General intelligence involves multiple processes, including attention control, working-memory, and reasoning.
Relations between processes in g change in development, transforming the nature of intelligence.
Changes in g are determined by developmental priorities dominating in successive life phases.
- g is marked by attention control in early childhood and working memory and reasoning in late childhood.
General intelligence, g, is empirically well established, although its psychological nature is debated. Reductionists ascribe individual differences in g to basic processes, such as attention control and working memory. Interactionists strip g of any psychological process, postulating that it is an index of interactions between processes. Here we postulate that the cognitive profile of g varies at successive developmental phases according to the understanding priorities of each phase.
This study combines a large cross-sectional sample of children 6–12 years (n = 381) with a longitudinal sample tested twice (n = 109) to examine changes in the relations between attention control, working memory, and reasoning.
A combination of structural equation modeling, differentiation modeling, and latent transition modeling demonstrated that g does change in development; at 6–8 years, g was primarily dominated by changes in attention control; at 9–12 years it was primarily dominated by changes in working memory. Developmental transitions in reasoning levels were driven by the process dominating in each phase.
A theory is proposed integrating psychometric and developmental models of intelligence into a comprehensive system. A strong assumption of the theory is an ever-present central meaning-making core, “noetron”, involving Alignment, Abstraction, and Cognizance processes, is systematically transformed with age in differing developmental phenotypes.
[Keywords: general intelligence, ability differentiation, developmental differentiation, attention control, working memory, reasoning]