Rosalind Arden

Rosalind Arden
London School of Economics and Political Science | LSE · Centre for Philosophy of Natural and Social Science (CPNSS)

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35
Publications
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1,140
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Publications

Publications (35)
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Common and rare genetic variants that impact adult cognitive performance also contribute to risk of rare neurodevelopmental conditions involving cognitive deficits in children. However, their influence on cognitive performance across early life remains poorly understood. Here, we investigate the contribution of common genome-wide and rare exonic va...
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The past quarter century has seen a resurgence of research on the controversial topic of gender differences in variability, in part because of its potential implications for the issue of under- and over-representation of various subpopulations of our society, with respect to different traits. Unfortunately, several basic statistical, inferential, a...
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We explore individual differences in tiger personality. We first asked—is there evidence of personality dimensions (analogous to the Big Five in human personality research) in the Amur tiger? We then asked, are any discoverable personality dimensions associated with measured outcomes, including group status, health and mating frequency? 152 of our...
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Kane and Mertz's 2012 AMS Notices article "Debunking Myths about Gender and Mathematics Performance" claims to have debunked the greater male variability hypothesis with respect to mathematics abilities. The logical and statistical arguments supporting their claim, however, which are being widely cited in the scientific literature, contain fundamen...
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Twin studies have shown strong evidence that cognitive abilities are heritable. This longitudinal study examines genetic and environmental influences on distinct developmental patterns of verbal and non-verbal cognitive abilities from age 7 to 12 in 4718 British twins. Six subgroups with distinct patterns were identified with comparable heritabilit...
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We welcome the cross-disciplinary approach taken by Burkart et al. to probe the evolution of intelligence. We note several concerns: the uses of g and G , rank-ordering species on cognitive ability, and the meaning of general intelligence. This subject demands insights from several fields, and we look forward to cross-disciplinary collaborations.
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In this review, we pose and respond to three questions concerning canine cognition: How has the history of this field influenced what we currently know about dog cognition? How confident should we be about what we know? Finally, what should we find out next? We begin by presenting two perspectives on canine cognition. We then survey the existing li...
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Most behavioural genetic studies focus on genetic and environmental influences on inter-individual phenotypic differences at the population level. The growing collection of intensive longitudinal data in social and behavioural science offers a unique opportunity to examine genetic and environmental influences on intra-individual phenotypic variabil...
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The study examined the etiology of individual differences in early drawing and of its longitudinal association with school mathematics. Participants (N = 14,760), members of the Twins Early Development Study, were assessed on their ability to draw a human figure, including number of features, symmetry, and proportionality. Human figure drawing was...
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Background: Several studies in the new field of cognitive epidemiology have shown that higher intelligence predicts longer lifespan. This positive correlation might arise from socioeconomic status influencing both intelligence and health; intelligence leading to better health behaviours; and/or some shared genetic factors influencing both intellig...
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Drawing is ancient; it is the only childhood cognitive behavior for which there is any direct evidence from the Upper Paleolithic. Do genes influence individual differences in this species-typical behavior, and is drawing related to intelligence (g) in modern children? We report on the first genetically informative study of children's figure drawin...
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Environmental measures used widely in the behavioral sciences show nearly as much genetic influence as behavioral measures, a critical finding for interpreting associations between environmental factors and children's development. This research depends on the twin method that compares monozygotic and dizygotic twins, but key aspects of children's e...
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Species-level research on animal behavior is decades old and very well described, but individual differences in cognition has only gained momentum much more recently. Although there have been some studies of individual differences in cognition in primates, the new research has mainly focused on general cognitive ability (g) in mice. Fortunately, th...
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Human facial attractiveness and facial sexual dimorphism (masculinity-femininity) are important facets of mate choice and are hypothesized to honestly advertise genetic quality. However, it is unclear whether genes influencing facial attractiveness and masculinity-femininity have similar, opposing, or independent effects across sex, and the heritab...
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Investigating associations between personality and reproductive fitness may reveal the adaptive significance of human behavioural traits. What we dub 'solid-citizenship' personality characteristics such as self-control, diligence and responsibility may repay study from an evolutionary perspective as they protect against negative life-outcomes. We e...
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A significant body of evidence has accumulated suggesting that individual variation in intellectual ability, whether assessed directly by intelligence tests or indirectly through proxy measures, is related to risk of developing Alzheimer's disease (AD) in later life. Important questions remain unanswered, however, such as the specificity of risk fo...
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Many studies of creative cognition with a neuroimaging component now exist; what do they say about where and how creativity arises in the brain? We reviewed 45 brain-imaging studies of creative cognition. We found little clear evidence of overlap in their results. Nearly as many different tests were used as there were studies; this test diversity m...
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We suggest that an over-arching ‘fitness factor’ (an index of general genetic quality that predicts survival and reproductive success) partially explains the observed associations between health outcomes and intelligence. As a proof of concept, we tested this idea in a sample of 3654 US Vietnam veterans aged 31–49 who completed five cognitive tests...
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Abstract Gregory Cochran and Henry Harpending. (2009). New York: Basic Books, 304 pp, US$27.00, ISBN: 0465002218.
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We recently found positive correlations between human general intelligence and three key indices of semen quality, and hypothesized that these correlations arise through a phenotype-wide 'general fitness factor' reflecting overall mutation load. In this addendum we consider some of the biochemical pathways that may act as targets for pleiotropic mu...
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Human cognitive abilities inter-correlate to form a positive matrix, from which a large first factor, called ‘Spearman's g’ or general intelligence, can be extracted. General intelligence itself is correlated with many important health outcomes including cardio-vascular function and longevity. However, the important evolutionary question of whether...
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A 2003 paper in this journal reported results from a large sample of twins assessed at 2, 3 and 4 years of age on parent-administered tests and reports of their verbal and nonverbal ability. We found clear evidence for phenotypic general cognitive ability (g) that accounted for about 50% of the variance, for modest genetic influence on g (about 25%...
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In 1927, Charles Spearman suggested that general cognitive ability, or g, might be stronger at the low end of ability. We explored the manifold of g across the ability distribution in a large sample (range >800 to >4000 individuals) of British twins assessed longitudinally at 7, 9 and 10 years old using two verbal and two nonverbal tests at each ag...
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An association between intelligence at age 7 and a set of five single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) has been identified and replicated. We used this composite SNP set to investigate whether the associations differ between boys and girls for general cognitive ability at ages 2, 3, 4, 7, 9, and 10 years. In a longitudinal community sample of Britis...
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Why are males over-represented at the upper extremes of intelligence? One possibility for which there is some empirical support is that variance is greater among adult males. There is little published evidence of the development of that variability – is it manifest in early childhood or does it develop later?We explored sex differences in phenotypi...

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