The Relationship between Executive Function and Intelligence on 7- to 12-year-old Children

The nature of individual differences among children is an important issue in the study of human intelligence. There are close relation between intelligence and executive functions. Traditional theories, which are based mainly on the factor analysis, approach the problem only from the perspective of psychometrics. However, they do not study the relation of cognition and neurobiology. Some researchers try to explore the essential differences in intelligence from the basic cognitive level, by studying the relationship between executive function and intelligence. The aim of this study was to do the followings 1) to delineate and separate the executive function in children into measurable constructs; 2) to establish the relationship between executive function and intelligence in children; 3) to find out the difference and its neural mechanism between intellectually-gifted and normal children’s executive function. The participants were 188 children aged 7-12 year old. There were 6 executive function tasks. The results were follows: 1) The latent variables analyses showed that there was no stable construct of executive function in 7-10 year old children. The executive function construct of 11-12 year old children could be separated into updating, inhibition and shifting. And they had grown to be more or less the same as adults in the executive function. There were only moderate correlations between the three types of executive function, but they were largely independent of each other. 2) The correlations between the indices of updating, inhibition, shifting and intelligence were different in 7-12 year old children. The older the age, the more the indices were related to intelligence. The updating and shifting were related to intelligence in 7-10 year old children. There were significant correlations between the updating, inhibition, shifting and intelligence in 11-12 year old children. The correlation between updating and intelligence was higher than the correlation between shifting and intelligence. Furthermore, in structural equation models controlling for the three executive functions correlations, updating was highly related to intelligence, but the relations of inhibition and shifting to intelligence were not significant. 3) Intellectually-gifted children performed better than normal children in executive function tasks. The neural mechanism differences between intellectually gifted and average children were indicated by ERP component P3. The present study helps us to understand the relationship between intelligence and executive function; and throws light on the issue of individual differences in intelligence. The present results can provide theoretical support for the development a culture-free intelligence test and a method to promote the development of intelligence. Our present study lends support to the neural efficient hypothesis.儿童智力差异的实质是什么？这是智力研究领域中的一个基本问题。执行功能与智力之间存在着密切关系，但传统的智力理论一直基于因素分析技术，从测量学的角度来探讨这个问题，而对其背后的认知机制和神经生物学基础却没有涉及。 本研究以188名7-12岁儿童为研究对象，选取刷新、抑制和转换多种执行功能任务，采用潜变量的分析方法和事件相关脑电位，着重探讨了目前这一领域内亟需解决的几个基本问题：1) 儿童执行功能可分离性的年龄特征；2) 刷新、抑制、转换这三种执行功能与智力的关系；3) 不同智力水平儿童执行功能的差异及其脑机制。 主要研究结果如下： 1) 7-10岁儿童的执行功能还没有形成稳定结构；11-12岁儿童的执行功能结构与成人相同，可以分离出刷新、抑制和转换三个成分，不同性质的执行功能既具有一定的独立性，又具有中等程度的相关。 2) 7-12岁儿童执行功能任务各指标与智力的关系呈现出不断变化的趋势，随着年龄的增长，与智力相关的执行功能指标越来越多，越来越稳定。7-10岁儿童的刷新和转换功能与智力有关。11-12岁儿童刷新、抑制和转换这三种执行功能与智力都有显著相关，刷新与智力的相关比转换与智力的相关更为密切；当用结构方程模型控制三种执行功能之间的相关时，只有刷新与智力有关。 3) 超常儿童的执行功能成绩优于普通儿童，这种优势在脑机制上体现在P3的潜伏期和波幅上。 本研究加深了执行功能与智力之间的关系的了解，进而促进了对于“个体智力差异的本质”这一基本问题的理解，为公平性的智力测验的发展提供理论先导，并有可能发展一种促进个体智力发展的方法。研究结果进一步支持了神经效能假设