Genetic and environmental influences on two measures of speed of information processing and their relation to psychometric intelligence: Evidence from the German observational study of adult twins

Citation
Ac. Neubauer et al., Genetic and environmental influences on two measures of speed of information processing and their relation to psychometric intelligence: Evidence from the German observational study of adult twins, INTELLIGENC, 28(4), 2000, pp. 267-289
Citations number
44
Categorie Soggetti
Psycology
Journal title
INTELLIGENCE
ISSN journal
01602896 → ACNP
Volume
28
Issue
4
Year of publication
2000
Pages
267 - 289
Database
ISI
SICI code
0160-2896(2000)28:4<267:GAEIOT>2.0.ZU;2-X
Abstract
Speed of information processing, as measured by reaction times (RTs) in ele mentary cognitive tasks (ECTs), has been found to be an important correlate of human psychometric intelligence. While the heritability of psychometric intelligence is well understood, we know only a little about genetic and e nvironmental influences on ECT performance, particularly about genetic and environmental contributions to ECT-intelligence relation. These questions w ere studied by employing two widely used ECTs (Sternberg's memory scanning and Posner's letter-matching task) as well as two psychometric intelligence tests (Advanced Progressive Matrices and Leistungs-Pruf System) in a large sample of 169 monozygotic (MZ) and 131 dizygotic (DZ) twin pairs. As expec ted, RTs correlated negatively with psychometric intelligence. Moreover, he ritability estimates were substantial for both psychometric intelligence an d RTs in ECTs. Finally, multivariate genetic analyses suggested that most o f the phenotypic correlation between mental speed and intelligence is due t o genetic factors.