Common genetic influences on intelligence and auditory simple reaction time in a large Swedish sample

- Intelligence is correlated with chronometric performance measures.
- Simple auditory reaction time (SART) and Wiener Matrizen Test were correlated − 0.18.
- Heritabilities were 0.54 and 0.21 for IQ and RT for 1,816 twin pairs.
- 47 percent of the phenotypic correlation was explained by common genetic variance.
- Results are consistent with those found for visual reaction time.

Intelligence and cognitive ability have long been associated with chronometric performance measures, such as reaction time (RT), but few studies have investigated auditory RT in this context. The nature of this relationship is important for understanding the etiology and structure of intelligence. Here, we present a bivariate twin analysis of simple auditory RT and psychometric intelligence (measured by the Wiener Matrizen Test). The sample consisted of 1,816 complete twin pairs and 4623 singletons enrolled in the Swedish Twin Registry, who performed the tests online. The heritabilities were 0.54 and 0.21 for intelligence and RT, respectively, and the phenotypic correlation was −0.17, 47% of which was explained by common genetic variance. These results are comparable to those found for visual RT and for other cognitive tests, and add RT in the auditory modality to the small literature on common genetic influences across intelligence and other cognitive and chronometric variables.