World general knowledge facts

 Domain-specificity of Flynn effects in the CHC-model: Stratum II test score changes in Germanophone samples (1996–2018) - ScienceDirect  https://ift.tt/sXmeQK5 Generational IQ test score changes (the Flynn effect) were globally positive over large parts of the 20th century. However, accumulating evidence of recent studies shows a rather inconsistent pattern in past decades. Patterns of recently observed test score changes appeared to be markedly different in strength and even signs between countries and domains. Because of between-study design differences and data availability in terms of differing IQ domains, it is so far unclear if these inconsistencies represent a consequence of differences in Flynn effect trajectories between countries, covered time-spans, or investigated IQ domains. Here, we present data from 36 largely population-representative Germanophone standardization samples from 12 well-established psychometric tests (17 subtests) of 10 stratum II domains fro...

 Frontiers | The relation between rhythm processing and cognitive abilities during child development: The role of prediction  https://ift.tt/hrRpMxG Rhythm and meter are central elements of music. From the very beginning, children are responsive to rhythms and acquire increasingly complex rhythmic skills over the course of development. Previous research has shown that the processing of musical rhythm is not only related to children's music-specific responses but also to their cognitive abilities outside the domain of music. However, despite a lot of research on that topic, the connections and underlying mechanisms involved in such relation are still unclear in some respects. In this article, we aim at analyzing the relation between rhythmic and cognitive-motor abilities during childhood and at providing a new hypothesis about this relation. We consider whether predictive processing may be involved in the relation between rhythmic and various cognitive abilities and hypothe...

 Out-of-level cognitive testing of children with special educational needs.  https://ift.tt/oQrntY1 Children with special educational needs in the area of learning (SEN-L) have severe learning disabilities and often exhibit substantial cognitive impairments. Therefore, standard assessment instruments of basic cognitive abilities designed for regular school children are frequently too complex for them and, thus, unable to provide reliable proficiency estimates. The present study evaluated whether out-of-level testing with the German version of the  Cognitive Abilities Test  using test versions developed for younger age groups might suit the needs of these children. Therefore,  N  = 511 children with SEN-L and  N  = 573 low achieving children without SEN-L attending fifth grades in Germany were administered four tests measuring reasoning and verbal comprehension that were designed for fourth grad...

 When does working memory get better with longer time? - PsycNET  https://ift.tt/WJ75HYv Longer free time between presentation of verbal list items often leads to better immediate serial recall. The present series of three experiments demonstrates that this beneficial effect of time is more general than has been known: It is found for verbal items presented visually and auditorily (Experiments 1 and 2), and also when people engage in concurrent articulation during presentation, thereby preventing rehearsal (Experiment 3). The effect of time is to improve memory most strongly for the later part of the list, contrary to what is predicted from the assumption that time between items is used to bolster memory traces of already encoded items through rehearsal, refreshing, or elaboration. The data are compatible with a ballistic form of short-term consolidation, and with the assumption that encoding an item into working memory partially depletes a limited resource, which is reple...

 Network Models for Cognitive Development and Intelligence  https://ift.tt/oBVfE9n Cronbach's (1957) famous division of scientific psychology into two disciplines is still apparent for the fields of cognition (general mechanisms) and intelligence (dimensionality of individual differences). The welcome integration of the two fields requires the construction of mechanistic models of cognition and cognitive development that explain key phenomena in individual differences research. In this paper, we argue that network modeling is a promising approach to integrate the processes of cognitive development and (developing) intelligence into one unified theory. Network models are defined mathematically, describe mechanisms on the level of the individual, and are able to explain positive correlations among intelligence subtest scores—the empirical basis for the well-known g -factor—as well as more complex factorial structures. Links between network modeling, factor modeling, and item resp...

 Measurement invariance in the social sciences: Historical development, methodological challenges, state of the art, and future perspectives - ScienceDirect  https://ift.tt/4oaDVl3 Abstract This review summarizes the current state of the art of statistical and (survey) methodological research on measurement (non)invariance, which is considered a core challenge for the comparative social sciences. After outlining the historical roots, conceptual details, and standard procedures for measurement invariance testing, the paper focuses in particular on the statistical developments that have been achieved in the last 10 years. These include Bayesian approximate measurement invariance, the alignment method, measurement invariance testing within the multilevel modeling framework, mixture multigroup factor analysis, the measurement invariance explorer, and the response shift-true change decomposition approach. Furthermore, the contribution of survey methodological research to the co...

https://www.mdpi.com/1384150 : Exploring Neural Signal Complexity as a Potential Link between Creative Thinking, Intelligence, and Cognitive ControlFunctional connectivity studies have demonstrated that creative thinking builds upon an interplay of multiple neural networks involving the cognitive control system. Theoretically, cognitive control has generally been discussed as the common basis underlying the positive relationship between creative thinking and intelligence. However, the literature still lacks a detailed investigation of the association patterns between cognitive control, the factors of creative thinking as measured by divergent thinking (DT) tasks, i.e., fluency and originality, and intelligence, both fluid and crystallized. In the present study, we explored these relationships at the behavioral and the neural level, based on N = 77 young adults. We focused on brain-signal complexity (BSC), parameterized by multi-scale entropy (MSE), as measured during a verbal DT and ...