Why Does a Higher Speed of Information Processing Facilitate Reasoning? 

Speaker: Anna-Lena Schubert
Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz 

January 26, 2022
11:15 AM - 1:00 PM U.S. Eastern Time 

Abstract
Individual differences in the speed of information processing are consistently related to individual differences in cognitive abilities. It is an open debate whether these associations can be explained in terms of individual differences in some brain-wide property affecting a large number of cognitive processes, or whether these advantages in processing speed reflect advantages in specific cognitive processes such as memory processes, attentional control, or evidence accumulation. I will demonstrate how mathematical models and electrophysiological approaches can be used to shed some light on these questions by decomposing the time-course of information processing and relating process parameters to cognitive abilities. I will present results from several studies that reveal that more intelligent individuals show specific advantages in the speed of higher-order cognitive processes related to the transmission and updating of information in working memory. Recent studies show that this specific association between processing speed and general intelligence may reflect individual differences in the structural and functional connectivity of brain regions involved in goal-directed information-processing and cognitive control processes. Taken together, these results suggest that the relationship between the speed of information processing and cognitive abilities reflects individual differences in brain regions that are not easily malleable by cognitive training or pharmacological interventions. I will argue that any process-based account of cognitive abilities needs to account for different measurement levels (structural brain properties, task-evoked brain activity, cognitive processes, etc…) to identify the neurocognitive mechanisms contributing to individual differences in intelligence. 

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