Heritability of cognitive abilities in adult twins: Comparison of Minnesota and Swedish data

Finkel, Deborah; Pedersen, Nancy L.; McClearn, Gerald E.

doi:10.1007/bf02253371

Cited by 124 publications

(94 citation statements)

References 29 publications

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“…Application of factor models to such designs can reveal whether an observed association between measures results from a shared genetic source or a shared environmental source, or both. So far, a handful of genetic studies on intellectual abilities and elementary cognitive abilities in children and adults have been carried out using hierarchical or firstorder factor models Cardon, 1994;Casto et al, 1995;Finkel et al, 1995;LaBuda et al, 1987;Luo et al, 1994;Pedersen et al, 1994;Petrill et al, 1996;Petrill et al, 1998;Rijsdijk et al, under revision). Results suggest that one general factor, group factors, and test-specific factors are all required to account for the genetic covariance structure.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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et al. 2000

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in age (Reinert, 1970;Schaie et al., 1989;Werdelin and Stjernberg, 1995). The association between age and differentiation of abilities relates to the differentiation hypothesis (Garret, 1946) which suggests that abilities tend to cohere strongly in infancy and childhood, insofar as it is testable. When maturation proceeds, the factorial pattern of intelligence changes and intellectual abilities become more independent from each other.A useful approach to study the structure of intelligence is factor analysis. A factor model includes a set of common factors to explain the variance shared by various measurements and test-specific factors to explain any residual variance. In a second-order factor model the intercorrelation among the first-order common factors is explained by positing one or more second-order common factors. The intercorrelation among the variables is then decomposed into a part that is attributable to the first-order common factors and into a part that is attributable to the second-order common factors. The hierarchical factor model is a popular multivariate factor technique to examine the structure of INTRODUCTIONThe factor structure of genetic and environmental influences on specific cognitive abilities measured at one point of time in childhood is investigated in the present study. Six subtests of a Dutch intelligence test were administered to 5-year-old twins. The examination of cognitive abilities is particularly interesting during childhood when rapid accumulation of learning and experience takes place. In school, children are exposed to many novel environmental effects which act specifically on the development of their intellectual abilities. The accumulating effects of these environmental influences may result in a different pattern of cognitive abilities in groups of individuals varying Received 13 Jan. 1999-Final 3 Sept. 1999 The genetic and environmental factor structures of intellectual abilities in 5-year-old Dutch twins were examined. Six subtests of the RAKIT, a Dutch intelligence test, were administered to 209 twin pairs. The subtests were categorized as either verbal or nonverbal. The genetic covariance structure displayed a two-common factor structure including specific factors to account for subtest residual variance. The correlation between the genetic Verbal and genetic Nonverbal factors did not differ significantly from zero. The shared environmental influence displayed a single-common factor structure. Unique environmental influences did not contribute to the covariance between subtests and were specific in origin. Estimates of heritability of the subtests ranged from 15% to 56%. Shared environmental influences were significantly present, but were modest in magnitude. The phenotypic data was best described by an oblique two-factor model. This model was not mirrored in the factor structures found for either the genetic or environmental covariances.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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“…The assumption of no change requires us to posit a lack of genetic variance in learning mechanisms, which runs counter to substantial evidence (39,(41)(42)(43)(44)(45), or else to explain how the selection regime was miraculously unaffected by the new social niche. The assumption of evolutionary change may also be viewed as scientifically more productive, as it encourages further research (46).…”

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The evolution of cognitive mechanisms in response to cultural innovations

Lotem

Halpern

Edelman

et al. 2017

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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When humans and other animals make cultural innovations, they also change their environment, thereby imposing new selective pressures that can modify their biological traits. For example, there is evidence that dairy farming by humans favored alleles for adult lactose tolerance. Similarly, the invention of cooking possibly affected the evolution of jaw and tooth morphology. However, when it comes to cognitive traits and learning mechanisms, it is much more difficult to determine whether and how their evolution was affected by culture or by their use in cultural transmission. Here we argue that, excluding very recent cultural innovations, the assumption that culture shaped the evolution of cognition is both more parsimonious and more productive than assuming the opposite. In considering how culture shapes cognition, we suggest that a process-level model of cognitive evolution is necessary and offer such a model. The model employs relatively simple coevolving mechanisms of learning and data acquisition that jointly construct a complex network of a type previously shown to be capable of supporting a range of cognitive abilities. The evolution of cognition, and thus the effect of culture on cognitive evolution, is captured through small modifications of these coevolving learning and data-acquisition mechanisms, whose coordinated action is critical for building an effective network. We use the model to show how these mechanisms are likely to evolve in response to cultural phenomena, such as language and tool-making, which are associated with major changes in data patterns and with new computational and statistical challenges.tool-making | language evolution | niche construction | cognitive evolution | social learning A n open question in the study of culture and cognitive evolution is whether (and to what extent) cognitive mechanisms, especially those viewed as advanced or sophisticated, evolved in response to social-learning challenges or are merely the product of domain-general mechanisms (1-3). According to one view-still widely held in cognitive science and evolutionary psychology-cognitive adaptations take the form of specialized brain modules (or neuronal mechanisms) that evolved for specific, often social purposes, such as "imitation" (4, 5), "mind reading" (6, 7), "cheating detection" (8), or most famously, language acquisition (9, 10). These ideas have been criticized on theoretical and empirical grounds (11,12), and the debate around them demonstrates our limited understanding of the evolution of cognition, its relationship to the evolution of social behavior and, in some organisms, culture.The question of whether culture and social behavior shape the evolution of the brain is, in our view, best considered using the evolutionary framework of niche construction (13-16): that is, culture and social behavior change the ecological niche to which cognitive traits must adapt in the same manner that nest-building by birds changes the ecological niche in which their nestlings evolve. For example, animals' ability t...

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“…Devlin et al (1997) updated the Bouchard and McGue (1981) estimate of 0.86 and reported a correlation of 0.85. Finkel et al (1995) report 0.80 and 0.84 for middle-aged Minnesota and Swedish samples. We use 0.84.…”

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The Wilson Effect: The Increase in Heritability of IQ With Age

Bouchard

2013

Twin Res Hum Genet

123

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Ronald Wilson presented the first clear and compelling evidence that the heritability of IQ increases with age. We propose to call the phenomenon 'The Wilson Effect' and we document the effect diagrammatically with key twin and adoption studies, including twins reared apart, that have been carried out at various ages and in a large number of different settings. The results show that the heritability of IQ reaches an asymptote at about 0.80 at 18-20 years of age and continuing at that level well into adulthood. In the aggregate, the studies also confirm that shared environmental influence decreases across age, approximating about 0.10 at 18-20 years of age and continuing at that level into adulthood. These conclusions apply to the Westernized industrial democracies in which most of the studies have been carried out.

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Heritability of cognitive abilities in adult twins: Comparison of Minnesota and Swedish data

Cited by 124 publications

References 29 publications

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The evolution of cognitive mechanisms in response to cultural innovations

The Wilson Effect: The Increase in Heritability of IQ With Age

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