Jiannong Shi

Response preparation and cognitive control of highly intelligent children: a Go-Nogo event-related potential study

A cued Go-Nogo task was employed to explore the neural correlation among response preparation, cognitive control and intelligence in two groups of early adolescents with different intellectual levels using event-related potential (ERP) technique. Behavioral results indicated that the gifted children had better cognitive control performances with higher correct hit rate and lower commission error rate than the average children. Electrophysiological results further showed that the gifted children elicited efficient cue-P2 response for automatic cue detection and stronger cue-P3 activation for cue evaluation. Moreover, gifted children induced faster N2 and Nogo-P3 responses for conflict monitoring and inhibition processing and stronger P3 activation for attentional control. The current results supported the neural efficiency hypothesis of intelligence and further shed light on the close relationship among response preparation, cognitive control and human intelligence.

Electrophysiological correlates for response inhibition in intellectually gifted children: A Go/NoGo study

Superior response inhibition is an essential component of the advanced cognitive abilities of gifted children. This study investigated response inhibition in intellectually gifted children by recording event-related brain potentials (ERPs) during a Go/NoGo task. Fifteen intellectually gifted children and 15 intellectually average children participated. Our present findings showed that intellectually gifted children had shorter Go-P3 latency, indicating faster processing of Go stimuli, a finding consistent with previous studies. We focused on the two inhibition-related components, NoGo-N2 and NoGo-P3. The results showed that NoGo-P3 latency was shorter for intellectually gifted children compared to their average peers. N2 latency did not indicate the intelligence difference. These results suggested that intellectually gifted children showed faster inhibition when dealing with NoGo stimuli, and this superiority came from the later stages of inhibition, i.e., response evaluation or the success of inhibiting a response, as indexed by the shorter P3 latency.

Conflict control of children with different intellectual levels: An ERP study

Conflict control is an important cognitive ability in human behavioral regulation. The Eriksen flanker task was employed to explore the neural correlation between conflict control and intelligence with the aid of event-related potential (ERP) techniques. Two groups of early adolescents with different intellectual levels participated in the current study (an intellectually gifted group of 20 children vs. an intellectually average group of 21 children, with mean scores of 43 vs. 35.7 in Cattells Culture Fair Test, respectively). Behavioral results indicate that the gifted children had better conflict control performances, with increased accuracy and faster response speeds than the intellectually average children. Electrophysiological results further show that the gifted children had more efficient N2 activations during conflict monitoring processing, faster P3 responses over frontal regions, and stronger P3 activations over central-parietal regions during attentional control processing. The difference waveform analysis showed that the gifted children had the weakest N2d activations when elicited by multiple conflicts. N2d amplitudes can be used to distinguish a stimulus conflict from a response conflict, and P3d amplitudes can be used to separate multiple conflicts from a single conflict. The results support the neural efficiency hypothesis of intelligence and shed light on the close relationship between conflict control ability and human intelligence.

Neural mechanisms of auditory sensory processing in children with high intelligence

To investigate the differences in event-related potential parameters related to childrens intelligence, 18 intellectually gifted children and 18 average children participated in this study. The electroencephalograms were recorded the auditory sensory memory that elicited the mismatch negativity (MMN) and late discriminative negativity (LDN), as well as involuntary attention switch that elicited the P3a and early MMN were analyzed. The results indicated that children with high intelligence had comparatively larger MMN, LDN, early MMN, P3a amplitudes, and earlier peak latency in LDN than average children. The enhanced neural function of the intellectually gifted children might be due to more spatially and temporally coordinated neural network, faster neural processing speed and more efficient neural activation functions.

A Systemic Approach: The Ultimate Choice for Gifted Education.

In this new article, Ziegler and Phillipson have proposed a systemic approach to gifted education. For this approach, they built a model that they call an “actiotope” model. As the authors explained in the article, an actiotope consists of the acting individual and the environment with which he or she interacts. The model includes four necessary elements: action repertoire, goals, environment, and subjective action space. These elements are interdependent with each other, co-evolving to reach a dynamic equilibrium. Here, the actiotope model describes all the factors a perfect system needs to work well. In current studies of giftedness, it has heretofore been difficult to find a theory that takes all these factors into account and builds up a perfect framework for developing giftedness. Most researchers focus on either cognitive (Duan, Wei, Wang, & Shi, 2010) or non-cognitive abilities (Shi, Li, & Zhang, 2008). After many years of research and education experiments, however, researchers and educators realize the great necessity of reconsidering human nature in its entirety. We agree with the systemic view that excellence is the product of a system. The idea of system theory has appeared in various fields and has a relatively long history. In education, for example, Confucius, the great ancient Chinese educationist, proposed that educators should teach students in accordance with their aptitudes (Zhang, 2006). In thus saying, he was actually expressing the message that educators need to treat every student as an entirety, which would include each student’s own biological characteristics, distinctive psychological traits, and social network. Thus, educators must have profound insight into these distinguishing features. Only in this way can educators appropriately deal with each unique individual. Bronfenbrenner’s ecological systems theory is another example of a previously presented system that considers the way individuals and the environment interact with each other (Bronfenbrenner, 1977). In this process, the system reaches a dynamic equilibrium. Another psychologist, Shi, proposed a biological–social– psychological model in which he portrayed individuals as possessing three different dimensions: biological, social, and psychological (Shi, 1999, 2006). According to

Developmental Changes in Processing Speed: Influence of Accelerated Education for Gifted Children

There are two major hypotheses concerning the developmental trends of processing speeds. These hypotheses explore both local and global trends. The study presented here investigates the effects of people’s different knowledge on the speed with which they are able to process information. The participants in this study are gifted children aged 9, 11, and 13 years. A total of 94 of the participants were members of gifted programs, whereas the other 93 children received standard education. They were required to finish two information-processing tasks: a Choice Reaction Time task and an Abstract Matching task. The results show that the reaction time of gifted children who received accelerated education in gifted programs was significantly faster than that of the children who received standard education at every age. These results seem to imply that the educational atmosphere in which a child is placed plays a significant role in the development of gifted children’s speed of information processing. Putting the Research to Use This study serves to demonstrate that experience and knowledge may influence the development of information processing speed. It appears that specialized education for gifted children can actually accelerate development, suggesting that selection of educational system is of particular significance, especially for gifted children. Gifted children can study more quickly than average children because they have a higher speed of information processing. The efficacy of their study results in greater transmission of knowledge, and this in turn accelerates gifted children’s information processing speed. Accelerated education can not only satisfy the cognitive need of gifted children but also serve to enhance their cognitive development. Teachers and parents have to recognize that education is very important to children’s development and address the importance of experience in gifted children’s learning. The results of the present study also suggest a need for a special education system designed for gifted children, which can be viewed as a great investment in the future.There are two major hypotheses concerning the developmental trends of processing speeds. These hypotheses explore both local and global trends. The study presented here investigates the effects of peoples different knowledge on the speed with which they are able to process information. The participants in this study are gifted children aged 9, 11, and 13 years. A total of 94 of the participants were members of gifted programs, whereas the other 93 children received standard education. They were required to finish two information-processing tasks: a Choice Reaction Time task and an Abstract Matching task. The results show that the reaction time of gifted children who received accelerated education in gifted programs was significantly faster than that of the children who received standard education at every age. These results seem to imply that the educational atmosphere in which a child is placed plays a significant role in the development of gifted childrens speed of information processing.

The effects of inhibitory control training for preschoolers on reasoning ability and neural activity

Inhibitory control (including response inhibition and interference control) develops rapidly during the preschool period and is important for early cognitive development. This study aimed to determine the training and transfer effects on response inhibition in young children. Children in the training group (N = 20; 12 boys, mean age 4.87 ± 0.26 years) played “Fruit Ninja” on a tablet computer for 15 min/day, 4 days/week, for 3 weeks. Children in the active control group (N = 20; 10 boys, mean age 4.88 ± 0.20 years) played a coloring game on a tablet computer for 10 min/day, 1–2 days/week, for 3 weeks. Several cognitive tasks (involving inhibitory control, working memory, and fluid intelligence) were used to evaluate the transfer effects, and electroencephalography (EEG) was performed during a go/no-go task. Progress on the trained game was significant, while performance on a reasoning task (Raven’s Progressive Matrices) revealed a trend-level improvement from pre- to post-test. EEG indicated that the N2 effect of the go/no-go task was enhanced after training for girls. This study is the first to show that pure response inhibition training can potentially improve reasoning ability. Furthermore, gender differences in the training-induced changes in neural activity were found in preschoolers.

Response inhibition, preattentive processing, and sex difference in young children: an event-related potential study

Response inhibition and preattentive processing are two important cognitive abilities for child development, and the current study adopted both behavioral and electrophysiological protocols to examine whether young children’s response inhibition correlated with their preattentive processing. A Go/Nogo task was used to explore young children’s response inhibition performances and an Oddball task with event-related potential recordings was used to measure their preattentive processing. The behavioral results showed that girls committed significantly fewer commission error rates, which showed that girls had stronger inhibition control abilities than boys. Girls also achieved higher d′ scores in the Go/Nogo task, which indicated that they were more sensitive to the stimulus signals than boys. Although the electrophysiological results of preattentive processing did not show any sex differences, the correlation patterns between children’s response inhibition and preattentive processing were different between these two groups: the neural response speed of preattentive processing (mismatch negativity peak latency) negatively correlated with girls’ commission error rates and positively correlated with boys’ correct hit rates. The current findings supported that the preattentive processing correlated with human inhibition control performances, and further showed that girls’ better inhibition responses might be because of the influence of their preattentive processing.

Sustained Attention in Intellectually Gifted Children Assessed Using a Continuous Performance Test

This study aimed to investigate two aspects of sustained attention in intellectually gifted children: first, the differences to intellectually average children; second, the differences between receiving standard education and enrichment education. Study 1 compared sustained attention between 24 intellectually gifted and 26 intellectually average children. The results showed that intellectually gifted children had better performance than their average peers, not only for the whole task but also on all indices. Study 2 compared sustained attention between 24 intellectually gifted children who received standard education and 24 intellectually gifted children who received enrichment education. The results showed that intellectually gifted children who received enrichment education performed better than those who received standard education. These findings are consistent with previous work and provide support for the implementation of enrichment education for intellectually gifted children.

Intelligence current in creative activities

In this paper, the term ‘intelligence current’ is further explained and the problems found in relationships between (among) creativity, intelligence, attitude and environmental factors are discussed, according to the systematic model of creativity previously developed by the author. In this model, the performance of an individual’s creativity is treated as a function of intelligence current directed towards a creative activity and the task that is evaluated by the individual’s surroundings or society in general. The intelligence current is treated as a function of one’s intelligence, personality, and the social factors surrounding the individual, as well as the time that is spent on the task. The author tries to (1) re‐interpret creativity in terms of human intelligence; (2) make a theoretical explanation of the relationship between creativity and intelligence which has long puzzled many researchers; (3) emphasize the subjective efforts of an individual in the performance of creative action; and (4) clarify the mechanism of how one’s intelligence is controlled, distributed, and directed (or invested) to engage in creative activities resulting in creative achievements.