INFORMATION-PROCESSING IN GIFTED VERSUS NONGIFTED AFRICAN-AMERICAN, LATINO, FILIPINO, AND WHITE-CHILDREN - SPEEDED VERSUS NONSPEEDED PARADIGMS

One hundred and sixty children were evaluated in a battery of four inf ormation-processing tasks: inspection time (backward masking paradigm) , reaction time, coincidence timing, and mental counters (working memo ry). Half of the children were certified as gifted in a case study ana lysis; half were selected from the nongifted program in the same schoo l district. Within each group (gifted vs. nongifted), half were in sec ond to third grade and half in fifth to sixth grade. Finally, for each of the two main factors (Giftedness and Grade), there were an equal n umber of children from four ethnic backgrounds: African American, Lati no, Filipino, and White. There were large differences on all four info rmation-processing tasks as a function of grade and membership in the gifted program. Correlational analyses revealed that measures of speed of processing, particularly inspection time, were the primary correla tes of both IQ and membership in the gifted program. The correlation c oefficient (r = .44) between a summary composite of the information-pr ocessing tasks and scores on the Standard Raven Progressive Matrices ( SPM) test was significant. In addition, a significant relationship (r = .30) between coincidence timing and scores on the SPM was confirmed. Implications of these findings are discussed.