The impact of mental ability on sensory discrimination and working memory functioning in children and young adults: A cognitive-neuroscience approach to neural efficiency (A functional near-infrared spectroscopy study)
PhD student: Eva Aeschlimann
Supervisors: Thomas Rammsayer & Claudia M. Roebers (Psychology)
Why people differ in intelligent behavior is an issue that has been occupying researches for more than a century. The neural efficiency hypothesis (NEH) is one discussed explanation. The hypothesis suggests that individuals with higher mental ability (MA) show less brain activity compared to individuals with lower MA. To the best of our knowledge, no study investigated the NEH with a working memory task and functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS). The aim of the present study was to examine neuronal efficiency in 9- and 12-year-old children solving a classical working memory task while measuring brain activity with fNIRS.
MA was assessed with the Cattel’s Culture Fair Test (CFT 20-R). Only children with an intelligence quotient below the 40th percentile or over the 85th percentile participated in the fNIRS measurement. During the fNIRS measurement, children solved a letter-number sequencing task and a matrix span task. Brain activity was measured by a FOIRE-3000/8 fNIRS system (Shimadzu, Japan).
