Processing Speed Mediates the Development of General Intelligence (g) in Adolescence
Thomas R. Coyle, David R. Pillow, Anissa C. Snyder, Peter Kochunov
Psychological Science · 2011 · Volume 22 · Issue 10
Abstract
In the research reported here, we examined whether processing speed mediates the development of general intelligence ( g ) in adolescence. Using the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery, a battery of 12 diverse cognitive tests, we assessed processing speed and g in a large sample of 13- to 17-year-olds obtained from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth ( N = 6,969). The direct effect of age on g was small compared with the total effect of age on g , which was almost fully mediated through speed. The results suggest that increases in g in adolescence can be attributed to increases in mental speed.
Keywords
intelligence, cognitive ability
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