Cultural Differences in Neuropsychological Abilities Required to Perform Intelligence Tasks

Abstract

Different studies have demonstrated that culture has a basic role in intelligence tests performance. Nevertheless, the specific neuropsychological abilities used by different cultures to perform an intelligence test have never been explored. In this study, we examine the differences between Spaniards and Moroccans in the neuropsychological abilities utilized to perform the Beta III as a non-verbal intelligence test. The results showed that the Spaniard group obtained a higher IQ than the Moroccan group in the Beta III. Moreover, the neuropsychological abilities that predicted scores for the Beta III were dependent on the country of origin and were different for each subtest. Besides showing the cultural effect on non-verbal intelligence test performance, our results suggest that a single test may measure different functions, depending on the subject's cultural background.

The impact of immigration and visible minority status on psychosis symptom profile

“…"Difficulties in abstract thinking" is assessed through testing the ability to find similarities between two words or concepts, and to understand different proverbs. For people who have finished a higher education or belong to the majority culture the proverbs and abstract categorizations used are supposedly well known and may not require much reasoning, while unfamiliar tasks require more complex neuropsychological processing [65]. Studies of this PANSS item's relation to standard cognitive tests indicate that it does not correlate significantly with tests measuring abstraction, but rather with those measuring problems with cognitive flexibility [66].…”

Reliability and validity of the Arabic version of the computerized Battery for Neuropsychological Evaluation of Children (BENCI)

“…Literature reveals a cultural effect on neuropsychological tests (e.g., Ardila, 1995Ardila, , 2005Greenfield, 1997;Puente, Perez-Garcia, Vilar-Lopez, Hidalgo-Ruzzante, & Fasfous, 2013). Recently, of the few neuropsychological studies in the Arab world, different works demonstrate that there is cultural difference in neuropsychological performance between Arabs and individuals from other cultures (e.g., Fasfous, Hidalgo-Ruzzante, Vilar-Lopez, Catena-Martinez, & Perez-Garcia, 2013;Sobeh & Spijkers, 2013). Sobeh and Spijkers (2013) have found a differential attentional pattern when comparing Syrian and German children.…”

Country and Sex Differences in Decision Making Under Uncertainty and Risk

“…For instance, IGT performance declined after the uncertainty blocks for strongly right-handed Indian females (Singh, 2016), presence of female-dominant sample in the United States was linked with poor deck choice (deck B) in the uncertainty phase of the IGT (Okdie et al, 2016), and stress-induced IGT deficit was high in German males whereas the non-stressed males continued to show maleadvantage in the task (Starcke et al, 2017). Even though the IGT is a non-linguistic measure of neuropsychological assessment, authors have cautioned that country and cultural differences should be considered in task interpretation (Fasfous et al, 2013;Daugherty et al, 2017). These observations, combined with reports of sociocultural factors potentially influencing the IGT (Ekhtiari et al, 2009;Bakos et al, 2010), or cultural variation in the IGT as a part of neuropsychological assessment (Fasfous et al, 2013;Daugherty et al, 2017), prompted us to analyze potential country and sex interactions in two distinct phases of IGT decision making (i.e., uncertainty and risk phases).…”

“…Even though the IGT is a non-linguistic measure of neuropsychological assessment, authors have cautioned that country and cultural differences should be considered in task interpretation (Fasfous et al, 2013;Daugherty et al, 2017). These observations, combined with reports of sociocultural factors potentially influencing the IGT (Ekhtiari et al, 2009;Bakos et al, 2010), or cultural variation in the IGT as a part of neuropsychological assessment (Fasfous et al, 2013;Daugherty et al, 2017), prompted us to analyze potential country and sex interactions in two distinct phases of IGT decision making (i.e., uncertainty and risk phases).…”