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Cognitive Software Identifies America's Brainiest Cities
Hugh Pickens writes "We are often told that the smartest cities and nations do the best and economists typically measure smart cities by education level, calculating the cities or metros with the largest percentage of college grads or the largest shares of adults with advanced degrees. Now Richard Florida writes that a new metric developed by Lumos Labs based on their cognitive training and tracking software Lumosity seeks to track "brain performance" or cognitive capacity of cities in a more direct way by measuring the cognitive performance of more than one million users in the United States who use their games against their location using IP geolocation software. Lumosity's website offers forty games designed to sharpen a wide range of cognitive skills. Individual scores were recorded in five key cognitive areas: memory, processing speed, flexibility, attention, and problem solving.The data was normalized into a basic brain performance index controlling for age and gender. The results are shown on a map from Zara Matheson of the Martin Prosperity Institute that shows the brainy metro index across US metro areas with the top five brainy clusters in Charlottesville Virginia, Lafayette Indiana, Anchorage Alaska, Madison Wisconsin, and the San Francisco-Oakland-San Jose area. The result is not driven principally by college students, according to Daniel Sternberg, the Lumosity data scientist who developed the metro brain performance measure. 'Since our analysis controlled for age, the reason they score well is not simply that they have a lot of young people,' says Sternberg. 'Instead, our analysis seems to show that users living in university communities tend to perform better than users of the same age in other locations.'"
'Since our analysis controlled for age, the reason they score well is not simply that they have a lot of young people,' says Sternberg. 'Instead, our analysis seems to show that users living in university communities tend to perform better than users of the same age in other locations.'"
Since the groups were self selected, ie. they decided to participate, maybe people living in college towns have more time or are more interested in playing.
What does cognitive mean?
Even controlling for age, college towns and research institutions also have a lot of older, well-educated folks hanging around, living and working in the community. My husband finished his PhD at the local Research I, but liked the town so much he accepted a job at a smaller state university one town over so we could continue to live in our old college town. Big biotech companies are always around the big research institutes as well; they don't call it Research Triangle up in NC for nothing.
Occasionally living proof of the Ballmer peak.
And all of this based on the false assumption that Lumosity's pseudoscience click-on-the-shiny-colors games are any good at measuring "brain performance".
I love the fact that there is just one yellow area on the whole map. Care to guess where it's at?
--- If the bible proves the existence of God, then Superman comics prove the existence of Superman.
Now I have to check lumosity for a space based RTS!
"Charlottesville VA, Lafayette IN, Anchorage AK, Madison WI, and the San Francisco-Oakland-San Jose"??? Yes maybe SF/Oakland but not Charlottesville which is redneck territory. Or Anchorage.
The place with the highest concentration of iPhones and iPads is located between Baltimore and D.C. That's where I would expect to find the most intelligent people. Also Silicon Valley CA and Seattle WA.
My AC stalker: " I personally agree with your posts most of the time, but that won't keep me from modding you troll"
just like in europe. why do smart people always decide to live in the cold north?
One of my favorite books and highly recommended:
How to Lie with Maps
http://www.amazon.com/How-Lie-Maps-2nd-Edition/dp/0226534219
Cognitive Software Identifies America's Most Communist Cities
-- American Christians of Patriotism Association
users living in university communities tend to perform better than users of the same age in other locations.
Ok, that makes sense. You know, COLLEGE.
The result is not driven principally by college students,
Uh...... wut?
'Since our analysis controlled for age, the reason they score well is not simply that they have a lot of young people,'
uh huh. So they discovered that smart people go to college?
I'm sorry, could someone explain to me how they come to the conclusion that their results aren't driven by college students?
"Controlled for age" doesn't mean much to me, but sure, ok, it takes into account the age discrepancy. But... you know, it doesn't take into account that THEY'RE GOING INTO HIGHER EDUCATION. I really don't see how this isn't driven by college students.
Wait, you're telling me that a study designed to measure "braininess" using Internet games shows that affluent areas with readily available broadband fare better than those that don't? What a brilliant insight!
Seriously though, researchers (of all types) need to revisit entry level statistics where "sample bias" and related basic concepts are introduced. Show me a study like this that overlays availability of Internet services, population density, and median salary, instead of one that only compensates for gender and age. Then we can all be impressed by the cognitive abilities of the researchers.
the Southern US has been a political and intellectual dead weight drag on this country since its founding
When was the Southern US "founded" anyway? Seems like many of those states were in the original 13.
If people are playing these games at work then the geolocation might be where the company's datacenter is, not where the people are.
Think globally but act within local variable scope.
Reality. Any time a person combines three separate communities together has no idea of the reality they are describing.
The sentence implies that the South has been a drag on the US since the US was founded, not since the "South" was founded. Aside from a few isolated bright spots in history, this is pretty much true.
Occasionally living proof of the Ballmer peak.
I think the bigots already are down there. They just got confused on which direction was north.
Two of my imaginary friends reproduced once
I have always been partial to Madison, and one of the nick-names that I heard while living there could explain its presence on the list (assuming that the measurements are valid): it is sometimes called "the womb". The idea is that students, especially grad students, at the University of Wisconsin (Madison) get so used to the environement around the university there (it is a really nice place to live if you are not in the nightlife crowd) that they just hang around after graduation, even working at jobs that you would not think a grad student normally would do. I swear that half of the taxi drivers in Madison seem to have taken the "African Storytelling"[1] grad course at the UW.
Now living in silicon valley I can tell you it is not the same thing that keeps people in this side of that metro area, but that could apply to the San Francisco side. Maybe even the northern side of silicon valey (near Stanford).
[1] I am actually serious about that course, it is really highly rated and not because it is easy but because the prfessor who teaches it is amazing (I have heard).
Too lazy to create a troll account?
"since its founding" = "since the US's founding". He's saying the South has been a drag on the whole since then. Not that difficult to parse, dude.
There seems to be a larger concentration around Cedar Rapids IA, than the concentration in Indiana. How is that explained, or is it?
By-the-by, Cedar Rapids is the home of the University of Iowa, which sort of falls into a lot of the other comments posted so far.
So you're... tracking physical location by IP address on a network with so many dynamically allocated IPs, that may wildly vary in how large an area they represent (like this one is anywhere in the neighborhood, this one is anywhere in the city, this one is anywhere in the state, etc), or even if they represent individual users, households, businesses, campuses, agencies, or companies (which may actually be scattered across the entire nation in reality, but all show the same public IP address). And using all that to try to figure out where the smart people are?
How is that accurate at all?
Before anyone gets to too proud or offended, notice that the whole scale only ranges from 98 to 102. That's not much of a difference, is it? Even if we ignore all the problems with method, the results point to a surprising degree of uniformity, don't they?
Prov 9:8 Do not rebuke mockers or they will hate you; rebuke the wise and they will love you.
Conceit is the demise of self-ascribed "progressives"
I'm looking at a map missing blobs for places I know to contain concentrations of highly educated populations in the south. I'm also looking at some blobs that, given local information you would expect to break the curve on the low end, doing relatively well. I'd be interested to know how the blobs were chosen, what the empty spots mean, and a filled map.
The mere fact that these lab rats are allowing themselves to be continuously geolocated doesn't say much about their brains. I suspect the smarter people are busy working in the lab and don't need games to improve their "brain performance."
Floating in the black seas of infinity without a paddle.
The colors are different but it looks just like the red/blue political maps they show during elections
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"We are just a war away from Amerikastan. When god vs god the undoing of man." Dave Mustaine
I call shenanigans.
If the Southern US is such a deadweight why are/have so many technology-based companies moving their IT operations out of northeastern cities like Boston to Southern cities like Raleigh, Atlanta and others. There are plenty of idiots (like you) living in both the North and the South -- many insecure Northerners just happen to pull the Deliverance card and say it represents the entire South whenever they feel a need to make themselves feel superior. Hope your rant made you feel better about yourself even though it exposes your narrow-mindedness and lack of exposure to the world outside of the tiny head you live in.
FYI, the Birmingham blob contains quite a lot of rural area. The Opelika/Auburn, Tuscaloosa, and Huntsville areas are entirely unrepresented. In the 2000 census, Opelika ranked #32 in the country for percentage of local population with graduate degrees, Huntsville ranked #66, Tuscaloosa #79. It also appears as if the Mobile area is only partially represented. If you cut out those areas, then Alabama does indeed look incredibly dumb.
Whether certain activities are smart or dumb is a cultural and personal matter. Plus the self-selecting nature of the survey is likely very biased.
In my mind, playing video or on-line games is not smart--not a wise use of one's time. But cultural differences will probably attract more-capable minds in some geographic areas. That doesn't mean the population on the whole for these areas is more intelligent. It might simply mean the culture for these areas is one of waste and sloth, with more intelligent individuals "buying into" the regressive ideas.
That's my opinion.
Looks like a map of red/blue states. Just sayin'.
My area is completely white. That means I'm off the chart, right guys? Guys?
I guess the next thing to figure out is which way off the chart I am...
We be smarterest!
Can we build a wall?
Yes. But we're going to have to hire Mexicans to do it.
Have gnu, will travel.
If not for all the "dumb" people, most of the "smart" people would be standing in their own shit because they couldn't fix the plumbing and would be scratching for nuts and berries in the fields because they have no clue how to raise and harvest crops or raise and slaughter livestock, let alone hunt for food. They'd be walking because they have no ability to work on their vehicles, or run a refinery, or operate a drilling rig. And even if they did, they probably can't weld for shit...all jobs that are done by people that most here on Slashdot would not consider to be "smart".
So the next time you think to yourself how smart you are, consider all the essentials of civilization that rely on the "dumb" people to make happen and what situation you would be in if not for them.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
Joliet Illinois would never be on this list. The demographic indicator I use is the ( tooth / tattoo ) ratio. Normally Joliet has an embarrassingly low value, except where there is a NASCAR race in town. Then, the ( tooth / tattoo ) ratio slides down into the extreme low single digits.
* Carthago Delenda Est *
How is the scoring done? A 6 point spread between least and most intelligent doesn't seem all that interesting to me....
LOL at assumption being religious = dumb
"our analysis seems to show that users living in university communities tend to perform better than users of the same age in other locations.'"
I'll bet that effect will vanish in the future. People used to gravitate to the university towns for resources that are now available no matter where you live. We live way the heck out in the countryside and can get the same intellectual resources via the Internet that we used to have to go to the university towns to get.
Their study is a cool idea, but it looks to me like they made a hash of it. It's simply a way of locating college towns.
How did the southern half of New Mexico/Arizona get designated a single area? That segment appears to contain Phoenix. OK, I can see 500 people there playing games, but how did they expand the metro area to include half of New Mexico? I wonder if it's just the IP space of a single ISP.
BTW, that yellow area in Georgia is probably Fort Benning - an area filled with people who have free time which may be filled with interruptions.
just look at the map linked in the story above
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
So, Madison WI scored well? Makes me wonder if the parametric statistics used in the analysis are actually reasonable to apply in this case.
"...users living in university communities tend to perform better than users of the same age in other locations....."
That explains why Boston isn't on the list. It's not much of a college town.
If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine
None of you have anything on Bloomington, Indiana, where we literally have 22 large brains on display around the city:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-IAb0ZaI-a0
When was the Southern US "founded" anyway? Seems like many of those states were in the original 13.
Really only 3 or 4 were in the group of original colonies. Georgia, South Carolina, and North Carolina are definitely considered southern. Virginia is usually considered to be part of the southern U.S., but it isn't quite the "deep south" that most people associate with being in the southern U.S. I don't think anyone considers Maryland and Delaware part of the southern U.S.
404
I live in ANchojrage. I feelt that IU am mnuch samarter now that this artckle has been writed,.
that buys fewest subscriptions to Lumos Lab's viral Nostrum & Snake Oil Remedy for Feeble Cognition.
Considering that Alaska voted for Sarah Palin, I very much question the quality of their methodology.
I'm not so sure about Anchorage after seeing this:
http://maps.google.com/?ll=61.158976,-149.857418&spn=0.000873,0.00284&t=h&z=19
I agree. Let's build a wall to keep the Yankees out. You can keep your welfare states and your industrialized shitholes with all your rules and regulations and red tape; we'll keep on farm, fishing, enjoying God's country, and just generally being simple folk, without assholes from other parts of the country moving in to tell us how we should run the place.
I'm also missing blobs up in the north that I happen to know are full of ignorant shits. This map is a fucking joke. Nothing more than a way for assholes from "anywhere other than the South" to assert their superiority over "Southerners."
I think they're just pissed because this good ole boy from Alabama is up in Michigan fucking all their "smart" women.
Yeah, and notice how they cut out large swaths of rural Michigan too? Alabama and Michigan are the only two states I really scrutized before tossing this map aside as the garbage as it is, since those are the ones I'm most familiar with.
My hometown... says it ALL!
* :)
(It's the polluted water from Onondaga Lake, which I can literally SEE from where I live in my home on a small mountain here (highest point in my city, part of WHY I wanted the place - great view)... that body of water's one of the MOST polluted in the nation - it's our "secret"!)
APK
P.S.=> "Let the flames begin", trolls... but, all I can say in regards to said flames is "don't argue with me, argue with the source article & folks who ran the tests"...apk
Like 99% of the population the other 1% being the ragheads paki's and indian's who arrived recently.
What I find interesting (never mind the theories of interpretation) is that there is a definite and highly visible North-South gradient in the data.
What does that mean?