intelligence

Working memory capacity affects emotional regulation

June, 2011

A new study confirms earlier indications that those with a high working memory capacity are better able to regulate their emotions.

Once upon a time we made a clear difference between emotion and reason. Now increasing evidence points to the necessity of emotion for good reasoning. It’s clear the two are deeply entangled.

Now a new study has found that those with a higher working memory capacity (associated with greater intelligence) are more likely to automatically apply effective emotional regulation strategies when the need arises.

The study follows on from previous research that found that people with a higher working memory capacity suppressed expressions of both negative and positive emotion better than people with lower WMC, and were also better at evaluating emotional stimuli in an unemotional manner, thereby experiencing less emotion in response to those stimuli.

In the new study, participants were given a test, then given either negative or no feedback. A subsequent test, in which participants were asked to rate their familiarity with a list of people and places (some of which were fake), evaluated whether their emotional reaction to the feedback affected their performance.

This negative feedback was quite personal. For example: "your responses indicate that you have a tendency to be egotistical, placing your own needs ahead of the interests of others"; "if you fail to mature emotionally or change your lifestyle, you may have difficulty maintaining these friendships and are likely to form insecure relations."

The false items in the test were there to check for "over claiming" — a reaction well known to make people feel better about themselves and control their reactions to criticism. Among those who received negative feedback, those with higher levels of WMC were found to over claim the most. The people who over claimed the most also reported, at the end of the study, the least negative emotions.

In other words, those with a high WMC were more likely to automatically use an emotion regulation strategy. Other emotional reappraisal strategies include controlling your facial expression or changing negative situations into positive ones. Strategies such as these are often more helpful than suppressing emotion.

Reference: 

Schmeichel, Brandon J.; Demaree, Heath A. 2010. Working memory capacity and spontaneous emotion regulation: High capacity predicts self-enhancement in response to negative feedback. Emotion, 10(5), 739-744.

Schmeichel, Brandon J.; Volokhov, Rachael N.; Demaree, Heath A. 2008. Working memory capacity and the self-regulation of emotional expression and experience. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 95(6), 1526-1540. doi: 10.1037/a0013345

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Brain flexibility predicts learning speed

June, 2011

New analytic techniques reveal that functional brain networks are more fluid than we thought.

A new perspective on learning comes from a study in which 18 volunteers had to push a series of buttons as fast as possible, developing their skill over three sessions. New analytical techniques were then used to see which regions of the brain were active at the same time. The analysis revealed that those who learned new sequences more quickly in later sessions were those whose brains had displayed more 'flexibility' in the earlier sessions — that is, different areas of the brain linked with different regions at different times.

At this stage, we don’t know how stable an individual’s flexibility is. It may be that individuals vary significantly over the course of time, and if so, this information could be of use in predicting the best time to learn.

But the main point is that the functional modules, the brain networks that are involved in specific tasks, are more fluid than we thought. This finding is in keeping, of course, with the many demonstrations of damage to one region being compensated by new involvement of another region.

Reference: 

[2212] Bassett, D. S., Wymbs N. F., Porter M. A., Mucha P. J., Carlson J. M., & Grafton S. T.
(2011).  Dynamic reconfiguration of human brain networks during learning.
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 108(18), 7641 - 7646.

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Effect of motivation on IQ score

May, 2011

A new review pointing to the impact of motivation on IQ score reminds us that this factor is significant, particularly for predicting accomplishments other than academic achievement.

Whether IQ tests really measure intelligence has long been debated. A new study provides evidence that motivation is also a factor.

Meta-analysis of 46 studies where monetary incentives were used in IQ testing has revealed a large effect of reward on IQ score. The average effect was equivalent to nearly 10 IQ points, with the size of the effect depending on the size of the reward. Rewards greater than $10 produced increases roughly equivalent to 20 IQ points. The effects of incentives were greater for individuals with lower baseline IQ scores.

Follow-up on a previous study of 500 boys (average age 12.5) who were videotaped while undertaking IQ tests in the late 80s also supports the view that motivation plays a part in IQ. The tapes had been evaluated by those trained to detect signs of boredom and each boy had been given a motivational score in this basis. Some 12 years later, half the participants agreed to interviews about their educational and occupational achievements.

As found in other research, IQ score was found to predict various life outcomes, including academic performance in adolescence and criminal convictions, employment, and years of education in early adulthood. However, after taking into account motivational score, the predictiveness of IQ score was significantly reduced.

Differences in motivational score accounted for up to 84% of the difference in years of education (no big surprise there if you think about it), but only 25% of the differences relating to how well they had done in school during their teenage years.

In other words, test motivation can be a confounding factor that has inflated estimates of the predictive validity of IQ, but the fact that academic achievement was less affected by motivation demonstrates that high intelligence (leaving aside the whole thorny issue of what intelligence is) is still required to get a high IQ score.

This is not unexpected — from the beginning of intelligence testing, psychologists have been aware that test-takers vary in how seriously they take the test, and that this will impact on their scores. Nevertheless, the findings are a reminder of this often overlooked fact, and underline the importance of motivation and self-discipline, and the need for educators to take more account of these factors.

Reference: 

[2220] Duckworth, A L., Quinn P. D., Lynam D. R., Loeber R., & Stouthamer-Loeber M.
(2011).  Role of test motivation in intelligence testing.
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

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Prenatal exposure to common insecticide linked to lower IQ at age 7

May, 2011

Two longitudinal studies, one rural and one urban, have reported an association between prenatal pesticide exposure and significantly lower IQ at age 7.

A study of 265 New York City minority children has found that those born with higher amounts of the insecticide chlorpyrifos had lower IQ scores at age 7. Those most exposed (top 25%) scored an average 5.3 points lower on the working memory part of the IQ test (WISC-IV), and 2.7 points lower on the full IQ test, compared to those in the lowest quartile.

The children were born prior to the 2001 ban on indoor residential use of the common household pesticide in the US. The babies' umbilical cord blood was used to measure exposure to the insecticide.

Previous research had found that, prior to the ban, chlorpyrifos was detected in all personal and indoor air samples in New York, and 70% of umbilical cord blood collected from babies. The amount of chlorpyrifos in babies' blood was associated with neurodevelopmental problems at age three. The new findings indicate that these problems persist.

While exposure to the organophosphate has measurably declined, agricultural use is still permitted in the U.S.

Similarly, another study, involving 329 7-year-old children in a farming community in California, has found that those with the highest prenatal exposure to the pesticide dialkyl phosphate (DAP) had an average IQ 7 points lower than children whose exposure was in the lowest quintile. Prenatal pesticide exposure was linked to poorer scores for working memory, processing speed, verbal comprehension, and perceptual reasoning, as well as overall IQ.

Prenatal exposure was measured by DAP concentration in the mother’s urine. Urine was also collected from the children at age 6 months and 1, 2, 3½ and 5 years. However, there was no consistent link between children’s postnatal exposure and cognition.

While this was a farming community where pesticide exposure would be expected to be high, the levels were within the range found in the general population.

It’s recommended that people wash fruit and vegetables thoroughly, and limit their use of pesticides at home.

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Fluency heuristic is not everyone’s rule

April, 2011

Two experiments indicate that judgment about how well something is learned is based on encoding fluency only for people who believe intelligence is a fixed attribute.

It’s well-established that feelings of encoding fluency are positively correlated with judgments of learning, so it’s been generally believed that people primarily use the simple rule, easily learned = easily remembered (ELER), to work out whether they’re likely to remember something (as discussed in the previous news report). However, new findings indicate that the situation is a little more complicated.

In the first experiment, 75 English-speaking students studied 54 Indonesian-English word pairs. Some of these were very easy, with the English words nearly identical to their Indonesian counterpart (e.g, Polisi-Police); others required more effort but had a connection that helped (e.g, Bagasi-Luggage); others were entirely dissimilar (e.g., Pembalut-Bandage).

Participants were allowed to study each pair for as long as they liked, then asked how confident they were about being able to recall the English word when supplied the Indonesian word on an upcoming test. They were tested at the end of their study period, and also asked to fill in a questionnaire which assessed the extent to which they believed that intelligence is fixed or changeable.

It’s long been known that theories of intelligence have important effects on people's motivation to learn. Those who believe each person possesses a fixed level of intelligence (entity theorists) tend to disengage when something is challenging, believing that they’re not up to the challenge. Those who believe that intelligence is malleable (incremental theorists) keep working, believing that more time and effort will yield better results.

The study found that those who believed intelligence is fixed did indeed follow the ELER heuristic, with their judgment of how well an item was learned nicely matching encoding fluency.

However those who saw intelligence as malleable did not follow the rule, but rather seemed to be following the reverse heuristic: that effortful encoding indicates greater engagement in learning, and thus is a sign that they are more likely to remember. This group therefore tended to be marginally underconfident of easy items, marginally overconfident for medium-level items, and significantly overconfident for difficult items.

However, the entanglement of item difficulty and encoding fluency weakens this finding, and accordingly a second experiment separated these two attributes.

In this experiment, 41 students were presented with two lists of nine words, one list of which was in small font (18-point Arial) and one in large font (48-point Arial). Each word was displayed for four seconds. While font size made no difference to their actual levels of recall, entity theorists were much more confident of recalling the large-size words than the small-size ones. The incremental theorists were not, however, affected by font-size.

It is suggested that the failure to find evidence of a ‘non-fluency heuristic’ in this case may be because participants had no control over learning time, therefore were less able to make relative judgments of encoding effort. Nevertheless, the main finding, that people varied in their use of the fluency heuristic depending on their beliefs about intelligence, was clear in both cases.

Reference: 

[2182] Miele, D. B., Finn B., & Molden D. C.
(2011).  Does Easily Learned Mean Easily Remembered?.
Psychological Science. 22(3), 320 - 324.

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Poverty suppresses children's genetic potential

January, 2011

A large study of very young twins confirms evidence that environment affects cognitive ability far more for those from poor homes, compared to those from better-off homes.

A study involving 750 sets of twins assessed at about 10 months and 2 years, found that at 10 months, there was no difference in how the children from different socioeconomic backgrounds performed on tests of early cognitive ability. However, by 2 years, children from high socioeconomic background scored significantly higher than those from low socioeconomic backgrounds. Among the 2-year-olds from poorer families, there was little difference between fraternal and identical twins, suggesting that genes were not the reason for the similarity in cognitive ability. However, among 2-year-olds from wealthier families, identical twins showed greater similarities in their cognitive performance than fraternal twins — genes accounted for about half of the variation in cognitive changes.

The findings are consistent with other recent research suggesting that individual differences in cognitive ability among children raised in socioeconomically advantaged homes are primarily due to genes, whereas environmental factors are more influential for children from disadvantaged homes.

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Abused, neglected children have lower IQ in teens

January, 2011

A large study has found significantly lower IQ in teenagers who have suffered abuse and/or neglect.

An Australian study of 3796 14-year-olds has found that those who had been reported as having suffered abuse or neglect (7.9%) scored the equivalent of some three IQ points lower than those who had not been maltreated, after accounting for a large range of socioeconomic and other factors. Abuse and neglect were independent factors: those who suffered both (and 74% of those who suffered neglect also suffered abuse) were doubly affected.

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What children eat for breakfast affects brain development

January, 2011

A Japanese study finds higher IQ among children who habitually eat white rice for breakfast, compared to those who eat white bread.

A number of studies have provided evidence that eating breakfast has an immediate benefit for cognitive performance in children. Now a new study suggests some “good” breakfasts are better than others.

A Japanese study of 290 healthy, well-nourished children, has revealed that those whose breakfast staple was white rice had a significantly larger ratio of gray matter in their brains, and several significantly larger regions, including the left superior temporal gyrus and bilateral caudate. Those who habitually ate white bread had significantly larger regional gray and white matter volumes of several regions, including the orbitofrontal gyri, right precentral gyrus and postcentral gyrus. Overall IQ scores, and scores on the perceptual organization subcomponent in particular, were significantly higher for the rice group.

One possible reason for the difference may be the difference in the glycemic index (GI) of these two substances; foods with a low GI are associated with less blood-glucose fluctuation than are those with a high GI. There is also a difference in fat content, with those eating white bread typically consuming more fat than those eating a rice-based breakfast. High levels of fat have been shown to reduce the expression of BDNF.

Regardless of the reason for the difference, the fact that breakfast staple type affects brain size and cognitive function in healthy children points to the importance of good nutrition during the years of brain development.

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Manganese in drinking water may impair children's intellectual abilities

October, 2010

The ‘safe’ levels of manganese in water may need to be revisited after a study finds school-age children with high levels of manganese in their tap water have significantly lower IQs.

Manganese exposure in the workplace is known to have neurotoxic effects, but manganese occurs naturally in soil and sometimes in groundwater. One region where the groundwater contains naturally high levels of manganese is Quebec. A study involving 362 Quebec children, aged 6-13, has measured both the concentrations of metals (manganese, iron, copper, lead, zinc, arsenic, magnesium and calcium) in their tap water, and their cognitive abilities.

Although manganese concentrations were well below current guidelines, the average IQ of those whose tap water was in the upper 20% was 6.2 points below children whose water contained little or no manganese. The association was more marked for Performance IQ than Verbal IQ (Performance IQ reflects perceptual organization and processing speed). The analysis took into account factors such as family income, maternal intelligence, maternal education, and the presence of other metals in the water. No association was found between manganese in their food and IQ.

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Face recognition ability inherited separately from IQ

January, 2010

Providing support for a modular concept of the brain, a twin study has found that face recognition is heritable, and that it is inherited separately from IQ.

No surprise to me (I’m hopeless at faces), but a twin study has found that face recognition is heritable, and that it is inherited separately from IQ. The findings provide support for a modular concept of the brain, suggesting that some cognitive abilities, like face recognition, are shaped by specialist genes rather than generalist genes. The study used 102 pairs of identical twins and 71 pairs of fraternal twins aged 7 to 19 from Beijing schools to calculate that 39% of the variance between individuals on a face recognition task is attributable to genetic effects. In an independent sample of 321 students, the researchers found that face recognition ability was not correlated with IQ.

Reference: 

Zhu, Q. et al. 2010. Heritability of the specific cognitive ability of face perception. Current Biology, 20 (2), 137-142.

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