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Despite substantial evidence for the link between an individual's intelligence and successful life outcomes, questions about what defines intelligence have remained the focus of heated dispute. The most common approach to understanding intelligence has been to investigate what performance on tests of intellect is and is not associated with. This psychometric approach, based on correlations and factor analysis is deficient. In this review, we aim to substantiate why classic psychometrics which focus on between-person accounts will necessarily provide a limited account of intelligence until theoretical considerations of within-person accounts are incorporated. First, we consider the impact of entrenched psychometric presumptions that support the status quo and impede alternative views. Second, we review the importance of process-theories, which are critical for any serious attempt to build a within-person account of intelligence. Third, features of dynamic tasks are reviewed, and we outline how static tasks can be modified to target within-person processes. Finally, we explain how multilevel models are conceptually and psychometrically well-suited to building and testing within-individual notions of intelligence, which at its core, we argue is cognitive flexibility. We conclude by describing an application of these ideas in the context of microworlds as a case study.

Previous research has shown that eliciting retrospective confidence ratings during problem-solving enhances performance in high self-efficacy individuals but impairs performance in low self-efficacy individuals. In the current study, we examined whether judgments of solvability, a metacognitive rating made prior to participants’ first-order responses are similarly reactive and whether, like retrospective confidence ratings, this effect is moderated by pre-existing self-efficacy. In two experiments, we showed that judgments of solvability are reactive, but this effect is not moderated by pre-existing self-efficacy. We argue that eliciting metacognitive ratings prior to a participant’s response changes metacognitive control, without necessarily activating self-evaluative thoughts. These results are encouraging for the use of judgments of solvability as an education intervention.

Cognitive flexibility is the ability to adapt to changing contingencies and demands over time. It is often assessed by complex problem solving tasks (e.g., microworld simulations), which require individuals to maintain a goal state over trials. Yet typically analyses summarises performance by mean accuracy per person, which assumes performance is a constant and ignores the trial-by-trial trajectory of individuals that reveal strategy . We tested n = 83 psychology students aged 16 to 45 in a microworld task under different conditions of stochasticity and delay. We modelled trial-by-trial performance according to a prospective model of the true task contingencies versus a reactive strategy adapting to feedback from the last trial,. Most individuals (~66%) appeared to adopt a reactive strategy, however when the task contingencies were immediate, people were more likely to act prospectively. Performance in the microworld task depends on the strategy which varies by person and with the task contingencies.

Relational integration, the process of integrating stimuli into relations, is often thought as the primary demand of the relation-monitoring task (RMT). The current study investigated the attentional demand to inhibit irrelevant visual stimuli on relational processing in the RMT. The relevance and salience of these stimuli was manipulated while considering the complexity of relations to be integrated. 172 participants also completed Latin Square Task and Anti-saccade task as criterion individual differences in relational integration and inhibition abilities. The results revealed interference from non-target stimuli was partly accounted for by their perceptual similarity with target stimuli. The salience effect was observed but was not moderated by Anti-saccade task performance. Relational complexity was found to interact with all manipulations probing attentional function. The findings advanced our understanding of the interplay between the attentional and relational processes involved in the RMT.

Despite the long-standing recognition that individuals vary in their cognitive performance across relatively short time periods, little research has integrated an understanding of short-term within-individual variation in cognitive performance into our theories of cognitive ability. We contend that systematic patterns of between-individual differences in within-individual variation are meaningful and should not be viewed merely as measurement error. We argue that predominant cognitive testing methods using between-individual analysis of single-occasion scores are limited in their capacity to develop a process account of why individuals with the same test score differ in practical contexts. We propose that short-term repeated measures paradigms (e.g., the Experience Sampling Method) be used to understand the nature and sources of between-individual differences in within-individual variation. Finally, we outline considerations for researchers when adapting this paradigm for cognitive assessment and present initial findings from our lab on the feasibility of this paradigm.

Emotional intelligence (EI) refers to a set of competencies to process, understand, and reason with affective information. Recent studies suggest ability measures of experiential and strategic EI differentially predict performance on non-emotional and emotionally laden tasks. To explore cognitive processes underlying these abilities further, we varied the affective context of a traditional letter-based "n"-back working-memory task. In study 1, participants completed 0-, 2-, and 3-back tasks with flanking distractors that were either emotional (fearful or happy faces) or non-emotional (shapes or letters stimuli). Strategic EI, but not experiential EI, significantly influenced participants' accuracy across all n-back levels, irrespective of flanker type. In Study 2, participants completed 1-, 2-, and 3-back levels. Experiential EI was positively associated with response times for emotional flankers at the 1-back level but not other levels or flanker types, suggesting those higher in experiential EI reacted slower on low-load trials with affective context. In Study 3, flankers were asynchronously presented either 300 ms or 1000 ms before probes. Results mirrored Study 1 for accuracy rates and Study 2 for response times. Our findings (a) provide experimental evidence for the distinctness of experiential and strategic EI and (b) suggest that each are related to different aspects of cognitive processes underlying working memory.

Understanding how people rate their confidence is critical for the characterization of a wide range of perceptual, memory, motor and cognitive processes. To enable the continued exploration of these processes, we created a large database of confidence studies spanning a broad set of paradigms, participant populations and fields of study. The data from each study are structured in a common, easy-to-use format that can be easily imported and analysed using multiple software packages. Each dataset is accompanied by an explanation regarding the nature of the collected data. At the time of publication, the Confidence Database (which is available at https://osf.io/s46pr/) contained 145 datasets with data from more than 8,700 participants and almost 4 million trials. The database will remain open for new submissions indefinitely and is expected to continue to grow. Here we show the usefulness of this large collection of datasets in four different analyses that provide precise estimations of several foundational confidence-related effects.

Recent evidence has shown that eliciting confidence ratings can affect cognitive performance– a so-called reactivity effect. Several mechanisms have been proposed to account for reactivity, but currently there is only indirect evidence about why confidence ratings are reactive. Here, we explore the strategic changes in cognitive processes that occur in response to confidence ratings. Using a category learning paradigm that distinguishes between memorization and rule learning, in a large-sample (N = 710) pre-registered study, we show that eliciting confidence ratings caused a reduction in rule-based learning, even when compared to participants who made judgments of learning that asked them to reflect on their learning during the task as a whole. We argue that confidence ratings promote changes in the strategies participants adopt, driven by a more conservative approach that prioritizes performance over mastery and ultimately hinders rule-based learning and knowledge transfer. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Two hypothesized functions of working memory –coordination (ability to maintain unrelated storage loads duringprocessing) and integration (ability to integrate multipleelements into a relation) – were explored and compared to fluidintelligence. In Experiment 1, 130 participants completed amodified Latin-Square Task (LST) which experimentallyadded or reduced storage load. Results suggested that pureintegration (with no storage load) could predict Gf, but nodifference was found between coordination and integration.Experiment 2 employed the Arithmetic Chain Task (ACT),again with modifications to storage load. Results supportreplication of LST findings, though a distinction was foundbetween coordination and integration when storage materialcould not be easily rehearsed. Findings from both experimentssupport a distinction between coordination and integrationtasks in understanding the WM-Gf association.

Objective Self-awareness Theory (Duval & Wicklund,1972) proposes that self-evaluation increases an individual’sawareness of any discrepancy between their currentperformance and an internal goal. In the current study weprompted self-evaluation throughout an intelligence test(Analysis-Synthesis Test – AST) using confidence ratings(CR). AST performance, the extent to which participantsincidentally learnt task-relevant rules (learning rules wasunnecessary because they were provided), self-efficacy, andgoals, were assessed. The results indicated an effect ofperforming CR on both performance and rule learning, butthe effect depended on self-efficacy. Compared to matchedcontrols (n=45), participants who performed CR (n=41) andhad high self-efficacy performed better on the AST butlearnt fewer rules. Performing CR had no effect onparticipants low in self-efficacy. This suggests that self-evaluation interacts with self-efficacy to modifyparticipants’ goals, specifically CR appear to shiftindividuals high in self-efficacy from a mastery goal to aperformance goal.

Confidence ratings (CR) are often used to evaluate the metacognitive processes that occur during reasoning and problem solving. Typically CR are elicited with the assumption that they do not affect participants' underlying cognitive processes. However, recent evidence suggests that eliciting CR can cause changes in cognitive performance. What is not yet clear, are the metacognitive pathways by which CR affect overall performance in older individuals. In order to better understand the mechanisms driving reactivity to CR, we evaluated the impact of eliciting CR in an older sample (N = 89) on two aspects of the metacognitive framework - monitoring and control. Participants first rated their prospective confidence before performing the Latin Square Task either with or without confidence ratings. Participants subsequently self-appraised their performance. We found evidence that eliciting CR leads to "poorer" metacognitive monitoring. In addition, we found that participants with high initial prospective self-confidence who perform CR adopt a more immediate performance-orientated control strategy, which improves short-term performance but has no effect on overall performance in a timed Latin Square Task.

Whether fluid cognitive functions are malleable has been a topic of ongoing debate for at least the past 100 years. Ever-evolving technology has led to new and diverse fields of investigation entering this debate. There are significant advantages to be gained by integrating different scientific paradigms, but there are also significant challenges. Cross-paradigm differences in levels of analysis, nomenclature, and expectations of training outcomes complicate interpretation of training results. It is argued that further investigations of (a) cross-paradigm intricacies and (b) strategy versus process training, particularly with spatial abilities, are needed.

This study addressed whether prior successes with educational interventions grounded in the theory of successful intelligence could be replicated on a larger scale as the primary basis for instruction in language arts, mathematics, and science. A total of 7,702 4th-grade students in the United States, drawn from 223 elementary school classrooms in 113 schools in 35 towns (14 school districts) located in 9 states, participated in the program. Students were assigned, by classroom, to receive units of instruction that were based either upon the theory of successful intelligence (SI; analytical, creative, and practical instruction) or upon teaching as usual (weak control), memory instruction (strong control), or critical-thinking instruction (strong control). The amount of instruction was the same across groups. In the 23 comparisons across 10 content units in 3 academic domains, there were only a small number of instances in which students in the SI instructional groups generally performed statistically better than students in other conditions. There were even fewer instances where the different control conditions outperformed the SI students. Implications for the future of SI theory and the scalability of research efforts in general are discussed.

The current study investigates a conceptualization of "flexible expertise" as it relates to adult learning within the context of management and leadership training. Three research domains and their relation to metacognitive outcomes are integrated: 1) individual differences in abilities, personality, and mindsets, 2) deliberate practice and routine expertise, and 3) self-regulatory processes. The theoretical focus of the research is on the extent to which metacognitive self-evaluations around person- and management-specific concepts taught during training may act as precursors to flexible expertise. We asked 172 mid-level managers to provide evaluations of concept importance (antecedent), behavioral change (proximal consequence), and impact on job performance (distal consequence) resulting from knowledge acquired during the course of training. A series of hierarchical linear modeling analyses unveil a constellation of core personality characteristics, mindsets, and deliberative processing experiences that together interact to predict metacognitive self-evaluation of impactful training. Our results suggest support for our contention that flexible expertise is a context appropriate, balanced cluster of learning oriented, self-regulatory, and metacognitive processes that moderate and mediate the application of abilities and previously acquired knowledge to problem solution, future knowledge acquisition, and ultimately effective leadership. (Contains 1 figure and 4 tables.)

This study entailed a 3 (instructional intervention) x 2 (assessment-type) between-subjects experimental design employing a pretest-intervention-posttest methodology. The instructional interventions were administered between subjects in three conditions: (a) dynamic instruction, (b) triarchic or theory of successful intelligence-control instruction, and (c) standard-control instruction. The assessment-type consisted between subjects of either (a) a group-administered dynamic posttest or (b) the same group-administered posttest interspersed with a control filler activity. Performance in different mathematics content areas taught in fourth grade was investigated. In total, 1,332 students and 63 classroom teachers in 24 schools across six school districts participated in the study. The results indicate the advantages of using dynamic instruction and assessment in regular classrooms while teaching mathematics, especially when the student body is highly ethnically diverse. (Contains 3 notes, 4 tables, and 6 figures.)

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to consider how simulations are increasingly used in training programs for the development of skills such as leadership. However, the requirements of leadership development go beyond the development of task specific procedural knowledge or expertise that simulations have typically been used to develop. Leadership requires flexibility in the application of knowledge developed through simulations and the creation of linkages to behavioral execution skills needed to utilize that knowledge effectively in real world settings. Design/methodology/approach: The successful acquisition of flexible expertise and the related execution skills requires instructional techniques that manage cognitive load, delay automatization of responses, and provide diversity in simulated experiences to ensure richness of the mental models developed while working on simulations. The successful transfer of that knowledge to real world settings requires supplemental instructional techniques that link the use of the mental models developed on simulations to the contexts and behavioral requirements of the trainees' roles in real world settings. Findings: If simulations are going to be used effectively for the development of dynamic skills such as leadership there is a need to go beyond their traditional use. The execution of leadership skills requires flexible expertise. The successful acquisition of rich schemata and versatile mental models as the goal of leadership development programs calls for instructional techniques that also facilitate the successful manifestation of flexible expertise. Originality/value: The paper shows that, when embedded in deliberative processing, application of knowledge developed though simulations and the creation of linkages to behavioral execution skills facilitates successful performance in complex and dynamic real world challenges. (Contains 1 figure.)

Relational complexity (RC) theory conceptualizes an individual's processing capacity and a task's complexity along a common ordinal metric. The authors describe the development of the Latin Square Task (LST) that assesses the influence of RC on reasoning. The LST minimizes the role of knowledge and storage capacity and thus refines the identification of a processing-capacity-related complexity effect in task performance. The LST is novel with one explicit rule that is easily understood by adults and children. In two studies, a test of 18 items encompassing three RC levels was administered to university (N = 73; 16-33 years) and school (N = 204; 8-19 years) students. Rasch analyses indicate that the LST scores were psychometrically stable across age groups and provides important diagnostic clues for task development. Consistent with RC theory, the LST is sensitive to parallel and serial (via segmentation) processing demands. The LST provides a strong basis for research on working memory and related constructs (fluid intelligence).

The ability to identify schematic knowledge is an important goal for both assessment and instruction. In the current paper, schematic knowledge of statistical probability theory is explored from the declarative-procedural framework using multiple methods of assessment. A sample of 90 undergraduate introductory statistics students was required to "classify" 10 pairs of probability problems as similar or different; to identify whether 15 problems contained sufficient, irrelevant, or missing information ("text-edit"); and to "solve" 10 additional problems. The complexity of the schema on which the problems were based was also manipulated. Detailed analyses compared text-editing and solution accuracy as a function of text-editing category and schema complexity. Results showed that text-editing tends to be easier than solution and differentially sensitive to schema complexity. While text editing and classification were correlated with solution, only text-editing problems with missing information uniquely predicted success. In light of previous research these results suggest that text-editing is suitable for supplementing the assessment of schematic knowledge in development.

The increasing prevalence of cognitive decline, mild cognitive impairment (MCI), and dementia with the aging population has led to scrutiny of the efficacy of cognition-oriented treatments (COTs) aiming to maintain functioning, and delay or prevent further cognitive decline. However, little is known regarding the role of individual differences patient-variables (such as depression, self-efficacy, and motivation) in moderating the efficacy of COTs. This systematic review aimed to identify and analyze COT trials which investigated the relationship between differences in these patient-variables and intervention outcomes for older adults across healthy, MCI, and dementia populations. Of the 4854 studies extracted from the systematic search, 14 were included for analysis. While results were mixed across interventions and populations, on balance, greater depression severity predicted poorer cognitive functioning, and improvement in depressive symptom severity may account for at least part of the cognitive benefits seen at post-intervention. These findings were strongest for studies of MCI populations, with there being limited evidence of a relationship for healthy older adults or those with dementia. Overall, this review demonstrates the need for further investigation into the role of individual differences and clinical variables – particularly depression symptom severity – in attenuating COT outcomes through larger sample, high-quality randomized controlled trials. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]