A Study Of The Structure Of General Intelligence With Structural Equation Models

This dissertation uses latent variable analysis to measure the relationship between general intelligence and the sub-components of four cognitive abilities which includs working memory, short-term memory, central executive and processing speed, in order to explore the structure of general intelligence (g) more microcosmically. For this study, three hundred and forty-eight subjects, who are healthy college students, are required to perform thirty-three tasks involving five cognitive abilities, including general intelligence, working memory, short-term memory, central executive and processing speed. At last, the reliability research result shows that all the tasks designed for the study exhibit better reliability. At the same time, the confirmatory factor analysis shows that the factor load of each task corresponding to the particular cognitive ability is higher. On these conditions, structural equation models are formed to research the relationships between the sub-components of each cognitive ability and general intelligence. The study arrives at the following conclusions:Firstly, the direct effect of visuospatial working memory and visuospatial short-term memory, which are sub-components of working memory and short-term memory, on general fluid intelligence, which is sub-component of general intelligence, is significant; From another, the direct effect of vocabulary working memory and vocabulary short-term memory, which also are sub-components of working memory and short-term memory, on general crystallized intelligence, which is sub-component of general intelligence, is also significant.Secondly, the direct effect of the central executive on general fluid intelligence and general crystallized intelligence is significant; Furthmore, the direct effect of central executive on general fluid intelligence is higher than the direct effect of central executive on general crystallized intelligence.Thirdly, the direct effect of processing speed on general fluid intelligence is significant; But the direct effect of processing speed on general crystallized intelligence is not significant.Fourthly, the full-scale comparisons among the direct effects of working memory, short-term memory, central executive and processing speed on general intelligence...