A drop in performance on a fluid intelligence test due to instructed-rule mindset.

Area of Science:

• Cognitive Psychology
• Neuroscience

Background:

• A 'mindset' refers to the configuration and tuning of cognitive processing resources for a given task.
• Remote-relation mindsets are induced by activities sharing only general control processes with the primary task.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the impact of a remote-relation mindset on performance in a Fluid Intelligence test (Raven's Advanced Progressive Matrices, RAPM).
• To determine if this mindset manipulation affects cognitive processes associated with executive functioning.

Main Methods:

• Participants performed a task requiring repeated execution of a well-defined classification rule to induce a mindset with limited executive processing.
• Performance on the Raven's Advanced Progressive Matrices (RAPM) and a General Knowledge task was assessed before and after the manipulation.

Main Results:

• Experiment 1 showed a drop in RAPM performance equivalent to 10.1 IQ points after the mindset manipulation.
• Experiment 2 replicated this drop (7.9 and 9.2 IQ points) irrespective of prior knowledge of the RAPM test.
• No significant performance drop was observed on the General Knowledge task, suggesting a specific effect on fluid intelligence.

Conclusions:

• Remote-relation mindsets can transiently and adversely affect performance on Fluid Intelligence tests.
• These findings suggest that mindsets can significantly distort estimates of fluid intelligence, even if the underlying trait remains unchanged.