ARE GIFTED INDIVIDUALS LESS CHAOTIC THINKERS

This study investigated differences in EEG between gifted individuals (mean IQ = 132) and average individuals (mean IQ = 101) in resting con ditions and while solving different tasks. Gifted and average students solved tasks representing processing speed, working memory, arithmeti c operations, proportional, deductive and inductive reasoning. alpha-p ower and Kolmogorov entropy measures indicating low deterministic chao s were analysed. In resting conditions no significant differences betw een gifted and average individuals were observed. Gifted individuals d uring problem solving displayed higher alpha power (less mental activi ty) than did average individuals. The differences were most pronounced over the frontal brain areas for the tasks involving working memory a nd arithmetic operations. Less pronounced differences were obtained us ing the non-linear Kolmogorov entropy measure. Gifted individuals show ed lower entropy, indicating less complex neural mass activity when so lving tasks involving arithmetic operations and deductive reasoning. T he results suggest that gifted individuals, in comparison with average ones, more efficiently activated task-relevant brain areas. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.