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Poster A40 in Poster Session A - Tuesday, August 6, 2024, 4:15 – 6:15 pm, Johnson Ice Rink
Unrevealing Neural Factors Underlying Human Intelligence with Large-Scale Functional Neuroimaging Meta-Analysis and Exploratory Factor Analysis
Yifei Cao1 (), Yuhong Wu2; 1ETH Zurich, 2Minnan Normal University, Zhangzhou, China
Previous research has yielded mixed findings about whether single or multiple latent factors contribute to human intelligence. To address this issue, the current study merged brain representational maps for 25 cognitive tasks from the Neurosynth and NeuroQuery datasets and performed exploratory factor analysis to uncover latent factors that explain the variance in brain representations of different cognitive tasks. We then mapped the factor weights back onto brain voxels to examine their locations. The results indicated that five factors could be extracted: one "domain-general" factor that contributes to various aspects of intelligence and four "domain-specific" factors, each linked to distinct functions such as inhibition, episodic memory, emotion, and language. The domain-general factor was primarily located in the multi-demand system, which has been defined as closely related to general intelligence; domain-specific factors were found in brain regions associated with their respective functions—for instance, the episodic memory factor in the hippocampus and visual cortex, and the language factor in the auditory cortex and Broca's area. These findings suggest that both domain-general and domain-specific factors play roles in human intelligence.
Keywords: Intelligence Meta-analysis Factor analysis