The Relationship between Reaction Time and Psychometric Intelligence in a Rural Guatemalan Adolescent Population.

In industrialized countries reaction time has been found to be related to measures of intelligence and cognitive abilities. Little, however, is known about the validity of using such tasks in nonindustrialized countries. The present research investigated the association between reaction time and psychometric intelligence in a rural Guatemalan adolescent population. Results indicated that speed and consistency of processing on reaction time tasks were related to psychometric intelligence. However, the magnitude of these relationships were considerably smaller than those reported in industrialized populations. Reaction time task performance accounted for less than 5% of the variance in psychometric intelligence. Findings suggest that although reaction time tasks are associated with intelligence, the predictive validity of such measures needs to be established before use in nontraditional populations. Dans les pays industrialises, le temps de reaction est relie aux mesures d'intelligence et aux habiletes cognitives. Cependant, on ne connait tres peu la validite de ces taches dans les pays non industrialises. Cette etude examine le lien entre le temps de reaction et des indices psychometriques d'intelligence dans une population rural d'adolescents au Guatemala. Les resultats indiquent que la vitesse et la consistance du traitement sont reliees aux indices psychometriques d'intelligence. Toutefois, l'ampleur de ces relations est beaucoup plus faible que celle rapportee dans les populations industrialisees. La performance dans les taches de temps de reaction ne represente que 5% de la variance des indices psychometriques d'intelligence. Ces donnees suggerent que meme si les taches de temps de reaction sont reliees a l'intelligence, la validite predictive de ces mesures doit etre etablie avant de les utiliser dans les populations non traditionnelles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]