CHARTING THE COGNITIVE SPHERE - TACTILE-KINESTHETIC PERFORMANCE WITHIN THE STRUCTURE OF INTELLIGENCE

In his extensive review of factor analytic studies conducted this cent ury, Carroll (1993) laments that ''information on tactile and kinesthe tic sensitivity factors is meager'' (p. 546). The present study sought to redress this imbalance by employing eight tactile-kinesthetic indi ces along with a battery of twenty-seven cognitive ability and mental speed measures. A sample of 195 participants was tested. Confirmatory factor-analysis of this data set indicated the existence of three firs t-order ''level'' (i.e., accuracy) factors (fluid intelligence, crysta llized intelligence and a tactile-kinesthetic/visualization factor); t wo first-order ''speed'' factors (test-taking speed and elementary cog nitive response speed); and two first-order ''mixture'' factors that r eflected disparate features of shortterm memory (Digit Span Forward an d Digit Span Backward). A second-order confirmatory factor analysis of these constructs suggests that tactile-kinesthetic abilities share mu ch in common with broad visualization and fluid intelligence, little i n common with crystallized intelligence, and a series of differential relationships with ''speed-related'' factors. A separate exploratory f actor analytic solution (involving a reduced set of experimentally ind ependent variables) supported these conclusions. The implications of t hese findings for structural models of human intelligence and theories of cognitive processing are discussed.