Cognitive Abilities

Definition of the g Factor

The g factor reflects one's general ability to learn. Formally, it is defined as the “eduction of relations and correlates,” that is, the ability to infer or deduce meaningful principles and concepts from abstract and novel situations. The g factor is reflected in the pervasive positive correlations among any set of tests or tasks that require any form of cognitive manipulation or processing of information. That is, although more narrow mental abilities (e.g., verbal ability, quantitative ability, visual-spatial ability, short-term memory) can be identified, people who are high (or low) on any individual narrow ability tend to be relatively high (or low) on the others. Reliable measures of cognitive abilities are always positively correlated.

Definition of Narrow Abilities

There remains some slight disagreement and uncertainty regarding the exact specification of narrow abilities. In fact, Carroll himself cautioned that some slight modification or further refinement to those factors may be in order. Nonetheless, the following narrow abilities are included in most models of cognitive abilities:

• Fluid intelligence/reasoning: The ability to apply rules and premises to reach a solution; the ability to discover the underlying characteristics that govern problems
• Quantitative reasoning/skills: The ability to reason, either inductively or deductively, with mathematical concepts, relations, and properties; general knowledge of mathematical concepts
• Crystallized intelligence: The size and sophistication of one's vocabulary; the ability to comprehend and communicate orally and use communication skills with fluency; the range of general and acculturated knowledge
• General verbal ability: The ability to recognize and decode words or disguised words; the ability to comprehend and communicate with clarity of thought and expression in written discourse; general understanding of language rules of (native) language
• Short-term memory: The ability to form and store mental representations of stimuli and then recognize or recall them after a short duration (memory span, visual memory)
• Long-term associative storage and retrieval: The ability to store and recall previously learned material regardless of whether it is meaningful; the ability to rapidly produce series of ideas, words, or other elaborative information related to a specific theme or object; the ability to rapidly produce novel or uncommon connections among stimuli or solutions to problems
• Visual-spatial processing: The ability to mentally manipulate objects or visual patterns, such as mentally rotating multidimensional objects in space; the ability to quickly discern a meaningful object from partially obscured or vague patterns and stimuli
• Auditory processing: The ability to process speech sounds; phonological awareness; the ability to discriminate speech sounds in normal and distorted contexts; the ability to discriminate tones, tone patterns, pitch, and other variations in sound qualities; the ability to localize sounds in space
• Cognitive processing speed: The ability to rapidly make simple decisions or perform simple tasks; the ability to compare visual symbols; the ability to rapidly manipulate and deal with numbers in elementary ways