Do purpose-designed auditory tasks measure general speediness?

Abstract

This study was concerned with the measurement of General Speediness (Gs) using the auditory modality. Existing as well as purpose-developed auditory tasks that maintained the cognitive requirements of established visually presented Gs marker tests were completed by N = 80 university undergraduates. Analyses supported the results of our previous work [1] and auditory and visual tasks combined to define latent RT and Gs factors. Moreover, the analysis did not support the presence of modality-specific speed factors. Overall, this study provides further evidence suggesting that auditory tasks might successfully measure existing broad abilities defined in intelligence theories (i.e., Gf, Gc, etc.) pro- vided they maintain the same cognitive requirements as existing visual measures of such constructs.