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The Cognitive Profile of Intellectual Giftedness 

David Asensio1, Jon Andoni Duñabeitia1 & Ana Fernández-Mera1

1) International Chair in Cognitive Health, Universidad Nebrija, Spain

Date of publication: July 21th, 2023 
Edition period: July 2023 - October 2023 

To cite this article: Asensio, D., Duñabeitia, J.A., & Fernández-Mera, A. 

(2023). The Cognitive Profile of Intellectual Giftedness. International Journal 

of Educational Psychology, Published July 21th 2023. 
http://dx.doi.org/10.17583/ijep.11828 

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2023 Hipatia Press 

ISSN: 2014-3575 

DOI: 10.17583/ijep.11828 

IJEP – International Journal of Educational Psychology – 

Online First – First Published July 21th2023 

The Cognitive Profile of 

Intellectual Giftedness 
David Asensio Jon Andoni Duñabeitia 

Universidad Nebrija Universidad Nebrija 

Ana Fernández-Mera 

Universidad Nebrija 

Abstract 

Previous literature has suggested the existence of a close relationship between 

individuals’ intellectual abilities and their cognitive profile, understood as 

their performance in tasks tapping into the different cognitive domains. This 

relationship has typically been discussed in populations characterized as 

having high intellectual abilities, as is the case of gifted children and 

adolescents. In this study, the cognitive profile in domains of memory, 

attention, coordination, perception, and reasoning of a group of gifted children 

and adolescents was contrasted with a control group similar in age 

distribution, gender and socioeconomic level but with normotypical 

development. The results indicated that participants in the gifted group scored 

higher than those in the control group in all cognitive domains. The 

differences in cognitive abilities were not consistent across all areas, meaning 

that some cognitive abilities did not show significant differences, while others 

did. These results help to identify a more precise cognitive profile of gifted 

individuals, yielding a better understanding of the relationship between 

intelligence and cognitive abilities. The study provides evidence that allows 

delving into the most differential and characteristic aspects of giftedness. 

Keywords: giftedness, talented children, cognitive skills, executive functions, 
IQ 



2023 HipatiaPress 

ISSN: 2014-3591 
DOI: 10.17583/ijep.11828 

IJEP – International Journal of Educational Psychology – Online 

First – First Published July 21th 2023 

El Perfil Cognitivo de las Altas 

Capacidades

David Asensio Jon Andoni Duñabeitia 

Universidad Nebrija Universidad Nebrija 

Ana Fernández-Mera 

Universidad Nebrija 

Resumen 

La literatura previa ha sugerido la existencia de una estrecha relación entre las 
capacidades intelectuales de los individuos y su perfil cognitivo, entendido 
como su rendimiento en tareas que abordan los diferentes dominios 
cognitivos. Esta relación se ha discutido típicamente en poblaciones 
caracterizadas por tener altas capacidades intelectuales, como es el caso de los 
niños y adolescentes superdotados. En este estudio se contrastó el perfil 
cognitivo en dominios de memoria, atención, coordinación, percepción y 
razonamiento de un grupo de niños y adolescentes superdotados con un grupo 
de control similar en distribución de edad, sexo y nivel socioeconómico, pero 
con desarrollo normotípico. Los resultados indican que los participantes del 
grupo de superdotados tuvieron una puntuación mayor que el grupo control 
en todas las áreas cognitivas. Las diferencias en las habilidades cognitivas no 
fueron consistentes entre todas las áreas, lo que significa que algunas 
habilidades cognitivas no mostraron diferencias significativas, mientras que 
otras sí lo hicieron. Estos resultados ayudan a identificar un perfil cognitivo 
más preciso de las personas con altas capacidades, a comprender mejor la 
relación entre inteligencia y las capacidades cognitivas, y aportan evidencias 
que permiten profundizar en los aspectos más diferenciales y característicos 
de la superdotación. 

Palabras clave: altas capacidades, niños superdotados, capacidades cognitivas, 

funciones ejecutivas, CI 



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Intellectual Giftedness 

 

 

3 

ntelligence, understood as a person's ability to learn from experience 

and to adapt, shape, and select environments (Sternberg, 2012), is a 

broad concept that has been studied for more than a century (Binet & 

Simon, 1904; Spearman 1904). A large part of the literature on intelligence 

has focused on identifying what makes a person intelligent, with children with 

high intellectual abilities being the target subjects of many studies (namely, 

gifted, or talented children with a high IQ). 
While it is true that the broad concept of intelligence is still used to refer 

to gifted children, research has tried for years to further refine the concepts 

underlying intelligence, resulting in the g-factor, often more or less 

successfully parameterized as intelligence quotient (IQ) in a series of 

standardized tests. However, these concepts remain unspecific and 

insufficient to describe the complexity of the concept of intelligence. In this 

regard, a wide variety of relevant factors should be considered, such as 

motivation and creativity (Renzulli, 1978), or personality (Fries et al., 2022). 

One of the most interesting trends is to break down the intelligence concept 

into cognitive abilities (Chekaf et al., 2018; Rowe et al., 2014; Wai et al., 

2022), which makes it possible to study how these are profiled in gifted 

children. While some authors open the debate as to whether these profiles are 

reliable and how they should be interpreted (Canivez & Watkins, 1998), these 

models are broadly accepted (Fiorello et al., 2002). In this way, intelligence 

would be the tip of an iceberg composed of a large pool of cognitive abilities 

(Gow, 2016; Schneider & Newman, 2015). The age variation of intelligence 

(Breit et al., 2020; Sternberg, 2012) also serves as an additional clue of the 

potentially intimate relationship with cognitive abilities, as both change in a 

similar way (Borella et al., 2019; Gow 2016). With these premises and based 

on the systematic review conducted by Bucaille et al. (2021), a natural 

research question would be how different gifted children’s cognitive abilities 

would be as compared to their peers with normotypical intelligence. 

Domain-general cognitive abilities could be understood as a set of brain 

processes that allow a person to perform from the most basic activities, such 

as perceiving a stimulus in the environment, to more complex activities, such 

as organizing a week of hard work. As with intelligence, cognitive abilities 

have also been extensively studied for decades (Atkinson & Shiffrin, 1968; 

Baddeley & Hitch, 1974; Broadbent, 1958; Diamond, 2013; Lezak, 1982; 

I 
 



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4 

Norman & Shallice, 1986; Sohlberg & Mateer, 1989). Individual cognitive 

abilities or processes tend to be grouped into different cognitive areas or 

domains, such as attention (Sohlberg & Mateer, 1989), memory (Baddeley & 

Hitch, 1974), or executive functions (hereafter EFs; Lezak, 1982), among 

others. This latter set of cognitive abilities (i.e., EFs) represents one of the 

cognitive areas that is to be most tightly associated with intelligence (Chen et 

al., 2019; Deary et al., 2009; Debraise et al., 2020; Gray et al., 2022; Takeuchi 

et al., 2021). This close relationship between EFs and intelligence is endorsed 

by neuroimaging data showing that these cognitive skills are mainly managed 

by the prefrontal cortex of the human brain (Friedman & Robbins, 2021; Jones 

& Graff-Radford, 2021) and that intelligence is also related to this same area 

(Sternberg, 2012). 

One could think of two types of approaches when measuring intelligence 

depending on whether the tests focus on the g-factor or on an aggregate of 

cognitive abilities: mono-ability IQ tests (Raven, 1938), and composite 

abilities IQ tests (Wechsler, 2008). This lack of agreement in the approach to 

the assessment of intelligence puts the developers in a bind. Considering that 

the selected theory or definition will direct how the type of test and its 
outcome will be, the developers of such tests have made a great effort to 

choose the most robust and functional ones. Although the IQ score has 

traditionally been a basic concept for determining giftedness (Pfeiffer, 2015), 

in recent years there has been increasinginterest at the international level in 

exploring beyond the concept of IQ. As Schneider and Flanagan (2015) point 

out, the developers of intelligence tests have based on a series of theories of 

intelligence, following a pattern of overlapping waves, starting in 1904 and 

lasting until current days. The first wave of tests measured general 

intelligence; the second wave focused on specific aspects of test performance 

(e.g., comparing the outcomes, such as failures and successes, on a specific 

type of item); the third wave introduced more rigorous psychometric methods 

for interpreting individual profiles; and the fourth wave of tests had well-

developed operational theories, improving the interpretation of the results. 

As noted by Zajda (2019) in his review about current models and theories 

of intelligence, Gardner (2012) grouped theories of intelligence into four 

types: (1) psychometric theories, based on individual differences in academic 

success; (2) cognitive theories, based on various processes involved in 

performance and specific mental operations; (3) cognitive-contextual 



Asensio, Duñabeitia & Fernandez-Mera– The Cognitive Profile of 

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5 

theories, which framed mental processes in a socio-cultural context; and (4) 

biological theories, which try to cover the relationship between intelligence, 

the brain, and its functions. In this line, over and above the selected focus and 

approach of each test (namely, the wave a test belongs to), the developers of 

intelligence tests also fall into one of these groups at the theoretical level. 

According to Britannica (2021), the most widely used intelligence tests today 

are the Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scale (Binet & Simon, 1904) and the 

Wechsler scales (Wechsler, 2008). Both tests can likely be categorized within 

psychometric and cognitive theories, respectively, at least in their early 

versions. In the case of the most current computerized intelligence tests, such 

as the Adaptive Test of General Intelligence (Abad et al., 2020), they would 

still be framed within the group of psychometric theories, since cognitive-

contextual theories and biological theories are more difficult to operationally 

transfer to a test. 

While these tests have traditionally been used to measure intelligence level 

and to validate categorization as high-IQ or talented (Cao et al., 2017; Gignac, 

2015) they do not provide data on the specific cognitive profile associated 

with a given IQ, although some approaches have been made (Schneider, 

2013). Stemming from the seemingly tight link between IQ and cognitive 

skills, the current study was set to obtain a more comprehensive and detailed 

view of the cognitive state of gifted children compared to their normative 

peers. By analyzing the differences between high-IQ and average-IQ children 

in different cognitive domains we will be in a better position to draw a much 

more accurate and precise profile for gifted and average children, exploring 

differences between these populations beyond an isolated data point of IQ 

(Guignard et al., 2016). 

In the case of gifted children who already have an exceptional IQ, one 

could tentatively predict differences with respect to the general population 

also in their cognitive abilities, or at least in some of them (Steiner & Carr, 

2003). While some data has been provided specifically concerning an 

enhanced performance of talented children in tasks tapping into working 

memory (Aubry & Bourdin, 2021; Aubry et al., 2021), it remains to be seen 

if and how the differences between gifted and average-IQ children extend to 

various cognitive domains and skills. 



     IJEP – International Journal of Educational Psychology, 00(0) 

 

 

6 

 The current study explored whether gifted children have a better cognitive 

profile than the general reference population and their peers with normative 

intelligence, and if so, in which specific cognitive domains and subdomains 

would be these differences more salient. Thus, the aim of the study is to 

quantitatively identify the cognitive profile of giftedness and to delimit the 

relationship between intelligence and cognitive abilities. 

 

Methodology 

Instruments 

 

A battery of computerized cognitive test was used to provide a quantitative 

description of cognitive domains and skills of the participants. The instrument 

used in this regard was the Cognitive Assessment Battery (CAB)™ (CogniFit 

Inc., San Francisco, US), validated against classical well-known tests 

(Haimov et al., 2008). This instrument is an online assessment battery widely 

used in children (Conesa & Duñabeitia, 2021; Reina-Reina et al., 2023), adults 

(Chandler et al., 2013), the elderly (Thompson et al., 2011), both healthy 

(Tapia et al., 2022) or with a pathological condition (Duñabeitia et al., 2023; 

Haimov et al., 2008). It is composed of a set of 17 neuropsychological tasks 

based on classical neuropsychological tests —such as the digit span task, the 

Stroop test, etc.— that can be performed either from a computer, tablet, or 

smartphone. The version of the test that was used provides an accurate and 

immediate measurement of 21 cognitive abilities, grouped into 5 cognitive 

domains. The Attention domain groups the cognitive abilities Focused 

Attention, Divided Attention, Inhibition, and Updating. The Perception 

domain includes the cognitive abilities of Visual Perception, Spatial 

Perception, Auditory Perception, Visual Scanning, and Recognition. The 

Memory domain contains the cognitive abilities of Short-Term Memory, 

Visual Short-Term Memory, Auditory Short-Term Memory, Contextual 

Memory, Visual Memory, Naming, and Working Memory. The Reasoning 

domain consists of the cognitive abilities of Shifting, Planning, and Processing 

Speed. The Coordination domain includes the cognitive abilities Eye-Hand 

Coordination and Response Time. 

 



Asensio, Duñabeitia & Fernandez-Mera– The Cognitive Profile of 

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7 

Data collection 

 

The participants in this study were 176 Spanish children aged 8 to 17 years 

(i.e., 113 participants in the high.ability group, and 63 participants in the group 

of children with normotypical development). The participants in the sample 

of children with high abilities were recruited from Spanish associations and 

institutions for people with high abilities. All of them had the corresponding 

psycho-pedagogical report for the official diagnosis of high ability that 

accredits them within this population group. All the psycho-pedagogical 

assessments were carried out and signed by qualified professionals who had 

followed the official protocols of each Autonomous Community and thus 

were registered in the corresponding registry of each Community. In Spain, 

the identification protocols follow the guidelines of the state education 

regulations in force at any given time. They also use technically adequate 

detection instruments. The tests administered to participants in this sample, 

include the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children-V (WISC-V; Wechsler, 

2014), the Stanford-Binet-5 (SB-5; Roid et al., 2004), the Kaufman 

Assessment Battery for Children-II (KABC-2; Kaufman et al., 2005), and the 

Woodcock-Johnson Test of Cognitive Abilities-IV (WJ-IV; Mather & Jaffe, 

2016). All these tests can be identified as composite abilities IQ tests, which 

goes beyond simply measuring IQ. The participants of the sample of students 

with normotypical development came from schools in different Spanish 

provinces. A mandatory criterion for inclusion in the normotypical 

development group was a sufficiently good school performance as attested by 

their teachers. 

As a double check for inclusion of participants in each group of the study, 

an initial screening was performed to ensure that they rigorously met the 

appropriate eligibility criteria (Del Rosal et al., 2011; Janos & Robinson, 

1985; McCallister et al., 1996). For this purpose, a commercially available 

test was used (Matrices-TAI test, Adaptive Test of General Intelligence; Abad 

et al., 2020). For a child to be considered a participant in the high ability group, 

over and above having the pre-existing psycho-pedagogical report, their 

results in this test had to yield a General Index (GI) corresponding to a high 

or very high percentile according to the interpretation norms. This double-

check procedure ensured that all participants in the gifted group were in fact 



     IJEP – International Journal of Educational Psychology, 00(0) 

 

 

8 

gifted children. After this initial selection, 113 participants were included in 

the high-ability group (36 females). Their mean age was 11.22 years 

(SD=2.14). 

In addition, all participants recruited from schools with normotypical 

development also completed the general intelligence test to ensure that, 

following the same general rules of test interpretation, they did not obtain 

scores corresponding to high or very high percentiles. This procedure avoided 

possible cases of children with high abilities that had not yet been identified. 

The final sample included in the normotypical development group consisted 

of 63 participants (22 females). Their mean age was 11.78 years (SD=2.12). 

Parents of children in the high ability and normotypical development 

groups completed a socioeconomic status questionnaire (MacArthur Scale of 

Subjective Socioeconomic Status; Adler et al., 2000) in which they self-

assessed their perceived status, and the results showed no differences between 

the groups (mean of the high ability group=6.42, SD=1.01; mean of the 

normotypical development group=6.63, SD=1.13). All families were 

informed of the nature, purpose, and protocol of the present study and signed 

informed consent for the participation of their children. The protocol was 

approved by the Ethics Committee of the Universidad Nebrija. 

 

Data analysis 

 

The cognitive data acquired were compared between the groups of gifted 

children and normotypical development children by means of repeated 

measures ANOVAs following two different approaches. First, the age- and 

gender-adjusted percentile scores obtained in each of the cognitive domains 

measured by the Cognitive Assessment Battery (CAB)™ were contrasted 

between the groups. And second, a series of repeated measures ANOVAs 

were carried out to explore the potential differences between the groups in the 

skills that constitute each of the cognitive domains. The whole analysis routine 

was run using jamovi (The jamovi project, 2022) operating on R (R Core 

Team 2021) using the packages afex (Singmann, 2018) and emmeans (Lenth, 

2020). 

 

 

 



Asensio, Duñabeitia & Fernandez-Mera– The Cognitive Profile of 

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9 

Results 

The results obtained after data analysis of the descriptive data are reported in 

Table 1. 

 

Table 1 

Means, standard errors, and 95% confidence intervals of the scores in each 

cognitive domain and in each skill for each of the groups. 

 High-IQ Group  Average-IQ Group 

   

95% Confidence 

Interval 

   

95% Confidence 

Interval 

Cognitive Domain Mean 

Standard 

Error 

Lower Upper  Mean 

Standard 

Error 

Lower Upper 

Attention  65.7 1.57 62.6 68.8  53.3 2.10 49.2 57.5 

Divided Attention 73.3 1.97 69.4 77.2  62.8 2.64 57.6 68.0 

Focused Attention 52.1 2.44 47.3 56.9  45.8 3.26 39.3 52.2 

Inhibition 70.4 2.29 65.9 75.0  58.4 3.07 52.4 64.5 

Updating 66.8 2.62 61.7 72.0  46.3 3.50 39.4 53.3 

Coordination 61.6 2.07 57.6 65.7  51.2 2.77 45.7 56.7 

Eye-hand Coordination 59.2 2.41 54.5 64.0  48.9 3.23 42.5 55.2 

Response Time 64.1 2.70 58.7 69.4  53.5 3.61 46.4 60.7 

Memory 78.3 1.39 75.6 81.1  67.5 1.86 63.9 71.2 

Auditory Short-Term Memory 73.2 2.10 69.1 77.4  61.3 2.81 55.7 66.8 

Contextual Memory 85.1 1.45 82.3 88.0  77.2 1.94 73.3 81.0 

Naming 79.7 2.19 75.3 84.0  59.7 2.93 53.9 65.4 

Short-Term Memory 75.8 2.13 71.6 80.0  66.4 2.85 60.8 72.0 

Visual Memory 76.8 2.01 72.8 80.8  68.2 2.70 62.9 73.5 

Visual Short-Term Memory 72.5 2.41 67.8 77.3  67.0 3.23 60.7 73.4 

Working Memory 85.2 1.61 82.1 88.4  73.0 2.15 68.8 77.3 

Perception 68.9 1.20 66.6 71.3  58.9 1.60 55.7 62.0 

Auditory Perception 84.8 1.59 81.7 88.0  74.0 2.13 69.8 78.2 

Recognition 80.2 1.80 76.7 83.8  67.3 2.42 62.5 72.1 

Spatial Perception 52.9 2.68 47.6 58.1  45.3 3.58 38.2 52.4 



     IJEP – International Journal of Educational Psychology, 00(0) 

 

 

10 

Visual Perception 82.5 1.90 78.7 86.2  65.2 2.54 60.2 70.2 

          

 High-IQ Group   Average-IQ Group 

  

95% Confidence 

Interval 

 

95% Confidence 

                    Interval 

Cognitive Domain Mean 

Standard 

Error 

Lower Upper  Mean 

Standard 

Error 

Lower Upper 

     

Visual Scanning 44.3 2.76 38.9 49.8  42.6 3.69 35.3 49.9 

Reasoning 68.6 1.77 65.1 72.1  60.3 2.38 55.6 65.0 

Planning 61.5 2.73 56.1 66.9  53.4 3.66 46.2 60.7 

Processing Speed 68.3 2.63 63.1 73.5  60.6 3.53 53.6 67.5 

Shifting 76.2 2.13 71.9 80.4  66.8 2.86 61.2 72.4 

 

The first analysis approach concerned the exploration of the differences 

between groups (the Group factor with the levels gifted and normotypical) 

across the cognitive domains that were measured (the Cognitive Domain 

factor with the levels attention, memory, coordination, perception, and 

reasoning). The 2*5 repeated measures ANOVA showed a significant main 

effect of Group (F(1,174)=23.6, p<.001, η2partial=0.119), that showed an 

overall higher cognitive performance of the gifted group as compared to the 

normotypical group. The main effect of Cognitive Domain was also 

significant (F(4,696)=44.56, p<.001, η2partial=0.204), showing that the 

percentile scores were different across the domains (see Table 1 and Figure 

1). Importantly, the two factors did not interact with each other (F<1 and 

p>.66), showing that the higher scores obtained by the gifted group were 

similar across cognitive domains. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



Asensio, Duñabeitia & Fernandez-Mera– The Cognitive Profile of 

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11 

Figure 1 

Mean score (in percentile) and individual data points in each of the cognitive 

domains obtained by each group. Data from the gifted group is represented in 

light grey, and data from the normotypical group is displayed in black. Error 

bars correspond to 95% confidence intervals. 

The second analysis followed a fine-grained approach aimed at 

investigating potential differences between the two groups at test in the 

magnitude of the contrasting differential effects in each of the skills that 

constitute each of the cognitive domains. The ANOVA on the data 

corresponding to the skills that jointly contribute to the Attention cognitive 

domain (namely, divided attention, focused attention, inhibition and updating) 

showed a significant interaction with Group (F(3,522)=3.14, p=.025, 

η2partial=0.018). Post hoc pairwise comparisons using the Tukey correction 

method for multiple contrasts showed that the gifted and the normotypical 

groups significantly differed in all skills except for focused attention 

(t(174)=1.545, pTukey>.77; see Figure 2a). The ANOVA on the Coordination 

cognitive domain showed that the difference between the groups was similar 

for the two skills tested (eye-hand coordination and  response time), given the 

lack of an interaction (F<1 and p>.96; see Figure 2b). The ANOVA on the 

High-IQ

Average-IQ



     IJEP – International Journal of Educational Psychology, 00(0) 

 

 

12 

skills constituting the Memory cognitive domain (auditory short-term 

memory, contextual memory, naming, short-term memory, visual memory, 

visual short-term memory and working memory) showed a significant 

interaction with the factor Group (F(6,1044)=3.18, p=.004, η2partial=0.018). 

Post hoc pairwise tests demonstrated that the groups did not significantly 

differ in short-term memory (t(174)=2.64, pTukey=0.32), visual memory 

(t(174)=2.56, pTukey=0.37), and visual short-term memory (t(174)=1.36, 

pTukey=0.98). The difference between groups in contextual memory closely 

approached significance (t(174)=3.29, pTukey=0.07), and the difference in 

the rest of skills were significant (ts>3.4 and psTukey<.05; see Figure 2c). 

The results of the analysis on the skills associated with the Perception 

cognitive domain showed a significant interaction with the Group factor 

(F(4,696)=2.87, p=.022, η2partial=0.016), demonstrating that while the 

scores in some of the skills significantly differed between the gifted and 

normotypical groups (see Figure 2d), the scores in spatial perception 

(t(174)=1.69, pTukey=0.80) and visual scanning (t(174)=0.38, pTukey=1) 

were similar across groups. Finally, the analysis of the skills associated with 

the Reasoning cognitive domain showed similar differences between the 

groups in the three skills tested (planning, processing speed and shifting), as 

suggested by the lack of an interaction (F<1 and p>.93; see Figure 2e). 

 

Figure 2 

Mean score (in percentile) of each of the cognitive skills obtained by each 

group grouped by domains: a) Attention, b) Coordination, c) Memory, d) 

Perception, e) Reasoning. Error bars correspond to 95% confidence intervals. 

Divided Att. = Divided Attention, Focused Att. = Focused attention; A.STM = 

Auditory Short-Term Memory, C.Mem. = Contextual Memory, STM = Short-

Term Memory, V.Mem. = Visual Memory, V.STM = Visual Short-Term 

Memory, W.Mem. = Working Memory; Auditory P. = Auditory Perception, 

Spatial P. = Spatial Perception, Visual P. = Visual Perception, Visual Scan = 

Visual Scanning. 



Asensio, Duñabeitia & Fernandez-Mera– The Cognitive Profile of 

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13 

Figure 2 

 

 

 

a) b)

c) d)

e)

High-IQ

Average-IQ



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14 

Discussion 

The current study was designed to explore the potential differences between 

gifted children and a matched group of children with a neurotypical 

development in terms of their cognitive profile, stemming from the idea that 

the higher performance of the former group in IQ tests could be also linked to 

a higher performance in cognitive tests not directly tapping into 

comprehension-knowledge aptitude (Newton & McGrew, 2010). The results 

of this study help us conclude that there is an inherent difference not only in 

the intellectual profile, but also in the cognitive profile between talented or 

gifted children and their peers. 

As a baseline measure, we observed that the normotypical group obtained 

scores close to the median, i.e, 50th percentile, which reinforces the idea that 

the measurement is correct and follows the expected distribution, and that the 

selected normotypically developing sample performs as expected for a control 

group. In contrast, the group of high-IQ children showed a significant overall 

difference in their cognitive scores as compared to the control group (a 

difference of around 11 percentile points), suggesting that intellectual 

giftedness comes hand in hand with cognitive giftedness too. These significant 

differences were found both in the overall score, in the scores of the five core 

cognitive domains, and in most of the scores of the individual cognitive 

abilities. 

Another question at stake in the current study was whether gifted children 

excel in all cognitive abilities equally, or if the differences observed with their 

peers are unevenly distributed across cognitive domains. The general analysis 

showed that the mean differences obtained across the five tested cognitive 

domains were markedly homogeneous (i.e., 12 percentile points in Attention, 

10 in Coordination, 11 in Memory, 10 in Perception, and 8 in Reasoning), 

demonstrating that the overall better cognitive performance of the gifted group 

was not restricted to a given cognitive domain or area. A more fine-grained 

analysis of each of the cognitive domains and the skills that were tested within 

them showed that there are cognitive abilities in which the scores of the group 

of gifted children were significantly higher than those of their normotypical 

peers, while these differences were much more modest or even negligible in 

other specific skills. 



Asensio, Duñabeitia & Fernandez-Mera– The Cognitive Profile of 

Intellectual Giftedness 

 

 

15 

One interesting finding that deserves attention is the specific group of 

cognitive abilities in which the difference between talented children and 

adolescents and their peers is more marked. The importance lies in the fact 

that one could tentatively suggest that those cognitive skills could presumably 

be more strongly associated with intelligence. In this line, our results showed 

that the gifted group obtained a significantly higher score in those cognitive 

abilities directly or indirectly related to EFs, such as working memory, 

inhibition, monitoring, or divided attention (see also Aubry, 2021). This 

finding endorses the idea that EFs have an important implication in what we 

understand today as intelligence, as already suggested before (Chen et al., 

2019; Deary et al., 2009; Debraise et al., 2020; Gray et al., 2022; Takeuchi et 

al., 2021). Executive functions are highly complex cognitive abilities that 

allow for the abstract processing of information, and their proposed tight link 

with IQ stems from the idea that intelligence allows us to abstract information 

from our experience to adapt to the environment or context (Sternberg, 2012). 

Nonetheless, other cognitive abilities typically related to EFs such as planning 

and shifting (Miyake et al., 2000) did not show significant differences 

between the groups. One explanation for this may be given by Diamond 

(2011), when she stated that group differences are clearer the more complex 

the executive function is, and when the cognitive demand in an environment 

or stimulation program is not increasing, there tends to be no improvement in 

executive functions. Therefore, it can be inferred that the lack of cognitive 

challenge in the school stage can end in a lower activation of executive 

functions. This is an interesting starting point for future studies that could be 

aimed at deciphering the underlying components of executive factors that 

predict higher levels of intelligence and to experimental interventional 

approaches aimed at training different components of EFs and testing changes 

in the long term at IQ-related levels. Although different ways to improve 

intelligence have already been proposed (Dilmurod et al., 2020), by focusing 

on cognitive abilities, this process becomes more self-evident, given the large 

body of evidence demonstrating the effectiveness of cognitive training 

methods (Conesa & Duñabeitia, 2021; Diamond & Ling, 2016; Emihovich et 

al., 2020; Spencer-Smith et al., 2020). 

On the other hand, the group of gifted children also showed significant and 

large differences as compared to controls in an array of basic cognitive 



     IJEP – International Journal of Educational Psychology, 00(0) 

 

 

16 

abilities with a high perceptual load, such as naming, contextual memory, 

auditory short-term memory, auditory perception, recognition or visual 

perception. These results align well with recent data demonstrating the 

enhanced cognitive skills related with verbal comprehension and, critically, 

visuo-perceptual abilities of moderately gifted and gifted children (see Pezzuti 

et al., 2022). Together, these data provide tentative support to the hypothesis 

of an earlier development of biological processes associated with 

sensoriomotor and linguistic skills in gifted children that later in time may 

result in a higher IQ as compared to normotypically developing children 

(Vaivre-Douret, 2011). 

Taken together, these findings help us quantify and qualify the core 

cognitive differences between gifted children and those with normotypical 

intellectual development, while acknowledging that the variability of the 

intellectual profiles of the sample limits the scope of these findings. 

Identifying these differences is not only interesting when assessing and 

recognizing high abilities in children, but also opens the possibility of refining 

and making more precise interventions aimed at favoring students’ intellectual 

development in order to maximize their results in different contexts, but 

especially within the school environment. Applying progressive and scalable 

cognitive training programs in the classroom environment or in 

complementary activities according to the level of intelligence can favor a 

holistic attention to students and achieve the optimization of cognitive 

abilities, not only for students with high abilities, but also for students with 

normotypical development or those with greater difficulties. This would lead 

to an optimization of talents and could have a significant impact on school 

performance and personal development. 

Although the results of this study are enlightening and help to answer the 

main questions initially posed, we deem it essential to continue research on 

the cognitive profile of gifted individuals to better understand the seemingly 

intrinsic relationship between intelligence and domain-general cognition. 

However, a cautionary note is advised when interpreting these results, given 

that it is important to bear in mind that the school context is multifactorial and 

that this study only addresses cognitive aspects. Future studies should be 

directed at collecting a much broader set of variables that consider the holistic 

and integral vision of educational intervention, so as not to neglect the 

personal, emotional, and social development of the students. Besides, another 



Asensio, Duñabeitia & Fernandez-Mera– The Cognitive Profile of 

Intellectual Giftedness 

 

 

17 

clear-cut limitations of the current study is its cross-sectional nature, which 

does not allow for solving the existing chicken and egg question arising from 

the origin of the differences. Whether the enhanced cognitive skills of gifted 

children boost intellectual abilities, or whether the higher intellectual abilities 

snowball to cognitive skills is a question that remains open. Future 

longitudinal and training studies could help us determine the origin of the 

differences and better characterize the underlying core properties of 

giftedness. 

In a nutshell, this study explores the cognitive differences between gifted 

children and their peers and shows that there are significant differences in their 

cognitive profiles. These differences are not limited to a particular cognitive 

domain but are found across different cognitive areas. Additionally, the study 

suggests that executive functions are more strongly associated with 

intelligence and are linked to higher IQ in gifted children. The findings can 

help in the identification of high-ability students and in developing 

interventions aimed at maximizing their intellectual development. 

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David Asensio: International Chair in Cognitive Health, 

Universidad Nebrija, Spain 

ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7114-7817 

 

Ana Fernández-Mera: International Chair in Cognitive Health, 

Universidad Nebrija, Spain 

ORCID:  https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2690-3892 

 

Jon Andoni Duñabeitia: International Chair in Cognitive Health, 

Universidad Nebrija, Spain 

ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3312-8559  

 

 

Contact Address: jdunabeitia@nebrija.es 

 

  

 
 

https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7114-7817
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2690-3892
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3312-8559
mailto:jdunabeitia@nebrija.es

