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iBSC Cognitive Neuropsychology > Session Fourteen (Intelligence) > Flashcards

Session Fourteen (Intelligence) Flashcards

1
Q

What are the components of a standard IQ test?

A
  • Vocabulary (get asked to define complicated words)
  • Reasoning test (name the next tile in a series with a pattern)
  • Memory test (need to remember a sequence)
  • Processing speed (get shown a stimulus very quickly and asked to respond to it)
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2
Q

In psychometric testing, what is a “g-factor”?

A

G-factor = The general factor, the broad mental capacity that influences performance on all cognitive tasks.

In IQ testing, the g-factor summarises the positive correlations between all aspects of the testing.

Essentially, it represents a person’s baseline intelligence, which in turn dictates how they perform on all cognitive tasks involved in an IQ test (hence the high positive correlation to them all)

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3
Q

Give some life and health correlates of IQ?

A

IQ correlates significantly with:

  • Educational performance
  • Job performance
  • Crime (both committed and being a victim of)
  • Mental health
  • Mortality
  • Specific illnesses such as CVD, stroke, cancer, dementia, self-harm
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4
Q

Give some evidence supporting the correlation between IQ and education performance?

A

Deary et al, 2007:

  • Compared IQ to academic performance in 13,000 UK school kids
  • Found a 0.81 correlation between CAT IQ testing and GCSE scores
  • IQ explained 64% of all variation in GCSE performance
  • Crazy high correlation not normally seen in psychology
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5
Q

Give some evidence supporting the correlation between IQ and job performance?

A

Kuncel et al, 2010:

  • Found significant positive correlations between IQ and a number of factors related to job performance
  • These included training success (both military and civilian), job performance at all levels of complexity, creativity and leader effectiveness
  • Training success was especially significant
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6
Q

Give some evidence supporting the correlation between IQ and crimes committed?

A

Schwartz et al, 2015:

  • N = 58,430
  • 21 year follow up
  • Broke IQ down into deciles which as you advance through, see a drop off both in “Crimes Committed” and “Any Criminal Behaviour”
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7
Q

Give some evidence supporting the correlation between IQ and crimes committed?

A

Schwartz et al, 2015:

  • Significant negative correlation between number of crimes committed and IQ percentile
  • N = 58,000 Swedish soldiers (used because they have to do an IQ test on joining, large sample size)
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8
Q

Give some evidence supporting the correlation between IQ and being a victim of crime?

A

Whitley et al, 2010:

  • The higher your IQ the less likely you are to be a victim of a crime
  • This effect is stable (although weaker) once you correct for social class
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9
Q

Give some evidence supporting the correlation between IQ and mental health?

A

Gale et al, 2010:

  • Negative correlation between IQ and risk of developing a number of mental health disorders
  • Including Sz, mood disorders, neurosis
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10
Q

Give some evidence supporting the correlation between IQ and mortality?

A

Batty et al, 1992:

  • Risk of death drop off as you increase IQ
  • Life expectancy increases with IQ
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11
Q

State some specific medical conditions which become more and more common as IQ falls?

A
  • CVD
  • Stroke
  • Cancer (only smoking related)
  • COPD
  • Dementia
  • Harm through injury or self-harm
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12
Q

What are some issues with studies associating IQ with, for instance, crime statistics?

A
  • Almost all large scale research in this area is based on military records of countries with mandatory military service, this may not be representative of the entire population as many lower IQ people are excluded from service
  • Furthermore, these crime statistics are based on reported crimes, it could just be that people of lower IQ are more likely to be caught/prosecuted or that the crimes they commit are different
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13
Q

What 4 explanations have been given attempting to explain how IQ relates to overall physical health?

A
  • IQ is associated with a higher QoL (job, wealth…) therefore leads to greater health
  • IQ is associated with better HRB decisions (e.g. smoking, exercise)
  • IQ and poor physical health could both be manifestations of a common underlying process, such as malnutrition in infancy causing a developmental delay to the brain + heart/lungs/digestive system etc
  • System integrity theory; genes combine to affect how our bodies function as a system overall. A high functioning system would lead to higher IQ + low risks of developing certain conditions eg. cancer, CVD

QoL, HRB, Developmental delay, Genes

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14
Q

How similar are IQs within the top 1%

A

Still see significant difference, Robertson et al, 2020:

  • Looked at 2,000 pupils who’d tested within the top 1% of an IQ test at age 13
  • Compared their IQ scores to lifetime achievements
  • Still, even at this high level, found slightly higher IQ lead to significantly greater chances of achieving things
  • Such as doctorates, peer-reviewed publications, STEM publications, patents, STEM tenure, income in 95th percentile

Suggests that there is no ‘threshold’ of IQ at which point you’re good, higher IQ at all levels leads to better things.

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15
Q

Does IQ change as we get older?

A

Some stability, but also a degree of change

  • Deary et al, 2015
  • Compared IQ at age 11 and age 90 (widest age gap ever tested)
  • Found a correlation of about 0.54
  • Moderate link
  • Issue with participant recruitment, significant drop out due to age/competence
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16
Q

Which facets of IQ are affected by ageing?

A

All of them. Salthouse et al, 2004:

  • Fluid abilities such as pattern recognition, recall drop off as we age
  • Crystalised abilities such as general knowledge and vocabulary improve
  • Could explain why the link between young and old IQ is only moderate, some improve some drop but perhaps at different rates

Fluid vs Crystalised distinction supported by research from Tucker-Drob et al, 2009

17
Q

What research is there to suggest that cognitive ageing is a universal process and not one specific to the western world?

A
  • Most research is done in WEIRD countries (western, educated, industrialised, rich, democratic)
  • To test for how universal the findings are it is important to look beyond these

Gurven et al, 2017:

  • Tested cognitive abilities in the Tsimane people, who live in the Bolivian rainforest
  • Found similar patterns of cognitive ageing as observed in the western world
18
Q

What did Salthouse et al, 2012 show about cognitive ageing?

A
  • People tend to be at their reasoning peaks in their 20s and 30s
  • But most successful businessmen or CEOs are in their 60s
  • Salthouse suggests this reflects differences in IQ facets; CEOs require different forms of intelligence such as general knowledge and informed decision making, not necessarily an abundance of fluids abilities
19
Q

Is there a link between brain volume and IQ?

A

Mild-moderate association, Gignac et al, 2017:

  • Brain volume vs IQ meta-analysis
  • Correlation of 0.31
20
Q

Is there a link between White matter tract strength and IQ?

A

Possibly:

  • Penke et al, 2012
  • Correlation between speed of transition in white matter and IQ intelligence
  • Kievit et al supports the notion that improved white matter connectivity in certain areas of the brain are correlated with measures of fluid intelligence
21
Q

What did Ritchie et al, 2015, aim to show?

A
  • Measured IQ and white matter transmission in 700 patients
  • Used Fractional Anisotrophy, a measure of diffusion across white matter
  • Found changes in WMFA correlated to changes in IQ as we age
  • Suggesting that WM connectivity is relevant to IQ, and that age-related changes in the brain are related to age-related changes in IQ
22
Q

What evidence exists supporting the role of genetics in IQ?

A

Cesarini et al, 2017:

  • Compared IQ correlation between siblings at different levels of genetic variability
  • MZ, DZ, Full sibs raised together, FS raised apart, Half sibs together, HS apart, adoptees
  • Clear drop in IQ correlation as you go down the scale
  • (controls for environmental background)
  • Highest was MZT, 0.8 correlation, lowest was adoptees at 0.2
  • N.B: 0.8 is about the correlation you get when the same person does an IQ test twice, a few days apart
23
Q

What did the 2010 Haworth meta-analysis of research into the effect of genes and environment on twins’ cognitive abilities show?

A
  • In childhood, genetics, unique environment and shared environment all have fairly equal influence on a person’s cognitive abilities
  • But as we age into adolescence and especially into early adulthood, this balance starts to change
  • The influence of shared and unique environment gradually drops off (while still remaining a little significant)
  • Whereas the effect of genetics grows and grows, ends up explaining about 65% of variance in cognitive abilities
24
Q

Outline some of the research into genetic heritability of IQ.

A

Davies et al, 2011:

  • GWAS study
  • Looked into whether SNPs had a significant effect on IQ
  • Found none of significance
  • Small sample size

Hill et al, 2018:

  • Used the biobank genetic data pool
  • Close to 250,000 patients
  • Greater statistical power
  • Found many genes with a small yet significant influence
  • This lines up with what we know of other polygenic traits e.g. height
  • This study also found that there was a significant degree of overlap between genes significant to IQ and genes significant to…
  • Years spent in education, T2DM (low risk), Obesity (low risk), Height and Head circumference in infancy
25
Q

How much variation in IQ can be explained using a polygenic score prediction?

A

About 14-15%.

Create a score based on genes known to be significant, this can predict a good proportion of variation in both IQ and years spent in education

26
Q

What is the Flynn Effect?

A
  • Natural and sudden increase in IQ over time
  • Sometimes reported as having reversed after the 80s, sometimes reported as ongoing
  • Bratsberg study notably reported it as dropping off after the mid 70s and explained this was due to environmental influence
27
Q

What are some explanations given for the Flynn effect?

A
  • Possibly just that people are becoming better at doing IQ tests as they enter the general culture
  • Could also be that our day to day life has become increasingly similar to IQ testing; have to deal with more abstract stimuli and problem solving
28
Q

Other than life becoming more similar to an IQ test, name some potential environmental influencers of IQ?

A

Iodine levels:

  • Protzko et al, 2017
  • has shown that countries which supplement their water with iodine have generally higher IQs

Training:

  • Au et al, 2015 suggest that fluid intelligence can be improved by practicing N-back tests
  • Hulme et al, 2015 dispute this, did the analysis differently and suggested all this did was improve performance on N-back tests

Schooling:

  • Clouston et al, 2012 showed that educational achievement improves fluid cognition
  • Brinch et al, 2012 showed that schooling in adolescence boosts IQ
29
Q

Why is there controversy around IQ testing?

A
  • Historically linked to eugenics
  • Some have proposed genetic link to IQ could be used to select embryos, eugenics all over again
  • Issues with use on non WEIRD individuals creating racial conclusions that aren’t there.

iBSC Cognitive Neuropsychology (14 decks)

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