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Intelligence xx (2007) xxx – xxx

Facon, B. (2008). How does the strength of the relationships between
cognitive abilities evolve over the life-span for low-IQ vs high-IQ
adults ? Intelligence, 36, 339-349.

How does the strength of the relationships between cognitive abilities

evolve over the life span for low-IQ vs high-IQ adults? ☆
Bruno Facon ⁎
Université Charles De Gaulle-Lille III, Unité de Recherche sur l'Evolution des Comportements et des Apprentissages (EA 1059), France

Received 8 March 2007; received in revised form 17 November 2007; accepted 17 November 2007

Abstract

The present study was designed to examine how the correlations between cognitive abilities evolve during adulthood. Data from
1104 participants on the French version of the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale-Third Edition were analyzed. The entire sample
was divided into four age groups (16–24 years; 25–44 years; 45–69 years and 70–89 years), which were themselves split into two
IQ-levels using the mean standard score on Vocabulary and Block Design. For every age group, the mean correlation between
subtest scores of low-IQ participants was higher than that of high-IQ participants. There was also no interaction between age and
IQ for the strength of subtest relationships. Indeed, the effect sizes of correlation differences between low- and high-IQ participants
appeared to be relatively constant across age. A general developmental schema of how the strength of correlations between
cognitive abilities of low- and high-IQ individuals evolves during the entire life span is sketched in the discussion.
© 2007 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Intelligence; Adulthood; Diminishing returns, Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale; Spearman law; Differentiation; Cognitive abilities

The law of diminishing returns (Spearman, 1927),
that is, the inverse relationship between IQ and the
strength of correlations of cognitive abilities, has been
the subject of numerous studies in recent decades (e.g.,
Abad, Colom, Juan-Espinosa, & García, 2003; Carl-
stedt, 2001; Deary et al., 1996; Detterman, 1993;
Detterman & Daniel, 1989; Evans, 1999; Facon, 2002,
2003a, 2003b; Hartmann & Reuter, 2006; Hunt, 1997;
☆
Author note: I am grateful to the Editions du Centre de
Psychologie Appliquée for providing the data analyzed in this
research. I also thank John M. Belmont for his helpful comments on
the manuscript.
⁎ Université Charles De Gaulle-Lille III, 35 rue Sainte Barbe, B.P.
70460, 59208 Tourcoing CEDEX, France.
E-mail addresses: bruno.facon@univ-lille3.fr,
bruno.facon@laposte.net (B. Facon).
0160-2896/$ - see front matter © 2007 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.intell.2007.11.004
Jensen, 2003; Legree, Pifer, & Grafton, 1996; Lynn,
1990; te Nijenhuis & Hartmann, 2006; Reynolds &
Keith, 2007). The bulk of this research was conducted
with the implicit idea that this inverse relationship does
not develop with age. Stated otherwise, individuals with
low-IQ would have less differentiated cognitive profiles
than individuals with high-IQ from the outset of their
development. However, recent investigations have
challenged this “fixist” view of the law of diminishing
returns. For example, in the Facon (2004) study, the
mean correlations between cognitive abilities of chil-
dren of low and high-IQ aged from 6 to 9 years were
nearly equal, suggesting that the inverse relationship
does not appear during childhood, and Arden and
Plomin (2007) have now reported similar results for 7–
10 year old children. Moreover, in a study of children

Please cite this article as: Facon, B., How does the strength of the relationships between cognitive abilities evolve over the life span for low-IQ
vs high-IQ adults? Intelligence (2007), doi:10.1016/j.intell.2007.11.004
 ARTICLE IN PRESS
2 B. Facon / Intelligence xx (2007) xxx–xxx
and young adolescents of high and low intellectual
functioning ages 7–9, 10–12 and 13–15 years, Facon
(2006) showed that median correlations between
intellectual scores did not change with age for high-IQ
participants (.13, .15 and .14 for the three age groups),
whereas an increase was observed for low-IQ partici-
pants (.15, .16 and .25, respectively). Thus, it seems that
only at the end of childhood (13–15 years) does the
phenomenon described by Spearman begin to appear.
The idea of bringing a developmental perspective to
the study of the law of diminishing returns is justified in
at least two respects. First, there is a great deal of
evidence, in psychology, of developmental variations in
the relationships between cognitive, demographic and
background variables. For example, the correlation
between parents' education or socioeconomic status
and intelligence test scores of their offspring is negative
or close to zero during early childhood but increases to
.40–.60 in the following years (e. g., Bayley & Jones,
1937; Bayley, 1954, 1970; Honzik, 1957, 1963, 1967).
Also, the IQ variance explained by genotype increases
with age whereas the effect of shared environmental
influences tends to diminish between childhood and
adolescence (Plomin, 2003; Plomin, DeFries,
McClearn, & McGuffin, 2001; Plomin & Petrill, 1997;
Plomin & Spinath, 2004). In another area of research, an
age-related stabilization of composite intelligence test
scores during childhood was early demonstrated.
Indeed, age to age correlations are very low before
18 months, increase rapidly up to 5 or 6 years and then
become both high and stable even when the psycho-
metric examinations are conducted several years apart
(Bayley, 1949; Bayley & Schaefer, 1964; Lewis &
McGurk, 1972; McCall, 1976; McCall, Hogarty, &
Hurlburt, 1972). In the same way, although this point is
still much debated (Anstey, Hofer, & Luszcz, 2003;
Facon, 2007; Juan-Espinosa, García, Colom, & Abad,
2000; Juan-Espinosa et al., 2002; Zelinski & Lewis,
2003), some results indicate the existence of an age-
related differentiation–dedifferentiation of cognitive
abilities over the life span (Li et al., 2004; Hertzog &
Bleckley, 2001; Tideman & Gustafsson, 2004). Finally,
the relationship between intelligence test scores and
learning or job performance often changes markedly
with practice (Ackerman, 1987, 1988, 2005; Ackerman
& Cianciolo, 2000, 2002; Fleishman, 1972; Fleishman
& Mumford, 1989; Fleishman & Quaintance, 1984;
Hulin, Henry, & Noon, 1990; Kennedy, Dunlap, Turn-
age, & Wilkes, 1993). In view of these few examples of
macro or micro developmental trends, one may ask why
the relationship between IQ and correlations between
cognitive abilities might not also evolve with age.
Please cite this article as: Facon, B., How does the strength of the relationships between cognitive abilities evolve over the life span for low-IQ
vs high-IQ adults? Intelligence (2007), doi:10.1016/j.intell.2007.11.004
Indeed, one of the most prime lessons of developmental
psychology in general and of the above-mentioned
examples in particular, is that psychological phenomena
have a genesis. The law of diminishing returns is
probably not an exception to this rule, and thus it is
important to study when the IQ-related process of
differentiation appears and how the correlations evolve
in low- and high-IQ groups over the course of
development.
Second, a developmental approach to studying the
law of diminishing returns could help to resolve some
inconsistencies in the literature. Indeed, the inverse
relationship between IQ and the strength of correlations
among cognitive abilities is not always confirmed (e.g.,
Fogarty & Stankov, 1995; Hartmann & Teasdale, 2004;
Hartmann & Reuter, 2006; Nesselroade & Thompson,
1995). These negative results have been attributed to
several explanatory variables such as the type of
measure and the cutoff point used to constitute IQ
groups, the content, number, and complexity of ability
tests, and the location of groups along the IQ continuum
(Abad et al., 2003 [study 1]; Deary et al., 1996; Fogarty
& Stankov, 1995; Hartmann & Teasdale, 2004, 2005;
Nesselroade & Thompson, 1995; Pagliari, 1998). But it
is also possible, beyond these variables, that the age of
participants moderates the effect of IQ on the degree of
differentiation of abilities and thus makes the phenom-
enon more difficult to discern when, as is frequently the
case, several age levels are present but not controlled
for. From this standpoint, it seems clearly necessary to
study the law of diminishing returns by taking age into
account. In some respects, this approach combines the
ability-related differentiation hypothesis with another
well-known hypothesis, that of a change in the structure
of cognitive abilities with age. This latter was probably
originated in 1919 with Burt (see Burt, 1954) and, under
the influence of Garrett (1946), gave rise to numerous
works in which, surprisingly, age and ability level were
never actually studied simultaneously. Nonetheless, at
least two studies had already been done on the
differentiation of cognitive abilities as a function of
both age and IQ. Lienert and Faber (1963), for example,
simultaneously tested the IQ-related differentiation
hypothesis (called, after Wewetzer, the divergence
hypothesis) and the age-differentiation hypothesis.
However, the age differences between their groups
were, on the average, only 3 years (8–10 years vs 11–
13 years). Deary et al. (1996) have also crossed these
two variables in a methodologically sound study
conducted with a sample of impressive size, but again
with a too small age range (14–17 years). In addition,
beyond this age span problem, neither of these two
 ARTICLE IN PRESS
B. Facon / Intelligence xx (2007) xxx–xxx
studies was conducted to explore the possibility of an
Age × IQ interaction on the strength of relationships
between cognitive abilities. In fact, both viewed the two
differentiation processes as essentially independent.
The data from Facon (2006) indicate an age-related
effect of IQ on the differentiation of cognitive abilities
during childhood, a result which, of course, must be
corroborated and explained. In addition, the analysis of
this Age × IQ interaction might also be pursued beyond
adolescence to include the whole life span in order to give
a fuller picture of the evolution of the magnitude of
correlations between cognitive abilities as a function of
IQ-level. This approach was taken in the present study
using data from a large population-based sample of adults
of low and high-IQ aged from 16 to 89 years divided into
four age groups. The goal was to examine whether the
difference of correlations between low- and high-IQ
participants observed at the end of childhood increases,
decreases, or remains stable across the adult years. A
secondary objective was to check the reality of Spear-
man's law in very old adults, for whom at present the data
are few and inconclusive (e.g., Anstey et al., 2003).
1. Methods
1.1. Measures and participants
The French version of the WAIS-III (Wechsler, 2000)
comprises exactly the same number and types of subtests as the
American version. The French version was standardized on a
representative sample of 1104 adults aged 16 to 89 years. This
sample was stratified into 12 age groups of about 80 to 100
subjects each as a function of gender, geographic region,
urban–rural residence, and SES. For the subjects aged from 16
to 19 years, parental SES was considered.
In the present study, the entire sample was divided into four
age groups (16–24 years; 25–44 years; 45–69 years and 70–
89 years). Each of these age groups was then divided into two
IQ groups using the mean standard score computed across two
subtests (one drawn from the verbal scale, the other from the
performance scale). This was done to reduce the attenuation of
correlations which occurs when the sample is split by Full
Scale IQ. Indeed, as noted by Detterman and Daniel (1989, p.
353) “if subjects are selected by Full Scale IQ, their subscale
scores must balance out to equal the Full Scale score. Those
with higher scores on one subtest must have a lower score on
one or more other subtests to keep their IQ within the range”.
This phenomenon is much less pronounced when only one or
two subtests are used to form the groups because the score is
not a sum of scores obtained from all the subtests included in
the whole scale. The Vocabulary and Block Design were
chosen because these subtests were well correlated with Full
Scale IQ across age in the normative sample. Using these
subtests also ensured methodological consistency with
Please cite this article as: Facon, B., How does the strength of the relationships between cognitive abilities evolve over the life span for low-IQ
vs high-IQ adults? Intelligence (2007), doi:10.1016/j.intell.2007.11.004
3
Facon's (2006) study. Note also that Vocabulary and Block
Design have the highest correlation with verbal IQ and
performance IQ, respectively. The low-IQ groups comprised
all participants whose mean composite score on these two
subtests was 10 or less; the high-IQ groups comprised all the
others. Eight groups were thus constituted: Two IQ groups at
each of four age ranges. The two subtests employed to perform
this IQ selection were not included in the subsequent statistical
analyses.
1.2. Statistical analyses
The probability of detecting statistically significant main or
interaction effects depends on several parameters including the
reliability of measures, the level of type I error (α), the sample
size, the variance of the independent variable(s) or of product
terms, and the size of the hypothesized effect (Cohen, 1988;
Cronbach, 1991; McClelland, 2000; McClelland & Judd,
1993; Schmidt & Hunter, 1999). Power analyses showed that
effect size and sample size are closely related. The lower the
effect size, the larger the sample needed to detect the difference
sought. In the context of Spearman's law, there is no consensus
among researchers about the expected size of correlation
differences between low and high-IQ groups. However, some
consider that it is probably small at best (Hartmann, 2006; te
Nijenhuis & Hartmann, 2006). When two correlations are
compared, a small effect size corresponds to a difference of
about .10 between the two Fisher's z-transformed r coeffi-
cients (Cohen, 1988). Consequently, to detect a significant
difference of this order with type II error rate (β) set to .20,
more than 1000 participants are needed per group. Thus, at
least 8000 participants would be needed to constitute the eight
groups of the present study. Of course, this number is far
beyond the present sample size, as it is those of almost all of
the research conducted in behavioral sciences. In addition,
knowing whether the differences among correlation coeffi-
cients of low- and high-IQ groups of various ages are
statistically significant is far from being the most interesting
focus. More important is knowing how the strength of the
relationships among abilities evolves with age in low- and
high-IQ groups and revealing the possible existence of an age-
related variation of the size of correlation differences between
participants of low and high intelligence. For these reasons it
was decided, in the present study, to leave behind the logic of
“null hypothesis significant testing”. Instead, as often
suggested (Cohen 1994; Kline 2004; Nickerson, 2000;
Schmidt 1996; Schmidt & Hunter 1997; Wilkinson & the
APA Task Force on statistical inference, 1999), it was decided
to rely on confidence intervals of average correlation
coefficients computed for each Age × IQ group and on the
effect sizes of correlation differences between IQ groups
across age. In this manner, the present results could possibly be
used in meta-analyses devoted to the law of diminishing
returns.
One correlation coefficient was computed for each pair of
subtests for each of the eight Age × IQ groups. Thus, 528
 4
vs high-IQ adults? Intelligence (2007), doi:10.1016/j.intell.2007.11.004
Please cite this article as: Facon, B., How does the strength of the relationships between cognitive abilities evolve over the life span for low-IQ

Table 1
WAIS-III scale scores, IQs, effect sizes, Levene's tests of homogeneity of variance, and ratios of standard deviations for low- vs. high-IQ participants

16–24 years old participants (N = 263) 25–44 years old participants (N = 303) 45–69 years old participants (N = 268) 70–89 years old participants (N = 270)

Low-IQ High-IQ Effect Levene's Ratio Low-IQ High-IQ Effect Levene's Ratio Low-IQ High-IQ Effect Levene's Ratio Low-IQ High-IQ Effect Levene's Ratio

ARTICLE IN PRESS
(n = 131) (n = 132) size a test of (n = 161) (n = 142) size a test of (n = 149) (n = 119) size a test of (n = 140) (n = 130) size a test of
SDs SDs SDs SDs
Means Means F p Means Means F p Means Means F p Means Means F p

B. Facon / Intelligence xx (2007) xxx–xxx

(SD) (SD) (SD) (SD) (SD) (SD) (SD) (SD)

Vocabulary 8.1(2.2) 12.1(2.4) −1.70 1.19 .28 .93 8.3(2.5) 12.0(2.3) −1.53 1.29 .26 1.05 7.7(2.6) 12.5(2.2) −1.98 3.54 .06 1.20 8.0(2.5) 12.3(2.0) −1.92 7.06 .01 1.27
Similarities 8.6(2.5) 11.7(2.6) −1.21 .21 .64 .95 8.3(2.5) 11.7(2.5) −1.33 .61 .43 1.03 8.4(2.8) 12.0(2.5) −1.37 .65 .42 1.12 8.3(2.6) 12.0(2.4) −1.48 .42 .52 1.08
Arithmetic 8.7(2.8) 11.3(2.8) −.91 .09 .77 .99 8.8(2.7) 11.6(2.4) −1.10 2.07 .15 1.14 8.8(2.6) 11.6(2.7) −1.06 .01 .93 .98 8.4(2.7) 11.8(2.4) −1.32 3.74 .05 1.13
Digit span 9.1(2.8) 11(2.8) −.69 .05 .83 1.00 9.2(2.9) 10.8(2.8) −.56 .03 .86 1.04 9.2(3.0) 11.0(2.7) −.66 1.25 .26 1.11 9.0(2.7) 11.1(3.0) −.72 .83 .36 .92
Information 8.5(2.6) 11.5(2.8) −1.13 .52 .47 .94 8.6(2.9) 11.5(2.3) −1.12 5.59 .02 1.23 8.4(2.6) 12.1(2.2) −1.51 4.28 .04 1.15 8.3(2.4) 12.0(2.4) −1.51 .05 .82 .97
Comprehension 8.5(2.8) 11.5(2.6) −1.10 .81 .37 1.09 8.7(2.8) 11.5(2.6) −1.00 .40 .53 1.08 8.5(2.4) 12.1(2.4) −1.52 .20 .65 1.02 8.2(2.2) 12.0(2.4) −1.66 .79 .37 .91
Letter–number 8.9(2.7) 11.1(2.6) −.81 .36 .55 1.04 9.0(3.0) 11.2(2.7) −.75 .10 .75 1.08 9.1(2.9) 11.2(2.6) −.77 .19 .67 1.10 8.8(2.9) 11.3(2.6) −.91 1.16 .28 1.08
sequencing
Picture 8.9(2.8) 11.3(2.7) −.85 .15 .70 1.02 9.1(3.0) 10.7(2.7) −.56 3.57 .06 1.14 8.8(3.0) 11.4(2.5) −.91 1.68 .20 1.20 8.7(2.7) 11.4(2.5) −1.03 .69 .41 1.08
completion
Coding 9.7(2.8) 10.4(2.9) −.26 .38 .54 .97 9.3(3.5) 10.9(2.8) −.49 6.61 .01 1.27 9.1(2.8) 11.2(2.8) −.75 .02 .90 1.01 8.5(2.8) 11.6(2.5) −1.17 2.05 .15 1.13
Block design 7.9(2.4) 12.2(2.4) −1.79 .72 .40 .99 8.2(2.3) 12.3(2.5) −1.71 1.15 .29 .91 8.4(2.4) 12.1(2.4) −1.56 .61 .44 .98 8.1(2.3) 12.0(2.5) −1.65 .07 .80 .93
Matrix 8.9(2.9) 11.2(2.4) −.87 7.14 .01 1.25 8.8(2.8) 11.5(2.5) −1.03 .67 .41 1.10 8.5(2.6) 11.8(2.5) −1.27 .36 .55 1.05 8.7(2.8) 11.3(2.5) −.97 1.58 .21 1.10
reasoning
Picture 8.9(2.8) 11.1(2.7) −.81 .36 .55 1.07 8.9(2.8) 11.4(2.7) −.92 .12 .73 1.02 8.9(2.9) 11.4(2.7) −.91 .31 .58 1.07 8.7(2.8) 11.3(2.6) −.96 1.33 .25 1.08
arrangement
Symbol search 9.3(3.0) 10.6(2.8) −.42 .41 .52 1.08 9.0(2.9) 11.0(2.7) −.71 1.11 .29 1.08 9.1(2.8) 11.4(3.0) −.78 1.03 .31 .95 8.6(2.6) 11.7(2.9) −1.10 .43 .51 .92
Object 8.6(2.8) 11.6(2.7) −1.08 .02 .89 1.02 8.5(2.6) 11.7(2.6) −1.27 .08 .78 1.02 8.8(2.7) 11.5(2.8) −.98 .44 .51 .96 8.7(2.6) 11.4(2.8) −.96 1.02 .31 .93
assembly
Verbal IQ 90.8(11.5) 109.3(11.6) −1.60 .02 .89 .98 91.4(11.5) 109.1(10.3) −1.62 1.28 .26 1.11 90.5(11.7) 111.9(10.8) −1.90 1.30 .26 1.08 89.6(10.9) 111.6(11.3) −1.98 .54 .46 .97
Performance IQ 92.0(11.2) 108.3(11.0) −1.47 .10 .75 1.02 92.0(12.0) 109.3(11.9) −1.45 .02 .89 1.01 91.3(12.1) 110.9(12.1) −1.62 .05 .82 1.00 90.1(12.2) 110.5(12.1) −1.68 .05 .82 1.00
Full-scale IQ 90.6(10.5) 109.7(10.3) −1.84 .26 .61 1.02 90.9(10.9) 110.1(9.7) −1.86 1.94 .16 1.13 90.0(11.2) 112.7(10.4) −2.09 .57 .45 1.08 88.9(11.0) 112.3(11.2) −2.11 .42 .52 .97
a Mean difference/pooled SD.
 ARTICLE IN PRESS
B. Facon / Intelligence xx (2007) xxx–xxx
coefficients were estimated ([(12 × 11 subtests) / 2] × 2 IQ-
levels × 4 age groups). The 66 coefficients of each of the
eight groups were z-transformed, averaged, and 95% con-
fidence intervals around the means were calculated using the
Hays (1994) formula. Two statistical indicators were used to
estimate the effect size of correlation differences between IQ
groups for each age level (see Cohen, 1988, pp. 109–143).
First, the difference between the two mean z-transformed
correlations (low-IQ mean z minus high-IQ mean z). Second,
the difference between the two squared mean correlations
(low-IQ r2 minus high-IQ r2). As stated by Cohen (1988), the
first one gives an estimation “equally detectable” of the size of
the difference between two correlations, that is, an estimation
unaffected by the value (small, medium or large) of the two
compared correlations. The second effect size index indicates
the amount of “change” of proportion of explained variance.
With this index, “equal amounts of proportion of variance
change can be meaningfully understood as equal amounts of
change in amount of relationship, anywhere along the r scale”
(p. 114).
To facilitate comparisons with other studies on Spearman's
law (e.g., Abad et al., 2003), a principal component analysis
was conducted on the correlation matrix of the eight groups.
The goal was to obtain, for each subtest, the percentage of
variance explained by the first unrotated principal component
extracted from the matrix. To get comparative evidence, the
calculations were performed, first, by excluding the selection
subtests (Vocabulary, Block Design) from the analysis and,
second, by including them.
The mean reliability coefficients were computed using data
supplied by the manual of the French version of the WAIS-III
(Wechsler, 2000, p. 234). Because the reliabilities were highly
similar across groups (16–24 years = .81; 25–44 years = .81;
45–69 years = .84; 70–89 years = .85), no correction for age-
related unreliability of subtests was applied to the correlations.
Of course, to be sure that the results of the present study were
not affected by measurement errors, indications about the
reliability of the subtests within each ability group would have
been useful. These were not available, however. Nevertheless,
even given the reliability data, a definitive answer might not
have been obtained because internal reliability indices are
themselves possibly influenced by Spearman's law (Jensen,
2003).
Table 2
Mean correlation between subtests, and effect size of difference between mean correlations for low- vs. high-IQ participants in each age group
Age- Correlations between subtests
group
Low-IQ group High-IQ group
n Mean 95% confidence n Mean
interval
16–24 131 .279 .113–.430 132 .186
25–44 161 .295 .147–.430 142 .152
45–69 149 .324 .172–.461 119 .194
70–89 140 .365 .212–.501 130 .247
Please cite this article as: Facon, B., How does the strength of the relationships between cognitive abilities evolve over the life span for low-IQ
vs high-IQ adults? Intelligence (2007), doi:10.1016/j.intell.2007.11.004
5
Since the variability of measures influences the magnitude
of correlations, Levene's test was computed for each variable
between low- and high-IQ participants in each age group.
Also, to avoid relying only on these statistical tests to check the
homogeneity of subtest score dispersion, the ratio of standard
deviations of low- and high-IQ participants was computed at
the four age levels for each of the 12 subtests entered into the
analyses, as well as for the two selection subtests. These ratios
gave an indication of the importance of the differences of
subtest score variability between ability groups.
Finally, as the two subtests used to form the IQ groups
(Vocabulary and Block Design) are not perfectly correlated
with the other twelve WAIS-III subtests, a regression toward
the mean of the entire sample was anticipated for them.
Therefore, effect sizes were computed for all subtests and the
three IQ scales using Cohen's d index to estimate the overall
difference in intelligence between the IQ groups at the four age
levels.
2. Results
Means and standard deviations of low- and high-IQ
participants in each age group, effect sizes, Levene's tests of
homogeneity of variances, and ratios of standard deviations are
given in Table 1. Effect sizes indicate the sizes of the
differences between performances of low and high-IQ
subjects. For the two subtests employed to select the ability
groups, the mean effect sizes are comparable, standing at
−1.75, −1.62, − 1.77 and −1.79 for the four age groups,
respectively. That also applied to the other subtests of the
WAIS-III since the full-scale IQ effect sizes only increase
slightly with age (−1.84 [16–24 years], − 1.86 [25–44 years],
−2.09 [45–69 years], and − 2.11 [70–89 years]). Levene's
tests show, on the whole, that the score variances of low and
high-ability groups are homogenous. On the 68 Levene's tests,
only 6 are statistically significant (Table 1). Moreover, the
ratios of standard deviations are generally close to 1.0, thus
confirming the similarity of score dispersion in low- and high-
ability participants, whatever their age. For example, the
average ratio of SDs ([∑(low-IQ group's SD/high group's
SD)] / number of subtests) of the 12 subtest scores included in
the correlational analyses is equal to 1.03, 1.1, 1.06, and 1.03
in the four age groups, respectively.
Effect size
95% confidence Low-IQ z minus Low-IQ r2 minus
interval high-IQ z high-IQ r2
.016–.346 .099 .043
−.013–.309 .151 .064
.015–.361 .140 .067
.078–.402 .130 .072
 ARTICLE IN PRESS
6 B. Facon / Intelligence xx (2007) xxx–xxx

Table 3
Percentage of variance of each subtest explained by the first unrotated principal component extracted from the correlation matrix of the eight age × IQ
groups (excluding the selection subtests and, in parentheses, including them)
16–24 years old 25–44 years old 45–69 years old 70–89 years old
Low-IQ High-IQ Low-IQ High-IQ Low-IQ High-IQ Low-IQ High-IQ
Similarities 44.6 (47.1) 33.5 (40.6) 33.3 (34.6) 06.4 (09.6) 47.3 (48.9) 31.2 (38.6) 42.4 (42.5) 32.0 (34.6)
Arithmetic 48.7 (47.4) 48.1 (43.1) 46.4 (45.8) 15.8 (17.1) 45.3 (44.5) 44.4 (38.9) 59.4 (59.0) 50.6 (49.2)
Digit span 33.9 (30.6) 15.4 (14.4) 48.0 (44.2) 33.8 (32.5) 28.1 (26.9) 16.0 (9.90) 35.9 (35.4) 29.3 (26.1)
Information 40.8 (41.3) 40.3 (48.1) 30.8 (31.3) 06.7 (10.4) 52.0 (54.0) 34.0 (41.0) 45.1 (44.6) 36.7 (38.9)
Comprehension 47.4 (48.6) 24.5 (31.3) 39.8 (41.7) 01.9 (03.3) 50.0 (52.1) 24.4 (28.6) 34.2 (37.5) 27.1 (29.3)
Letter–number sequencing 47.3 (44.2) 25.4 (19.3) 42.2 (38.0) 44.7 (39.4) 32.8 (30.5) 17.4 (11.6) 44.2 (43.4) 18.6 (15.4)
Picture completion 33.5 (32.2) 26.2 (23.0) 21.8 (22.2) 16.1 (17.7) 36.0 (34.6) 26.2 (24.6) 36.5 (35.9) 19.3 (17.8)
Coding 04.7 (03.9) 09.3 (06.9) 20.3 (20.8) 37.7 (30.6) 29.4 (28.8) 20.5 (16.5) 54.2 (51.9) 36.9 (33.6)
Matrix reasoning 35.4 (34.4) 34.1 (31.2) 29.6 (32.3) 28.5 (27.4) 47.7 (46.5) 25.2 (25.0) 37.5 (36.0) 38.2 (39.4)
Picture arrangement 35.9 (36.0) 11.7 (11.4) 40.8 (39.0) 27.3 (27.8) 39.5 (38.7) 25.2 (24.9) 46.0 (45.0) 38.3 (36.7)
Symbol search 16.9 (16.9) 21.8 (16.5) 40.6 (38.5) 33.9 (29.4) 32.5 (30.6) 26.9 (21.6) 45.7 (43.8) 37.6 (37.9)
Object assembly 24.7 (25.6) 20.5 (15.8) 30.4 (30.1) 21.3 (21.7) 17.8 (16.9) 21.2 (23.4) 20.5 (21.8) 11.7 (11.8)
Mean 34.5 (34.0) 25.9 (25.1) 35.3 (34.9) 22.8 (22.2) 38.2 (37.8) 26.1 (25.4) 41.8 (41.4) 31.4 (30.9)

Table 2 shows that the mean correlations between subtests
are greater for low-IQ participants at all four age levels. It also
indicates that the strength of intersubtest relationships slightly
increases with age for low- and for high-IQ participants. But
this is at least partly due to the small increase of subtest
reliability with age. Finally, and more importantly, effect sizes
of correlation differences between low- and high-IQ groups do
not change with age, particularly for participants aged from 25
to 89 years. From this standpoint, it may be concluded that
Spearman's law of diminishing returns is corroborated by the
present results and that age does not seem to moderate the
effect of IQ on the differentiation of cognitive abilities during
adulthood, even in very old persons.
The percentages of variance of subtests explained by the
first unrotated principal component extracted from the
correlation matrices of the eight Age × IQ groups are given
in Table 3. As can be seen, the explained variances of low-IQ
participants are almost always greater than those of high-IQ
participants, either with or without selection subtests included
in the analyses. The difference is, on the average, on the order
of 11% of the variance, a value very close to the 12% obtained
by Abad et al. (2003) with the Spanish version of the WAIS-
III. Therefore, along with Abad et al. (2003), I conclude that
this finding strongly supports the IQ-related phenomenon of
differentiation of cognitive abilities. Moreover, it appears in
the present study that crystallized intelligence subtests are
more subject to differentiation, a fact which suggests,
according to Abad et al. (2003), that Spearman's law “could
be a by-product of the educational differences between the low
and high-IQ bands” (p. 163).

Fig. 1. Panel A: Correlations between subtests of the Wechsler scales in the present study and that of Facon (2006). Panel B: Data from Jensen (2003),
Table 1, p. 99.

Please cite this article as: Facon, B., How does the strength of the relationships between cognitive abilities evolve over the life span for low-IQ
vs high-IQ adults? Intelligence (2007), doi:10.1016/j.intell.2007.11.004
 ARTICLE IN PRESS
B. Facon / Intelligence xx (2007) xxx–xxx
3. Discussion
Considered on the whole, the present results as well
as those of Facon (2006) perhaps constitute the first two
pieces of the puzzle depicting the genesis and the
development of the phenomenon of diminishing returns
across the life span. More precisely, the effect of
intellectual efficiency on the strength of correlations
between cognitive abilities becomes apparent only at the
end of childhood (Facon, 2006), reaches its maximum at
the beginning of adult age, then, as suggested by the
present study, remains stable going into middle and old
age. It may of course be premature to propose a general
schema on the development of a psychological
phenomenon across the entire life span on the basis of
only two data sets concerning only two intelligence
scales. However, other results agree with the develop-
mental sketch proposed here. In a recent study by Jensen
(2003), a similar age trend was observed and, although
Jensen did not emphasize this developmental effect and
did not study it in its own right, his data appear to be
highly congruent with Facon's (2006) data and those of
the present study (see Fig. 1).
This study has several weaknesses. The numbers of
participants in the eight age × ability groups vary only
between 120 and 160. Greater numbers would have
yielded more stable estimates of correlations between
variables and would have permitted more sophisticated
statistical analyses. A more varied set of subtests would
also have been useful as coverage of a wider range of
cognitive abilities. A longitudinal, rather than cross-
sectional approach might also have been fruitful. From
this standpoint, the next results of the ongoing long-
itudinal study by Arden and Plomin (2007) will be
welcome. To summarize, these authors were not able to
find evidence of the effect of intellectual efficiency on
the differentiation of abilities among children aged 7, 9
and 10 years. However, they might demonstrate such an
effect during adolescence and adulthood in the sub-
sequent follow-ups of their cohort.
Finally, the method chosen to select participants of
low- and high-IQ may be questioned. The use of only
two subtests for constituting the groups poses several
potential problems detailed and analyzed by Hartmann
and Reuter (2006). Among other things, the normality of
distributions is not always optimum, the selection is
performed with only an approximate measure of g, and
the subtests used to select the groups must be excluded
from subsequent statistical analyses. Their total number
is, thus, necessarily smaller than it could be. These
problems led te Nijenhuis and Hartmann (2006) to
propose another approach consisting of comparing
Please cite this article as: Facon, B., How does the strength of the relationships between cognitive abilities evolve over the life span for low-IQ
vs high-IQ adults? Intelligence (2007), doi:10.1016/j.intell.2007.11.004
7
groups of participants who show a pre-existing (i. e.,
“naturally occurring”) difference in intellectual ability
level. However, since this approach is a new one, further
research will be necessary to confirm its interest, even
its superiority to the other methods, for studying the law
of diminishing returns.
The size of the differentiation effect noted in the
present study must not be minimized. It corresponds to
that generally reported in the literature on Spearman's
law. Indeed, a recent but not yet published meta-analysis
of nearly fifty data sets by Hartmann and Nyborg (2004)
suggests that the difference in subtest intercorrelations
between low- and high-IQ subjects (differing by
approximately 1.5 standard deviations) is generally
greater than 0.10 but seldom reaches 0.30, at least if one
considers the best-designed studies. Moreover, the
difference observed here between high- and low-IQ
participants is nearly equal to those of Abad et al. (2003)
and Reynolds and Keith (2007), and not much lower
than that reported by Jensen (2003). It must be
emphasized, however, that the subdivision of the entire
sample in only two IQ groups has probably contributed
to lowering the effect size. Indeed, as hypothesized by
several authors (e.g., Deary et al., 1996; Pagliari, 1998;
Stankov, 2002), the relationship between IQ and
correlations between tests or subtests could be well
and truly stronger at lower levels of mental abilities. For
that matter, the strongest indications of an IQ-related
differentiation have generally been obtained when
samples near the lower limit of normal variation are
included in the study (e.g., Detterman & Daniel, 1989).
From this standpoint, it would be interesting to
investigate the age-related development of the strength
of correlations between cognitive abilities by constitut-
ing four or five IQ-levels for each age range. In this way,
extreme-IQ groups would be better represented than in
the present study.
Additional studies will be necessary to clarify the
development of the strength of correlations between
cognitive abilities in low- and high-IQ individuals
across age. If the developmental sketch hypothesized
here were confirmed, it would be necessary to give it a
theoretical interpretation. In their current formulations,
it seems that most explanations of the law of diminish-
ing returns (e.g., Abad et al., 2003; Anderson, 1998;
Jensen, 1998) cannot integrate the age trend depicted in
the present data (for more details on these theoretical
analyses of Spearman's law, see Facon, 2004). Abad
et al. (2003), for example, cite schooling as the principal
cause of the differentiation of abilities. Following the
well-known literature review by Ceci (1991), they
consider the relationship between schooling and IQ as
 ARTICLE IN PRESS
8 B. Facon / Intelligence xx (2007) xxx–xxx
reciprocal. Indeed, if IQ is a good, though non-
exhaustive, predictor of scholastic achievement, school
activities themselves increase performance on IQ tests
through the acquisition of declarative and procedural
knowledge. In this way, schooling would contribute to
reducing the complexity of intelligence scale items and,
for that reason, their g-loading. As bright individuals
stay on longer at school and assimilate tuition more
quickly, their abilities would be, de facto, more
differentiated. However, even if, in the present study,
the differentiation effect seems to be more pronounced
for crystallized intelligence subtests (see, Table 3), the
“schooling” hypothesis doesn't appear to be able to
explain the increase of correlations between subtests
among individuals of low-IQ with increasing chron-
ological age, and their relative stability among those
with high-IQ (Fig. 1). Indeed, if schooling were the root
cause of the IQ-related differentiation, correlations
between subtests should decrease with chronological
age among children and adolescents with high-IQs
because the educational level increases with age and IQ.
Other interpretations must therefore be envisaged. In
this respect, perhaps Anderson's (2001) mutation theory
of g would be a good candidate. In this conception, the g
factor would have for substratum cortical functioning
which, itself, is viewed as partially determined by the
genotype of the individual. In concrete terms, the fact
that cognitive abilities have a shared genetic component
would explain the positive relations between test scores
and, thus, the g factor. In that context, the average level
of cognitive traits would be inversely proportional to the
frequency of minor deleterious genetic mutations, which
are more common than previously estimated (Crow,
1999; Eyre-Walker & Keightley, 1999). These mutations
would affect cortical functioning and, in turn, would
diminish trait levels (for a discussion on this point, see
Novartis Foundation Symposium, 2002, pp. 144–147).
Interestingly, these mutations would also increase
relationships between cognitive scores and, for this
reason, would explain the inverse relationship between
IQ and strength of correlations (see Anderson, 2001 for a
mathematical elaboration of this hypothesis). This
theoretical conception of the g factor and of the law of
diminishing returns is based on a certain number of
assumptions and simplifications and remains to be
confirmed. However, it supplies a simple interpretation
of Spearman's law which, in addition, could integrate the
developmental trend presented in Fig. 1. Indeed, if the
amount of variance of cognitive abilities explained by
the genotype really increases during childhood (Plomin,
2003; Plomin et al., 2001; Plomin & Petrill, 1997;
Plomin & Spinath, 2004), it is quite conceivable that the
Please cite this article as: Facon, B., How does the strength of the relationships between cognitive abilities evolve over the life span for low-IQ
vs high-IQ adults? Intelligence (2007), doi:10.1016/j.intell.2007.11.004
phenomenon of diminishing returns appears gradually
during the ascendant phase of development.
Another good candidate could be the theoretical
explanation developed by Detterman (1993, 1999,
2002), who attributes the inverse relationship to a
deficit of one or more central cognitive processes. This
explanation derives from his “system” theory of general
intelligence in which, schematically, the cognitive
processes are considered to be independent but
integrated into an information-processing system
where they constantly interact. Some of these processes
are said to be “central”. They have a large spectrum of
influence and, thus, affect the functioning of the entire
system. Therefore, and unlike the peripheral processes,
their impairment limits the efficiency of the whole
system. It is for this reason that abilities are better
correlated among persons with low-IQ. They have
inefficient central processes, which limits the global
level of functioning of their information-processing
system and thus gives the individual rather similar
scores across the different cognitive tasks. Indeed, the
contribution of the peripheral processes to the variance
of intellectual performance is diminished because their
efficiency is itself largely limited by the central deficits.
Conversely, since the central processes of persons with
high-IQ are intact and their efficiency probably situated
above the requisite minimum threshold in numerous
cognitive tasks, individual differences come principally
from peripheral processes. Thus, performance in ability
tests is more variable and less correlated among high-IQ
participants. In this theoretical perspective, one may
suppose that one or more of these central processes–for
example those related to executive control–develop
with age and hold a growing role in the cognitive
functioning of the individual. The cognitive abilities of
low-IQ subjects should therefore become more corre-
lated because they depend on sources of variation
whose importance increases in the course of child
development.
Beyond the law of diminishing returns, one needs to
consider, in the present study, the pattern of change of
correlations across age. Fig. 1 shows that the strength of
relationships between cognitive abilities clearly
increases with age among participants of low-IQ,
whereas it remains almost stable among those with
high-IQ. This developmental trend is in direct contra-
diction with the age-differentiation hypothesis which
states that the g saturation of intelligence markers
decreases from childhood to maturity (Garrett, 1946).
This hypothesis gave rise to numerous studies which
have led to very contradictory results. In their recent
meta-analysis of more than 80 studies designed to test
 ARTICLE IN PRESS
B. Facon / Intelligence xx (2007) xxx–xxx
this hypothesis, Hartmann and Nyborg (2004, p. 78)
noted only “a non-significant tendency towards a U-
curvilinear relationship between g saturation and age,
with the minimum g saturation from ages 18–34.” In
fact, it appeared that “although about 50% of the studies
support U-curvilinear relationship in some way or the
other, approximately the same amount of studies
directly contradict this either by finding no relationship
or the exact opposite of what the U-curvilinear
relationship–hypothesis would predict.” Given these
results, it is impossible to conclude that cognitive
abilities differentiate with age, since recent and well-
designed studies (e.g., Bickley, Keith, & Wolfle, 1995;
Escorial, Juan-Espinosa, García, Rebollo, & Colom,
2002; Juan-Espinosa et al., 2000, 2002; Keith, 1997)
show that the factorial structure of major intelligence
scales (e.g., WISC-III, Woodcock-Johnson, WAIS-III,
etc.) is fairly invariant across age groups. These
contradictory results might be the consequence of the
lack of control of some influential variables, notably the
intellectual efficiency of participants. Indeed, the latter
is neglected in almost all studies conducted on the age-
differentiation hypothesis. Yet, if, in different studies,
the rate of participants of low- or high-IQ increases or
decreases with age, there may ensue patterns of
contradictory results inherent to the effect of intellectual
efficiency on the degree of differentiation of abilities.
Therefore, rather than deplore the inconsistencies of the
literature, what is needed is to undertake others
researches including more potentially influential vari-
ables than only the age of participants.
Finally, this study indicates that the IQ-related
phenomenon of differentiation is still observable
among adults aged from 70 to 89 years, an age range
for which data on Spearman's law are very scarce and
not always coherent. For instance, a recent longitudinal
study with very old adults by Anstey et al. (2003) gives
only weak support to this law in that the inverse
relationship does not appear consistently across the
different waves of data collection. From this standpoint,
and even if more data in this connection are obviously
necessary, the present study provides, for the elderly,
results that are congruent with those of young and
middle aged adults.
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