Differences in cognitive ability, per capita income, infant mortality, fertility and latitude across the states of India

Perceptual, Attentional, and Executive Functioning After Real-Time Strategy Video Game Training: Efficacy and Relation to In-Game Behavior

Recent meta-analyses and meta-analytic reviews of most common approaches to cognitive training broadly converge on describing a lack of transfer effects past the trained task. This also extends to the more recent attempts at using video games to improve cognitive abilities, bringing into question if they have any true effects on cognitive functioning at all. Despite this, video game training studies are slowly beginning to accumulate and provide evidence of replicable improvements. Our study aimed to train non-video game playing individuals in the real-time strategy video game StarCraft II in order to observe any subsequent changes to perceptual, attentional, and executive functioning. Thirty hours of StarCraft II training resulted in improvements to perceptual and attentional abilities, but not executive functioning. This pattern of results is in line with previous research on the more frequently investigated “action” video games. By splitting the StarCraft II training group into two conditions of “fixed” and “variable” training, we were also able to demonstrate that manipulating the video game environment produces measurable differences in the amount of cognitive improvement. Lastly, by extracting in-game behavior features from recordings of each participant’s gameplay, we were able to show a direct correlation between in-game behavior change and cognitive performance change after training. These findings highlight and support the growing trend of more finely detailed and methodologically rigorous approaches to studying the relationship between video games and cognitive functioning.

Cognitive Abilities, Debt, Roads and their Impact on Deaths in Traffic in Brazil

Abstract Deaths in traffic represent a global and multicausal problem. We verified, through a linear regression model, that cognitive abilities (CA) and population indebtedness (PI) predict, together, 56% of the variation of death rates in the traffic (DT) of the twenty-seven states of Brazil. CA’s are related to a greater control of the attention and, possibly, to a greater compliance with norms for preventing traffic accidents, has a greater impact than PI on DT, since PI associates to only one deficit of people's attention resources. The decrease of PI and the improvement of CA can decrease DT.

Intelligence, Income and Their Relation to Nutrition

The aim of this study was to investigate the effects of intelligence and income on nutrition in Brazil, by means of large-scale secondary data. The cognitive abilities of students were used as a measure of intelligence. In order to evaluate the nutritional quality of the population, the state hunger and undernutrition index (SHUI) was created. The intelligence explained 34% of the SHUI variation in the country. The development of the population’s intelligence influences the decrease in the rates of hunger and undernutrition.

Cognitive Training Does Not Enhance General Cognition

Due to potential theoretical and societal implications, cognitive training has been one of the most influential topics in psychology and neuroscience. The assumption behind cognitive training is that one's general cognitive ability can be enhanced by practicing cognitive tasks or intellectually demanding activities. The hundreds of studies published so far have provided mixed findings and systematic reviews have reached inconsistent conclusions. To resolve these discrepancies, we carried out several meta-analytic reviews. The results are highly consistent across all the reviewed domains: minimal effect on domain-general cognitive skills. Crucially, the observed between-study variability is accounted for by design quality and statistical artefacts. The cognitive-training program of research has showed no appreciable benefits, and other more plausible practices to enhance cognitive performance should be pursued.

UV Radiation Is Associated With Latitudinal Trends in Cognitive Ability of White Children in the USA

Abstract. Temperature, geo-residential pattern of subpopulations, prevalence of infectious diseases, and UV radiation have been proposed to explain the declining cognitive ability observed with proximity to the equator in the USA. This study tested the cognitive effects of the four variables. The results reveal that the latitudinal decline of cognitive ability is strongly correlated with the UV Index rather than with the other variables among White children. The decline in measured cognitive ability from north to south is absent among African American and Hispanic children, plausibly because the high levels of skin melanin among these ethnic groups, by absorbing and dissipating light, prevent the occurrence of radiation’s cognitive effects among these populations at USA latitudes. The possible physiological mediators (oxidative stress, folate degradation, sexual hormones) suggest diet, family planning, and educational methods as mitigating strategies; however, specific studies measuring the mediating variables are needed to confirm their role and further strengthen UV radiation as an explanatory concept.

IQ AND SOCIOECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT ACROSS REGIONS OF THE UK

Cross-regional correlations between average IQ and socioeconomic development have been documented in many different countries. This paper presents new IQ estimates for the twelve regions of the UK. These are weakly correlated (r=0.24) with the regional IQs assembled by Lynn (1979). Assuming the two sets of estimates are accurate and comparable, this finding suggests that the relative IQs of different UK regions have changed since the 1950s, most likely due to differentials in the magnitude of the Flynn effect, the selectivity of external migration, the selectivity of internal migration or the strength of the relationship between IQ and fertility. The paper provides evidence for the validity of the regional IQs by showing that IQ estimates for UK nations (England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland) derived from the same data are strongly correlated with national PISA scores (r=0.99). It finds that regional IQ is positively related to income, longevity and technological accomplishment; and is negatively related to poverty, deprivation and unemployment. A general factor of socioeconomic development is correlated with regional IQ atr=0.72.