Rethinking neural efficiency: Effects of controlling for strategy use.

Abstract

A sentence verification task (SVT) was used to test whether differences in neural activation patterns that have been attributed to IQ may actually depend on differential strategy use between IQ groups. Electroencephalograms were recorded from 14 low (89 Ͻ IQ Ͻ 110) and 14 high (121 Ͻ IQ Ͻ 142) IQ individuals as they performed the SVT with either a spatial or verbal strategy. Event-related desynchronization in upper alpha (9.5-12.5 Hz) and theta (4 -6 Hz) bands showed that different strategies evoked different activation patterns, but these patterns did not differ between groups. However, an IQ-related correlate was found in the preparation interval. Thus, although processing patterns during task performance seem to depend on the strategy used for task execution, preparation for task processing may depend on IQ.

Personalized Offline and Pseudo-Online BCI Models to Detect Pedaling Intent

“…As reported in Toffanin et al (2007), the potential generated by movement intention appears 2 s before the movement onset and it lasts until around 2 s after the onset. Hence, two types of processing windows were studied: 2 and 4 s processing windows.…”

“…Meanwhile, ERD/ERS are frequency fluctuations detectable in the mu and beta bands. These phenomena start about 2 s before movement onset with a decrease of the band power (ERD), followed by its increment (ERS) at about 2 s after the movement onset (Toffanin et al, 2007; Nam et al, 2011). Overall, detection of movement intent using EEG signals has been studied in subjects when performing reaching tasks, walking, hand movement or hand motor imagery (Bai et al, 2007; Ibáñez et al, 2010; Bai et al, 2011; Lew et al, 2012; López-Larraz et al, 2014; Sburlea et al, 2015).…”

Dissociable mechanisms underlying individual differences in visual working memory capacity

“…Individual differences in endogenous task-related upper alpha suppression have been previously reported in studies comparing performance of high-and low-IQ individuals (Doppelmayr et al, 2005; but see Toffanin et al, 2007). To ensure that group differences in SSVEP amplitudes were not simply due to differences in upper alpha power, we conducted a series of additional analyses.…”

“…We used the tagging frequencies (10 and 12.5 Hz) within the alpha band (8-13 Hz) to acquire easily detectable SSVEPs, as high flicker frequencies produce small SSVEPs that are difficult to distinguish from the general noise level (Herrmann, 2001). However, suppression in the upper alpha-band (10-13 Hz) power over occipital, parietal, and frontal areas has been associated with active stimulus processing (Klimesch et al, 1998), and has been shown to differ between high and low IQ individuals (Doppelmayr et al, 2005; but see Toffanin et al, 2007). We therefore conducted additional analyses to test whether groups differed in endogenous task-related upper alpha suppression, to rule out an alternative interpretation of group differences in SSVEP amplitudes.…”

Intelligence and neural efficiency

“…As has been shown above, it is this area for which most consistently a corroboration of the NEH has been demonstrated. Recently, Toffanin et al (2007) reviewed this evidence nicely when they concluded that ''relatively high IQ (HIQ) individuals differ from relatively low IQ (LIQ) individuals in terms of a differential suppression of frontal area activity, with HIQ individuals relying on parietal regions and LIQ individuals using both parietal and frontal regions during task performance'' (p. 854).…”