Capturing Fluctuations in Gendered Cognition With Novel Intensive Longitudinal Measures

Area of Science:

• Cognitive psychology
• Neuroscience
• Psychometrics

Background:

• Cognition is often presumed stable, but working memory variations are documented.
• Limited research exists on daily fluctuations in gendered cognitive skills like spatial ability and verbal recall.
• Lack of validated measures hinders intensive longitudinal assessment of these cognitive variations.

Purpose of the Study:

• Introduce and validate new 75-occasion measures for three-dimensional mental rotations and delayed paired verbal recall.
• Assess cognitive fluctuations over 75 days in an intensive longitudinal study.
• Provide reliable tools for studying dynamic changes in gendered cognition.

Main Methods:

• Intensive longitudinal study with 121 participants over 75 days.
• Focus on 54 matched participants (27 women) for gender, age, and language.
• Psychometric analyses including parallel forms reliability and validity assessments.

Main Results:

• Both new measures demonstrated parallel forms reliability and validity.
• Expected gender differences were observed, with more consistent results for mental rotations.
• Significant daily fluctuations were detected in both mental rotations and verbal recall.

Conclusions:

• The newly developed measures are reliable and valid for assessing cognitive fluctuations.
• Findings highlight the dynamic nature of spatial skills and verbal recall.
• Encourages future research on the causes and effects of cognitive variability using these freely available tools.