Processing speed mediates the development of general intelligence (g) in adolescence
Thomas R Coyle1, David R Pillow, Anissa C Snyder
1Department of Psychology, University of Texas at San Antonio, TX 78249, USA. thomas.coyle@utsa.edu
Abstract:
In the research reported here, we examined whether processing speed mediates the development of general intelligence (g) in adolescence. Using the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery, a battery of 12 diverse cognitive tests, we assessed processing speed and g in a large sample of 13- to 17-year-olds obtained from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (N = 6,969). The direct effect of age on g was small compared with the total effect of age on g, which was almost fully mediated through speed. The results suggest that increases in g in adolescence can be attributed to increases in mental speed.
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