IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/intell/v90y2022ics0160289621000866.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Changing developmental priorities between executive functions, working memory, and reasoning in the formation of g from 6 to 12 years

Author

Listed:
  • Demetriou, Andreas
  • Mougi, Antigoni
  • Spanoudis, George
  • Makris, Nicolaos

Abstract

General intelligence, g, is empirically well established, although its psychological nature is debated. Reductionists ascribe individual differences in g to basic processes, such as attention control and working memory. Interactionists strip g of any psychological process, postulating that it is an index of interactions between processes. Here we postulate that the cognitive profile of g varies at successive developmental phases according to the understanding priorities of each phase. This study combines a large cross-sectional sample of children from 6 to 12 years (N = 381) with a longitudinal sample tested twice (N = 109) to examine changes in the relations between attention control, working memory, and reasoning. A combination of structural equation modeling, differentiation modeling, and latent transition modeling demonstrated that g does change in development; at 6–8 years, g was primarily dominated by changes in attention control; at 9–12 years it was primarily dominated by changes in working memory. Developmental transitions in reasoning levels were driven by the process dominating in each phase. A theory is proposed integrating psychometric and developmental models of intelligence into a comprehensive system. A strong assumption of the theory is an ever-present central meaning-making core, noetron, involving Alignment, Abstraction, and Cognizance processes, is systematically transformed with age in differing developmental phenotypes.

Suggested Citation

  • Demetriou, Andreas & Mougi, Antigoni & Spanoudis, George & Makris, Nicolaos, 2022. "Changing developmental priorities between executive functions, working memory, and reasoning in the formation of g from 6 to 12 years," Intelligence, Elsevier, vol. 90(C).
  • Handle: RePEc:eee:intell:v:90:y:2022:i:c:s0160289621000866
    DOI: 10.1016/j.intell.2021.101602
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160289621000866
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.intell.2021.101602?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. von Stumm, Sophie & Plomin, Robert, 2021. "Using DNA to predict intelligence," Intelligence, Elsevier, vol. 86(C).
    2. Jastrzębski, Jan & Ociepka, Michał & Chuderski, Adam, 2020. "Fluid reasoning is equivalent to relation processing," Intelligence, Elsevier, vol. 82(C).
    3. Makris, Nikolaos & Tachmatzidis, Dimitrios & Demetriou, Andreas & Spanoudis, George, 2017. "Mapping the evolving core of intelligence: Changing relations between executive control, reasoning, language, and awareness," Intelligence, Elsevier, vol. 62(C), pages 12-30.
    4. Demetriou, Andreas & Golino, Hudson & Spanoudis, George & Makris, Nikolaos & Greiff, Samuel, 2021. "The future of intelligence: The central meaning-making unit of intelligence in the mind, the brain, and artificial intelligence," Intelligence, Elsevier, vol. 87(C).
    5. Yu, Huihui & McCoach, D. Betsy & Gottfried, Allen W. & Gottfried, Adele Eskeles, 2018. "Stability of intelligence from infancy through adolescence: An autoregressive latent variable model," Intelligence, Elsevier, vol. 69(C), pages 8-15.
    6. Coyle, Thomas R. & Elpers, Karrie E. & Gonzalez, Miguel C. & Freeman, Jacob & Baggio, Jacopo A., 2018. "General Intelligence (g), ACT Scores, and Theory of Mind: (ACT)g Predicts Limited Variance Among Theory of Mind Tests," Intelligence, Elsevier, vol. 71(C), pages 85-91.
    7. Breit, Moritz & Scherrer, Vsevolod & Preckel, Franzis, 2021. "Temporal stability of specific ability scores and intelligence profiles in high ability students," Intelligence, Elsevier, vol. 86(C).
    8. Hartung, Johanna & Doebler, Philipp & Schroeders, Ulrich & Wilhelm, Oliver, 2018. "Dedifferentiation and differentiation of intelligence in adults across age and years of education," Intelligence, Elsevier, vol. 69(C), pages 37-49.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Feraco, Tommaso & Cona, Giorgia, 2022. "Differentiation of general and specific abilities in intelligence. A bifactor study of age and gender differentiation in 8- to 19-year-olds," Intelligence, Elsevier, vol. 94(C).
    2. Coyle, Thomas R. & Greiff, Samuel, 2023. "Carbon is to life as g is to _____: A review of the contributions to the special issue on specific abilities in intelligence," Intelligence, Elsevier, vol. 101(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Demetriou, Andreas & Golino, Hudson & Spanoudis, George & Makris, Nikolaos & Greiff, Samuel, 2021. "The future of intelligence: The central meaning-making unit of intelligence in the mind, the brain, and artificial intelligence," Intelligence, Elsevier, vol. 87(C).
    2. Haier, Richard J., 2021. "Are we thinking big enough about the road ahead? Overview of the special issue on the future of intelligence research," Intelligence, Elsevier, vol. 89(C).
    3. Steger, Diana & Schroeders, Ulrich & Wilhelm, Oliver, 2019. "On the dimensionality of crystallized intelligence: A smartphone-based assessment," Intelligence, Elsevier, vol. 72(C), pages 76-85.
    4. Lange-Küttner, Christiane & Averbeck, Bruno B. & Hentschel, Maren & Baumbach, Jan, 2021. "Intelligence matters for stochastic feedback processing during sequence learning in adolescents and young adults," Intelligence, Elsevier, vol. 86(C).
    5. Demetriou, Andreas & Makris, Nikolaos & Tachmatzidis, Dimitrios & Kazi, Smaragda & Spanoudis, George, 2019. "Decomposing the influence of mental processes on academic performance," Intelligence, Elsevier, vol. 77(C).
    6. Wai, Jonathan & Lakin, Joni M. & Kell, Harrison J., 2022. "Specific cognitive aptitudes and gifted samples," Intelligence, Elsevier, vol. 92(C).
    7. Breit, Moritz & Scherrer, Vsevolod & Preckel, Franzis, 2021. "Temporal stability of specific ability scores and intelligence profiles in high ability students," Intelligence, Elsevier, vol. 86(C).
    8. Savi, Alexander O. & Marsman, Maarten & van der Maas, Han L.J., 2021. "Evolving networks of human intelligence," Intelligence, Elsevier, vol. 88(C).
    9. Lotz, Christin & Scherer, Ronny & Greiff, Samuel & Sparfeldt, Jörn R., 2022. "g's little helpers – VOTAT and NOTAT mediate the relation between intelligence and complex problem solving," Intelligence, Elsevier, vol. 95(C).
    10. Demetriou, Andreas & Kazi, Smaragda & Spanoudis, George & Makris, Nikolaos, 2019. "Predicting school performance from cognitive ability, self-representation, and personality from primary school to senior high school," Intelligence, Elsevier, vol. 76(C), pages 1-1.
    11. Cave, Sophie Nicole & Wright, Megan & von Stumm, Sophie, 2022. "Change and stability in the association of parents' education with children's intelligence," Intelligence, Elsevier, vol. 90(C).
    12. Demetriou, Andreas & Kazi, Smaragda & Makris, Nikolaos & Spanoudis, George, 2020. "Cognitive ability, cognitive self-awareness, and school performance: From childhood to adolescence," Intelligence, Elsevier, vol. 79(C).
    13. Eichelberger, Dominique A. & Sticca, Fabio & Kübler, Dinah R. & Kakebeeke, Tanja H. & Caflisch, Jon A. & Jenni, Oskar G. & Wehrle, Flavia M., 2023. "Stability of mental abilities and physical growth from 6 months to 65 years: Findings from the Zurich Longitudinal Studies," Intelligence, Elsevier, vol. 97(C).
    14. Allan L. Reiss & Booil Jo & Ana Maria Arbelaez & Eva Tsalikian & Bruce Buckingham & Stuart A. Weinzimer & Larry A. Fox & Allison Cato & Neil H. White & Michael Tansey & Tandy Aye & William Tamborlane , 2022. "A Pilot randomized trial to examine effects of a hybrid closed-loop insulin delivery system on neurodevelopmental and cognitive outcomes in adolescents with type 1 diabetes," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 13(1), pages 1-14, December.
    15. Coyle, Thomas R., 2023. "Sex differences in tech tilt and academic tilt in adolescence: Processing speed mediates age-tilt relations," Intelligence, Elsevier, vol. 100(C).
    16. Breit, Moritz & Scherrer, Vsevolod & Preckel, Franzis, 2024. "How useful are specific cognitive ability scores? An investigation of their stability and incremental validity beyond general intelligence," Intelligence, Elsevier, vol. 103(C).
    17. Feraco, Tommaso & Cona, Giorgia, 2022. "Differentiation of general and specific abilities in intelligence. A bifactor study of age and gender differentiation in 8- to 19-year-olds," Intelligence, Elsevier, vol. 94(C).

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:intell:v:90:y:2022:i:c:s0160289621000866. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.journals.elsevier.com/intelligence .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.