How Executive Function EEG biomarkers represent fluid intelligence?
Poster No:
740
Submission Type:
Abstract Submission
Authors:
Renlai Zhou1, Yiming Men1, Fang Wang1, Mingmei Gao1, Yuhui Zhang1, Haohao Dong1
Institutions:
1Nanjing University, Nanjing, Jiangsu
First Author:
Co-Author(s):
Introduction:
Fluid intelligence (FG) is an individual's ability to solve new problems through reasoning consciously, independent of pre-existing experiential knowledge or skills (McGrew, 2009). P3 amplitude is one of the most frequently reported components of event-related brain potentials (ERPs) that can serve as a valuable supportive index in cognitive tests for assessing an individual's learning ability (Amin et al., 2015; Luo & Zhou, 2020) and the effective use of cognitive resources (Hillman et al., 2012). According to the neuro efficiency hypothesis (Haier et al., 1992), individuals with high fluid intelligence (HFG) invest less cognitive resources in completing cognitive tasks, as evidenced by lower P3 amplitudes than individuals with low fluid intelligence (LFG). The resource hypothesis, however, suggests that task difficulty significantly influences resource allocation. HFG groups tend to allocate fewer cognitive resources to low-difficulty tasks and more resources to high-difficulty tasks. This study explored how P3 amplitude reflects fluid intelligence by examining the ERPs of HFG and LFG groups as they engaged in different cognitive tasks of varying difficulty.
Methods:
Unlike previous studies that categorized groups by the median, this study assessed the fluid intelligence of all 415 first-year students in a rural high school using Raven's Standard Progressive Matrix (RSPM) Test. The answer time was 40 minutes. Based on the age of the students, we converted the raw scores into corresponding percentile rank scores. We selected students in the top 75% of the percentile rankings as the HFG group and those in the bottom 25% as the LFG group. Given the principle of voluntary enrollment for students and parents, we finally included 28 subjects in the HFG group and 27 subjects in the LFG group. The gender difference between the two groups was not significant. Participants were required to complete the Flanker task, the Stroop task, the Task-switch task, and the 4-back task, with a stimulus presentation time and reaction time of 1 second for the first three tasks. Previous studies have demonstrated that P3 amplitude is higher in the LFG group than in the HFG group when completing the 2-back task (Jia et al., 2023). The stimulus presentation and reaction time for the 4-back task were set to 0.5 s to maximize the task's difficulty. EEG data were collected using 64 Ag-AgCl scalp electrodes placed according to the International 10–20 system. The signals were amplified using Neuroscan amplifiers. EEG data were processed using EEGLAB (Delorme & Makeig, 2004). All statistical analyses were carried out in SPSS 26.0 statistical analysis package.
Results:
The grouping information and behavioral results are presented in Table 1. The schematic view of four tasks and ERP results are presented in Figure 1. The accuracy and reaction time differences between the HFG and LFG groups were insignificant across tasks. Regardless of task difficulty and format, we found a similar pattern: the P3 amplitude of the LFG group was significantly higher than that of the HFG group.
·Figure1:Four tasks' design, average ERP waveforms, and topographic maps across different conditions for HGF and LCF groups.
·Table1:Grouping results and Behavioral Results.
Conclusions:
The results of the present study support the efficiency hypothesis in that the HFG group was more neurologically efficient in completing the task. They allocated fewer resources to complete tasks. While the HFG group's P3 amplitude was significantly lower, there were no significant differences in response time and accuracy compared to the LFG group. Additionally, the predictive processing hypothesis (Friston et al., 2017) indicates that individuals incur higher neural computational costs to resolve uncertainty when confronted with complex tasks. The findings of this study may also further indicate less efficient predictive processing in the LFG group compared to the HFG group. Hence, the representation of fluid intelligence by P3 amplitude encompasses various cognitive processes that require further validation across diverse populations and tasks.
Higher Cognitive Functions:
Executive Function, Cognitive Control and Decision Making 1
Higher Cognitive Functions Other
Modeling and Analysis Methods:
EEG/MEG Modeling and Analysis 2
Novel Imaging Acquisition Methods:
EEG
Keywords:
Cognition
Electroencephaolography (EEG)
1|2Indicates the priority used for review
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