Within-person structures of daily cognitive performance cannot be inferred from between-person structures of cognitive abilities
Author and article information
Abstract
Over a century of research on between-person differences has resulted in the consensus that human cognitive abilities are hierarchically organized, with a general factor, termed general intelligence or “g,” uppermost. Surprisingly, it is unknown whether this body of evidence is informative about how cognition is structured within individuals. Using data from 101 young adults performing nine cognitive tasks on 100 occasions distributed over six months, we find that the structures of individuals’ cognitive abilities vary among each other, and deviate greatly from the modal between-person structure. Working memory contributes the largest share of common variance to both between- and within-person structures, but the g factor is much less prominent within than between persons. We conclude that between-person structures of cognitive abilities cannot serve as a surrogate for within-person structures. To reveal the development and organization of human intelligence, individuals need to be studied over time.
Cite this as
2019. Within-person structures of daily cognitive performance cannot be inferred from between-person structures of cognitive abilities. PeerJ Preprints 7:e27576v1 https://doi.org/10.7287/peerj.preprints.27576v1Author comment
This is a submission to PeerJ for review.
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Supplemental Information
Figure 1
Quantile-quantile probability plots indicating normality of the distributions of Dimensions 1 and 2 for the multidimensional scaling (MDS) solution of within-person correlation matrices based on raw (A) and de-trended data (B), as well as between-person correlation matrices at pretest (C) and posttest (D).
Additional Information
Competing Interests
The authors declare that they have no competing interests.
Author Contributions
Florian Schmiedek conceived and designed the experiments, performed the experiments, analyzed the data, prepared figures and/or tables, authored or reviewed drafts of the paper, approved the final draft.
Martin Lövdén conceived and designed the experiments, authored or reviewed drafts of the paper, approved the final draft.
Timo von Oertzen analyzed the data, prepared figures and/or tables, authored or reviewed drafts of the paper, approved the final draft.
Ulman Lindenberger conceived and designed the experiments, authored or reviewed drafts of the paper, approved the final draft.
Human Ethics
The following information was supplied relating to ethical approvals (i.e., approving body and any reference numbers):
Ethical review board of the Max Planck Institute for Human Development, Berlin
Data Deposition
The following information was supplied regarding data availability:
For reasons of privacy, the present data can only be shared with research institutions that meet the data protection requirements prescribed by European and German law. We have set up a data sharing procedure, and invite interested researchers to request the data for reanalyses from the authors. See https://www.mpib-berlin.mpg.de/en/research/lifespan-psychology/projects/intra-person-dynamics-across-the-lifespan/cogito
Funding
The COGITO Study was supported by the Max Planck Society, including a grant from the Innovation Fund of the Max Planck Society (M.FE.A.BILD0005); the Sofja Kovalevskaja Award of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation (to M. L.) donated by the German Federal Ministry for Education and Research (BMBF); the German Research Foundation (DFG; KFG 163); and the German Federal Ministry for Education and Research (BMBF; CAI). U. L. was supported by the DFG’s Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Award. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.
