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J. Intell.
Special Issues
Differential Psychology and Individual Differences in Intelligence
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Differential Psychology and Individual Differences in Intelligence

A special issue of Journal of Intelligence (ISSN 2079-3200).

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (13 February 2023) | Viewed by 14267

Special Issue Editor

Prof. Dr. Corentin Gonthier

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Psychology, Nantes University, 44000 Nantes, France
Interests: intelligence; working memory capacity; cognitive control; strategy use

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

The study of intelligence has always been indissociable from the study of individual differences. While much of the early literature focused on understanding the factor structure of individual differences in intelligence, differential psychology has also contributed a wealth of research attempting to determine which causal mechanisms are involved in the emergence of differences on intelligence tests. This has led to a fascinating diversity of perspectives, ranging from information processing theories to network modeling of variability.

With this Special Issue, we aim to further our understanding of the nature and driving mechanisms of these individual differences in intelligence tasks. All types of variability are of interest here, including inter- and intra-individual differences, in any population.

We particularly welcome submissions based on experimental research that explores one or several of the multiple determinants of performance in intelligence or reasoning tasks. This includes not only cognitive abilities (e.g., working memory capacity, executive processes, processing speed), but also less frequently discussed determinants of performance, such as motivation to solve a task, cultural familiarity with test contents, test-taking strategies, metacognition, etc.

Submissions interested in the structure of intelligence and related constructs (e.g., modeling of the factor structure of intelligence tests) are also welcome, as long as they provide new insights into the nature or causal mechanisms of individual differences in intelligence scores.

You are very welcome to share this call for submissions with interested colleagues and to let us know if you have any questions.

Please note that the “Planned Papers” Section on the webpage does not imply that these papers will eventually be accepted; all manuscripts will be subject to the journal’s normal and rigorous peer review process.

Prof. Dr. Corentin Gonthier
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a double-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Journal of Intelligence is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • intelligence
  • fluid reasoning
  • individual differences
  • intra-individual variability

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Published Papers (5 papers)

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Research

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33 pages, 3277 KiB  
Article
Should Intelligence Tests Be Speeded or Unspeeded? A Brief Review of the Effects of Time Pressure on Response Processes and an Experimental Study with Raven’s Matrices
by Corentin Gonthier
J. Intell. 2023, 11(6), 120; https://doi.org/10.3390/jintelligence11060120 - 13 Jun 2023
Cited by 2 | Viewed by 4378
Abstract
Intelligence tests are often performed under time constraints for practical reasons, but the effects of time pressure on reasoning performance are poorly understood. The first part of this work provides a brief review of major expected effects of time pressure, which includes forcing [...] Read more.
Intelligence tests are often performed under time constraints for practical reasons, but the effects of time pressure on reasoning performance are poorly understood. The first part of this work provides a brief review of major expected effects of time pressure, which includes forcing participants to skip items, convoking a mental speed factor, constraining response times, qualitatively altering cognitive processing, affecting anxiety and motivation, and interacting with individual differences. The second part presents data collected with Raven’s matrices under three conditions of speededness to provide further insight into the complex effects of time pressure, with three major findings. First, even mild time pressure (with enough time available for all participants to complete the task at a leisurely pace) induced speeding throughout the whole task, starting with the very first item, and participants sped up more than was actually required. Second, time pressure came with lower confidence and poorer strategy use and a substantial decrease of accuracy (d = 0.35), even when controlling for response time at the item level—indicating a detrimental effect on cognitive processing beyond speeding. Third, time pressure disproportionately reduced response times for difficult items and participants with high ability, working memory capacity, or need for cognition, although this did not differentially affect ability estimates. Overall, both the review and empirical sections show that the effects of time pressure go well beyond forcing participants to speed or skip the last few items and make even mild time constraints inadvisable when attempting to measure maximal performance, especially for high-performing samples. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Differential Psychology and Individual Differences in Intelligence)
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31 pages, 4185 KiB  
Article
Knowledge Representations: Individual Differences in Novel Problem Solving
by Megan J. Raden and Andrew F. Jarosz
J. Intell. 2023, 11(4), 77; https://doi.org/10.3390/jintelligence11040077 - 21 Apr 2023
Viewed by 1651
Abstract
The present study investigates how the quality of knowledge representations contributes to rule transfer in a problem-solving context and how working memory capacity (WMC) might contribute to the subsequent failure or success in transferring the relevant information. Participants were trained on individual figural [...] Read more.
The present study investigates how the quality of knowledge representations contributes to rule transfer in a problem-solving context and how working memory capacity (WMC) might contribute to the subsequent failure or success in transferring the relevant information. Participants were trained on individual figural analogy rules and then asked to rate the subjective similarity of the rules to determine how abstract their rule representations were. This rule representation score, along with other measures (WMC and fluid intelligence measures), was used to predict accuracy on a set of novel figural analogy test items, of which half included only the trained rules, and half were comprised of entirely new rules. The results indicated that the training improved performance on the test items and that WMC largely explained the ability to transfer rules. Although the rule representation scores did not predict accuracy on the trained items, rule representation scores did uniquely explain performance on the figural analogies task, even after accounting for WMC and fluid intelligence. These results indicate that WMC plays a large role in knowledge transfer, even when transferring to a more complex problem-solving context, and that rule representations may be important for novel problem solving. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Differential Psychology and Individual Differences in Intelligence)
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22 pages, 1965 KiB  
Article
Eye Gaze Patterns during Reasoning Provide Insights Regarding Individual Differences in Underlying Cognitive Abilities
by Paulo Guirro Laurence, Tatiana Abrão Jana, Silvia A. Bunge and Elizeu C. Macedo
J. Intell. 2023, 11(4), 75; https://doi.org/10.3390/jintelligence11040075 - 20 Apr 2023
Cited by 3 | Viewed by 2032
Abstract
Sequences of eye movements during performance of a reasoning task has provided insights into the strategies individuals use to solve that specific task; however, prior studies have not examined whether eye gaze metrics reflect cognitive abilities in a way that transcends a specific [...] Read more.
Sequences of eye movements during performance of a reasoning task has provided insights into the strategies individuals use to solve that specific task; however, prior studies have not examined whether eye gaze metrics reflect cognitive abilities in a way that transcends a specific task. Thus, our study aimed to explore the relationship between eye movement sequences and other behavioral measures. Here, we present two studies that related different eye gaze metrics in a matrix reasoning task with performance on a different test of fluid reasoning and tests of planning, working memory, and cognitive flexibility. Additionally, we related gaze metrics to self-reported executive functioning in daily life, as measured by BRIEF-A. To perform this, we classified the participants’ eye gaze in each item of the matrices test using an algorithm and then used LASSO regression models with the cognitive abilities as the dependent variable to select eye-tracking metrics to predict it. Overall, specific and distinct eye gaze metrics predicted 57% variance in the fluid reasoning scores; 17% variance in the planning scores; and 18% variance in the working memory scores. Taken together, these results support the hypothesis that the selected eye-tracking metrics reflect cognitive abilities that transcend specific tasks. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Differential Psychology and Individual Differences in Intelligence)
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19 pages, 2053 KiB  
Article
Faster ≠ Smarter: Children with Higher Levels of Ability Take Longer to Give Incorrect Answers, Especially When the Task Matches Their Ability
by Martin Tancoš, Edita Chvojka, Michal Jabůrek and Šárka Portešová
J. Intell. 2023, 11(4), 63; https://doi.org/10.3390/jintelligence11040063 - 29 Mar 2023
Cited by 3 | Viewed by 2243
Abstract
The stereotype that children who are more able solve tasks quicker than their less capable peers exists both in and outside education. The F > C phenomenon and the distance–difficulty hypothesis offer alternative explanations of the time needed to complete a task; the [...] Read more.
The stereotype that children who are more able solve tasks quicker than their less capable peers exists both in and outside education. The F > C phenomenon and the distance–difficulty hypothesis offer alternative explanations of the time needed to complete a task; the former by the response correctness and the latter by the relative difference between the difficulty of the task and the ability of the examinee. To test these alternative explanations, we extracted IRT-based ability estimates and task difficulties from a sample of 514 children, 53% girls, M(age) = 10.3 years; who answered 29 Piagetian balance beam tasks. We used the answer correctness and task difficulty as predictors in multilevel regression models when controlling for children’s ability levels. Our results challenge the ‘faster equals smarter’ stereotype. We show that ability levels predict the time needed to solve a task when the task is solved incorrectly, though only with moderately and highly difficult items. Moreover, children with higher ability levels take longer to answer items incorrectly, and tasks equal to children’s ability levels take more time than very easy or difficult tasks. We conclude that the relationship between ability, task difficulty, and answer correctness is complex, and warn education professionals against basing their professional judgment on students’ quickness. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Differential Psychology and Individual Differences in Intelligence)
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Other

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8 pages, 2835 KiB  
Opinion
William Stern: The Relevance of His Program of ‘Differential Psychology’ for Contemporary Intelligence Measurement and Research
by Kristof Kovacs and Csaba Pléh
J. Intell. 2023, 11(3), 41; https://doi.org/10.3390/jintelligence11030041 - 21 Feb 2023
Cited by 2 | Viewed by 2606
Abstract
William Stern is mostly renowned for inventing the IQ formula. However, he is also the originator of the term ‘differential psychology’ itself. His program of differential psychology synthesized population-based correlational studies as well as idiosyncratic approaches focusing on unique profiles of individuals. We [...] Read more.
William Stern is mostly renowned for inventing the IQ formula. However, he is also the originator of the term ‘differential psychology’ itself. His program of differential psychology synthesized population-based correlational studies as well as idiosyncratic approaches focusing on unique profiles of individuals. We argue that his approach still offers valuable ideas to this day; in particular, the individualistic sub-programme of Stern’s differential psychology corresponds to a large extent to ipsative testing that emphasizes a profile-based analysis of individual strengths and weaknesses. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Differential Psychology and Individual Differences in Intelligence)
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