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Topic · Experimental and Cognitive Psychology

Cognitive Abilities and Testing

Cognitive Abilities and Testing is a research topic within Experimental and Cognitive Psychology. Science Explorer counts 21k research works in it since 1950. 10.1% of them reached the world's top 10% most cited for their field and year.

This cluster of papers explores the effects of working memory training on cognitive abilities, including intelligence, and its relationship with genetic influences, socioeconomic status, and brain plasticity. It also investigates the impact of video game training on cognitive control and the role of twin studies in understanding these phenomena.

  • Working Memory
  • Intelligence
  • Training
  • Cognitive Abilities
  • Genetic Influences
  • Video Games
  • Meta-analysis
  • Socioeconomic Status
  • Twin Studies
  • Brain Plasticity
Research works
21k
fractional, since 1950
In the world top 10%
2.1k
per year above
Top-10% rate
10.1%
share of its works in the world top 10%
Growth, 2018-21 → 2022-25
+9%
the tick is no change
Largest producer
United States
42% of the 10 largest, 2022-now
Cognitive Abilities and Testing

Which countries lead Cognitive Abilities and Testing research?

By volume, the United States and China publish the most (1k and 369 works in 2022-now).

By volume, 2022-now

  1. 1 United States 1k works
  2. 2 China 369 works
  3. 3 Germany 250 works
  4. 4 United Kingdom 237 works
  5. 5 Canada 111 works
  6. 6 Italy 97 works
  7. 7 Netherlands 93 works
  8. 8 Spain 92 works
  9. 9 Australia 87 works
  10. 10 Japan 85 works

How concentrated that is

The same countries as shares of everything the list above accounts for. A node where two countries do two thirds of the work and one spread evenly across twelve read alike as a ranking and not at all alike here.

United States: 42.1%China: 15.1%Germany: 10.2%United Kingdom: 9.7%6 others listed: 23.0%42%largest
United States1,033 · 42.1%China369 · 15.1%Germany250 · 10.2%United Kingdom237 · 9.7%6 others listed565 · 23.0%

Shares of the rows listed above, not of the whole node.

Which institutions lead Cognitive Abilities and Testing research?

By volume in 2022-now, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill publishes the most Cognitive Abilities and Testing research, followed by Harvard University and University College London.

By volume, 2022-now

  1. 1 University of North Carolina at Chapel HillUnited States 36 works
  2. 2 Harvard UniversityUnited States 28 works
  3. 3 University College LondonUnited Kingdom 23 works
  4. 4 University of OsloNorway 22 works
  5. 5 King's College LondonUnited Kingdom 22 works
  6. 6 Centre National de la Recherche ScientifiqueFrance 17 works
  7. 7 Beijing Normal UniversityChina 17 works
  8. 8 Vrije Universiteit AmsterdamNetherlands 16 works
  9. 9 Cornell UniversityUnited States 15 works
  10. 10 University of TorontoCanada 15 works

Who are the leading researchers in Cognitive Abilities and Testing?

The most-cited researchers publishing on Cognitive Abilities and Testing include George Davey Smith, Mark J. Daly and Richard M. Ryan.

  1. 1 George Davey Smith United Kingdom 435k citations
  2. 2 Mark J. Daly United States 403k citations
  3. 3 Richard M. Ryan United States 395k citations
  4. 4 Albert Bandura United States 370k citations
  5. 5 Ronald C. Kessler United States 360k citations
  6. 6 Cyrus Cooper United Kingdom 342k citations
  7. 7 Edward L. Deci United States 325k citations
  8. 8 Mika Kivimäki United Kingdom 318k citations
  9. 9 Karl John Friston United Kingdom 310k citations
  10. 10 Dan J. Stein South Africa 306k citations

Ranked by citations received across their whole record, among researchers with at least three works on this topic.

What are the most cited papers in Cognitive Abilities and Testing?

The most cited paper in Cognitive Abilities and Testing is "G*Power 3: A flexible statistical power analysis program for the social, behavioral, and biomedical sciences" (Franz Faul, Edgar Erdfelder, Albert-Georg Lang et al., 2007), with 66,357 citations. Next come "The Unity and Diversity of Executive Functions and Their Contributions to Complex “Frontal Lobe” Tasks: A Latent Variable Analysis" (15,905) and "GenAlEx 6.5: genetic analysis in Excel. Population genetic software for teaching and research—an update" (13,417).

Most cited papers
#PaperReleasedCitations
1 G*Power 3: A flexible statistical power analysis program for the social, behavioral, and biomedical sciences Franz Faul, Edgar Erdfelder, Albert-Georg Lang et al. · Behavior Research Methods Open access May 2007 66,357
2 The Unity and Diversity of Executive Functions and Their Contributions to Complex “Frontal Lobe” Tasks: A Latent Variable Analysis Akira Miyake, Naomi P. Friedman, Michael J. Emerson et al. · Cognitive Psychology Aug 2000 15,905
3 GenAlEx 6.5: genetic analysis in Excel. Population genetic software for teaching and research—an update Rod Peakall, Peter E. Smouse · Bioinformatics Open access 20 Jul 2012 13,417
4 Executive Functions Adele Diamond · Annual Review of Psychology ReviewOpen access 30 Sep 2012 12,954
5 THE ASSESSMENT OF ANXIETY STATES BY RATING Max Hamilton · British Journal of Medical Psychology Mar 1959 11,575
All 100 most cited papers, with filters and sorting

Where is Cognitive Abilities and Testing research done?

The largest centres of Cognitive Abilities and Testing research in 2022-now are London (United Kingdom), Beijing (China), New York (United States) and Oslo (Norway). Among places with at least 20 works in it, it is an unusually large share of all research in Oslo, Chapel Hill and Amsterdam.

Largest cities, 2022-now

  1. 1 LondonUnited Kingdom 80 works
  2. 2 BeijingChina 78 works
  3. 3 New YorkUnited States 53 works
  4. 4 OsloNorway 41 works
  5. 5 Chapel HillUnited States 36 works
  6. 6 MoscowRussia 35 works
  7. 7 AmsterdamNetherlands 34 works
  8. 8 ShanghaiChina 28 works
  9. 9 TehranIran 27 works
  10. 10 TokyoJapan 26 works

Where it is the local speciality

  1. OsloNO · 40.5 works8.1×
  2. Chapel HillUS · 36.4 works5.7×
  3. AmsterdamNL · 33.6 works5.6×
← less than its size predicts1×more →

Location quotient: how much more of its research is in Cognitive Abilities and Testing than the world average.

See Cognitive Abilities and Testing on the map

Where is the best place to study Cognitive Abilities and Testing?

Among universities, judged by research, King's College London, University of Oslo and Peking University score highest, combining excellence, specialisation, size, growth and international reach. Research strength is one signal when choosing where to study; it does not measure teaching.

0%20%40%mean 16.41%fractional works in this field (log) →share of work in the world top 10% →Peking UniversityKing's College LondonUniversity College L…University of Oslo
above the meannear itbelow it

One dot per university in the first ten of the table below, at the default weights. The upper left is the interesting corner: small places doing unusually strong work.

Excellenceshare of its work in the world top 10%, 2022-now and all time averaged
40%
Specialisationhow much of its work is in this field, counted up to 10× the world share
10%
Sizeits output in this field, on a log scale
30%
Growthoutput growth, counted from -20% to +20%
10%
Internationalshare of its work with a co-author abroad
10%
Each slider sets a weight; the share it gets of the score is beside it.
#UniversityScoreTop 10%SpecialisationWorksGrowth
1King's College LondonUnited Kingdom 66.415.4%8.3×22 +31.6%
2University of OsloNorway 64.714.2%11.3×22 +118.2%
3Peking UniversityChina 63.637.4%2.0×12 +529.7%
4University College LondonUnited Kingdom 58.814.5%4.6×23 +9.5%
5Harvard UniversityUnited States 56.014.5%2.8×28 -8.7%
6Vrije Universiteit AmsterdamNetherlands 55.313.9%12.8×16 +7.2%
7University of North Carolina at Chapel HillUnited States 54.42.6%6.5×36 +24.1%
8New York UniversityUnited States 49.419.6%3.3×12 +54.6%
9Beijing Normal UniversityChina 48.413.0%6.7×17 +96.8%
10Stanford UniversityUnited States 48.319.0%2.3×10 +32.1%

Universities only. The score blends excellence (40%), size (30%), specialisation (10%), growth (10%), international reach (10%), 2022-now; growth compares 2018-21 with 2022-25 and counts up to +20%, since a jump from a small base is mostly noise.

Every institution in Cognitive Abilities and Testing, country by country

Is Cognitive Abilities and Testing research growing?

Output in 2022-2025 was 9% higher than in 2018-2021, peaking in 2025. The fastest-growing topics are Cognitive Abilities and Testing.

still counting19801990200020102020
grewheldshrank

The same series as a ribbon: one cell per year, darker for more. The line above answers how much; this answers when.

Its share of all research

Growing output can still be a shrinking share: all of science grows. This is Cognitive Abilities and Testing as a percentage of every work published that year, 0.016% in 2024.

still counting0.020%0.040%0.060%Cognitive Abilities and Testing0.017% in 202519801990200020102020

Fractional works of Cognitive Abilities and Testing over all fractional works that year. How the balance of science has shifted.

How much of it reaches the world top 10%

Year by year.

still counting5%10%15%Cognitive Abilities and Testing10.2% in 2025200020102020

Of each year's works in it, the share that reached the world's 10% most cited for their field and year. A field is the world for its own topics, so there is no other line to hold it against.

Which topics inside it are moving

Growth and decline on one axis around a shared zero. Two lists side by side hide the thing that matters: whether the growth dwarfs the decline, or the other way round.

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