Intelligence and temporal accuracy of behaviour: unique and shared associations with reaction time and motor timing

Abstract

Intelligence and temporal accuracy of behavior: unique and shared associations with reaction time and motor timing Experimental Brain Research, 2011, Vol. 214, Issue 2, p. 175 -183 doi 10.1007/s00221-011-2817 Access to the published version may require subscription. Published with permission from: Springer AbstractIntelligence is associated with accuracy in a wide range of timing tasks. One source of such associations is likely to be individual differences in top-down control, e.g. sustained attention, that influence performance in both temporal tasks and other cognitively controlled behaviors.In addition, we have studied relations between intelligence and a simple rhythmic motor task, isochronous serial interval production (ISIP), and found a substantial component of that relation, which is independent of fluctuations in top-down control. The main purpose of the present study was to investigate whether such bottom-up mechanisms are involved also in the relation between intelligence and reaction time (RT) tasks. We thus investigated if common variance between the ISIP and RT tasks underlies their respective associations with intelligence. 112 participants performed a simple RT task, a choice RT task and the ISIP task.Intelligence was assessed with the Raven SPM Plus. The analysed timing variables included mean and variability in the RT tasks and two variance components in the ISIP task. As predicted, RT and ISIP variables were associated with intelligence. The timing variables were positively intercorrelated and a principal component analysis revealed a substantial first principal component that was strongly related to all timing variables, and positively correlated with intelligence. Furthermore, a commonality analysis demonstrated that the relations between intelligence and the timing variables involved a commonality between the timing variables as well as unique contributions from choice RT and ISIP. We discuss possible implications of these findings, and argue that they support our main hypothesis, i.e. that relations between intelligence and RT tasks have a bottom-up component.

Bottom–up mechanisms are involved in the relation between accuracy in timing tasks and intelligence — Further evidence using manipulations of state motivation

“…In the ISIP task we employed interresponse intervals in the range 0.5-1 s, which is the range where previous studies found the strongest relations to intelligence . We thus replicate the finding from earlier investigations (Holm et al, 2011;Ullén et al, 2008) that both Local and Drift variability in ISIP are negatively related to intelligence. A summary of all reported relations between intelligence and the ISIP is provided in Table 3.…”

“…We Holm, Ullén, & Madison, 2011;Ullén et al, 2008) have studied intelligence-timing relations using a simple motor timing task, isochronous serial interval production (ISIP). In this task the participant produces a series of repetitive rhythmic hand or finger movements with a regular beat.…”

Estimating the distribution of sensorimotor synchronization data: A Bayesian hierarchical modeling approach

“…For example, SMS performance has been shown to correlate with personality traits ) and measures of intelligence for both children (Corriveau & Goswami, 2009) and adults . It is also correlated with performance in other experimental paradigms related to timing, such as simple reaction time (Holm, Ullén, & Madison, 2011) and eye blink conditioning (Green, Ivry, & Woodruff-Pak, 1999).…”

Images of time: temporal aspects of auditory and movement imagination

“…While for expert musicians strong temporal skills are clearly needed, the rhythm of movement is also highly important for effective sports performance (MacPherson et al, 2009), and again the implication is that temporal skills can be acquired. Temporal skills are not only important for music and movement, but are reported to be related to intelligence (Madison et al, 2009; Holm et al, 2011), and especially prospective timing may be related to attention and learning (Taatgen et al, 2007). Findings of increased executive functioning after music training (Moreno et al, 2011) could thus be interpreted as being related to increased temporal skills, potentially related to imagery ability.…”

“…Furthermore, motor timing skills and anticipatory music imagery ability appear to be related (Pecenka and Keller, 2009; Keller and Appel, 2010). These findings suggest that the links between motor and music processing may extend into imagined stimuli or actions, and the contribution of the current piece is to bring together findings from temporal processing, music and motor research, and to assert that firstly, the commonalities between music and motor imagery may reveal more about internally driven timing mechanisms, and secondly, one might speculate that these internal timing patterns are related to expertise, and as such may be seen in the context of findings on temporal skills and cognitive abilities (Madison et al, 2009; Holm et al, 2011). …”