Learning of three-term contingencies correlates with Raven scores, but not with measures of cognitive processing

Abstract College undergraduates learned word lists involving three-term contingencies (stimulus–response–outcome). Learning rate was correlated approximately 0.5 with scores on Raven's Advanced Progressive Matrices (Raven) but did not correlate significantly with several tasks (inspection time, card-sorting, trail-making, PASAT) shown to be associated with intelligence measures in previous research, despite these tasks' significant correlations with each other and with Raven scores in the present study. Rates of learning the three-term contingencies were positively correlated with paired-associate and free recall list learning, yet neither of these more standard learning tasks correlated significantly with Raven. While results confirm previous findings that the rate of simple associative learning is weakly related to intelligence; they also demonstrate that certain types of learning are well predicted by intelligence scores despite being distinct from several measures of cognitive processing.

[1]  A. Jensen,et al.  The relationship between learning and intelligence , 1989 .

[2]  Valerie J. Shute,et al.  Taxonomy of Learning Skills , 1988 .

[3]  H. M. Walker,et al.  The Factorial Analysis of Human Ability. , 1940 .

[4]  Patrick C. Kyllonen,et al.  Reasoning ability is (little more than) working-memory capacity?! , 1990 .

[5]  I. Deary,et al.  Which abilities does the PASAT test , 1991 .

[6]  Richard D. Roberts,et al.  Hick's law, competing-task performance, and intelligence , 1988 .

[7]  H. Woodrow.  The ability to learn. , 1946, Psychological review.

[8]  Jrm Alexander,et al.  Intelligence, learning and long-term memory , 1997 .

[9]  E. Hunt.  Intelligence and human resources: Past, present, and future. , 1999 .

[10]  Philip A. Vernon,et al.  Der Zahlen-Verbindungs-Test and other trail-making correlates of general intelligence , 1993 .

[11]  P. Ackerman.  Individual differences in skill learning: An integration of psychometric and information processing perspectives. , 1987 .

[12]  A. Jensen,et al.  The g factor , 1996, Nature.

[13]  B. Underwood,et al.  The interrelationships among some associative learning tasks , 1979 .

[14]  Inspection time correlation with IQ in Chinese students , 1991 .

[15]  R. Rescorla,et al.  Evidence for the hierarchical structure of instrumental learning , 1990 .

[16]  H. Woodrow,et al.  The relation between abilities and improvement with practice. , 1938 .

[17]  Patrick C. Kyllonen,et al.  Individual differences in associative learning and forgetting , 1988 .

[18]  J. W. Dunlap,et al.  The Vectors of the Mind , 1937 .

[19]  Randall W Engle,et al.  Working memory, short-term memory, and general fluid intelligence: a latent-variable approach. , 1999, Journal of experimental psychology. General.

[20]  W. Estes.  Learning theory and mental development , 1970 .

[21]  R. Sternberg,et al.  Learning and individual differences: Advances in theory and research. , 1989 .

[22]  Robert F. Boruch,et al.  Composition of episodic memory. , 1978 .

[23]  N. J. Mackintosh,et al.  IQ and human intelligence , 1998 .

[24]  Richard D. Roberts,et al.  Learning and Individual Differences: Process, Trait and Content Determinants , 1999 .