dissociating improvement of attention and intelligence during written language acquisition in adults改善注意力的区别和情报在书面语言习得的成年人.pdfVIP

International Journal of Intelligence Science, 2011, 1, 17-24 doi:10.4236/ijis.2011.12003 Published Online October 2011 (http://www.SciRP.org/journal/ijis) Dissociating Improvement of Attention and Intelligence during Written Language Acquisition in Adults 1,2,3 1 1 1 1 Steffen Landgraf , Reinhard Beyer , Ann Pannekamp , Gesa Schaadt , Darina Koch , Manja Foth1, Elke van der Meer1,2 1 Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin , Institute of Psychology, Berlin, Germany 2School of Mind and Brain, Berlin, Germany 3Sorbonne University, Paris, France E-mail : S.Landgraf@HU-Berlin.de Received July 28, 2011; revised September 22, 2011; accepted September 30, 2011 Abstract About one tenth of the world’s population cannot read and write sufficiently. Cognitive abilities, such as se- lective attention and crystallized as well as fluid intelligence, have been defined as crucial factors for the ac- quisition of written language skills. However, it is unclear whether these abilities are necessary also for the alphabetization of adults. Before and after a one-year alphabetization course, we compared the attention and intelligence of 47 illiterate individuals to 41 matched literate controls who did not take part in the alphabeti- zation course. Illiterate individuals improved in selective attention and crystallized intelligence from before to after the alphabetization course; however, they did not reach the same level of functioning as literate con- trols. In addition, the fluid intelligence of illiterates did not improve. More importantly, when control