SLEEP 2008, the 22nd Annual Meeting of the Associated Professional Sleep Societies (APSS).

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