Intelligence and information processing during an auditory discrimination task with backward masking: An event-related potential analysis.

Abstract

The relation between mental ability and auditory discrimination ability was examined by recording event-related potentials from 60 women during an auditory oddball task with backward masking. Across conditions that varied in intensity and in the interval between the target and masking stimuli, the higher ability (HA) group exhibited greater response accuracy, shorter response times, larger P3 amplitude, and shorter P3 latency to target stimuli than the lower ability (LA) group. When instructed to ignore the stimuli, the HA group exhibited shorter mismatch negativity latency to deviant tones than the LA group. The greater speed and accuracy of auditory discrimination for the HA group, observed here with multiple measures, is not a consequence of response strategy, test-taking ability, or attention deployment.

Impulsivity, intelligence and P300 wave: An empirical study

“…Although the relationship between impulsivity and P300 amplitude was repeatedly observed in previous research, to the best of our knowledge no published study has analyzed this relationship controlling for individual differences in mental ability. With regard to this issue, a relevant result of the present study is that the P300-Impulsivity relationship is weakened when controlling for FSIQ, the latter being positively correlated with P300 amplitude, a result which is in agreement with previous findings (Bazana and Stelmack, 2002;Houlihan et al, 1998;De Pascalis et al, in press). In accordance with the "inhibition hypothesis" described above, it can be argued that the reduced P300 amplitude, observed in impulsive individuals, reflects a less efficient inhibitory mechanism of task-irrelevant information which could be responsible for the reduced cognitive performance observed for these individuals during the intelligence testing.…”

“…Bazana and Stelmack, 2002;Deary and Caryl, 1997;Gurrera et al, 2005; for a critical review, see Stelmack and Beauchamp, 2001). It is noteworthy that the consistent negative relationship between P300 latency and mental ability has been reported on rather difficult sensory discrimination tasks (e.g., De Pascalis et al in press;Beauchamp and Stelmack, 2006), while the task used in the present study is characterized by a low level of difficulty.…”

“…On the other hand, recent studies suggest a positive relationship between P300 amplitude and the performance on intelligence tests or subtests (e.g. Bazana and Stelmack, 2002;Beauchamp and Stelmack, 2006;De Pascalis et al, in press;Gurrera et al, 2005;Katsanis et al, 1997;Portin et al, 2000).…”

“…On the other hand, P300 latency was proposed to reflect individual differences in the speed of perceptual information processing and it was linked to human intelligence. Shorter P300 latencies were found to be associated with different measures of cognitive ability (Bazana and Stelmack, 2002;Gurrera et al, 2005;Jausovec and Jausovec, 2000;McGarry-Roberts et al, 1992;O'Donnell et al, 1992;Polich and Martin, 1992;Polich et al, 1983;Stelmack and Houlihan, 1995; for a review, see Stelmack and Beauchamp, 2001). Burns, Nettelbeck and Cooper (2000) found that the relationships between fluid and crystallized general ability factor and physiological speed, as measured by P300 latency, share 10-25% of variance.…”

An acute dose, randomized trial of the effects of CDP-Choline on Mismatch Negativity (MMN) in healthy volunteers stratified by deviance detection level

“…Contributing to variability in MMN are individual difference in age (Ruzzoli et al 2012), intelligence (Bazana and Stelmack 2002), gender and personality (Matsubayashi et al 2008). These factors, as well as genetic influences, and inter-subject differences in smoker vs. nonsmoker status, pre-drug state, and functional level are also significant sources of individual variability in nicotine response (Gilbert and Gilbert 1995;Kupferschmidt et al 2010;Li et al 2009;Perkins 1995;Perkins 2009;Poltavski and Petros 2005).…”