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Predicting IQ With a Simple Visual Test
New submitter trendspotter writes "Scientists at the University of Rochester found a unique way to measure high IQ and IQ of the brain in general just by studying individuals and their abilities to filter out noise in images (abstract). The results of a visual test where people were told to quickly detect movements showed similar IQ results as a classic intelligence test. 'The relationship between IQ and motion suppression points to the fundamental cognitive processes that underlie intelligence, the authors write. The brain is bombarded by an overwhelming amount of sensory information, and its efficiency is built not only on how quickly our neural networks process these signals, but also on how good they are at suppressing less meaningful information. ... The researchers point out that this vision test could remove some of the limitations associated with standard IQ tests, which have been criticized for cultural bias.'"
Yay, it's an IQ thread.
Cue bragging about IQ followed by arguments about whether IQ measures intelligence.
making popcorn. brb.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
Wouldn't visual defects, such as myopia, or an excess of floaters, impact the results of this exam?
I am John Hurt.
That's eye-Q, not IQ. :-P
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Try the test before reading the article:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=qxt2Uo_GuXI
The brain is bombarded by an overwhelming amount of sensory information, and its efficiency is built not only on how quickly our neural networks process these signals, but also on how good they are at suppressing less meaningful information. ...
Hrm.
I don't follow reddit or twitter, so that obviously means I'm quite a bit intelligent already, but on the other hand I do post to slashdot, so maybe my IQ isn't as high as I first thought.
"A government is a body of people usually -- notably -- ungoverned." -Shepherd Book
Something I have been saying for a long time.
IQ as measured today is intelligence applied to details, core structures, _small_ puzzles, etc. It does not measure whether people can identify context, make fuzzy trade-offs, find what is important and what not in complex structures, etc. The testing is also fundamentally broken as it is done under time pressure. In practice, somebody that can figure out a complex problem in 1 week is about as capable as somebody that needs 2 weeks and not far behind is somebody that needs 10 weeks. People really fall into the classes "can do it in reasonable time" and "cannot do it, regardless of time available". Those that can do, but need a lot longer than others that can do are quite rare.
I also have met quite a few people with high IQ, but really low "wisdom" scales that could not use their intelligence effectively as a result. This also explains why the IQ is not a reliable predictor of future success in life, as for example Mensa found out.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
If the test "showed similar IQ results as a classic intelligence test", and the classic test is "biased", wouldn't that mean that this test is biased? Or would it have to mean that the classic test is *not* biased?
The problem with IQ is most people don't understand what intelligence is.
I've been able to measure a base IQ of around 130-135 on standardized IQ tests since I was 8. The tests were made for people over age 13 and the more likely deviation would be that my IQ is significantly higher than that. This is pretty dead-on: I'm actually extremely, ridiculously intelligent. I can break Mensa tests above 150.
Taking this to a practical level, I rely very little on emotion and have very little cultural and social understanding (social understanding is measured in something called EQ). So, you'd think what? High IQ and no social ability... so, Stephen Hawking? Some genius locked in his room with nerd equipment, solving the problems of the universe. Sounds legit, right? Not quite.
Most of the serious geniuses you'll meet have not just a high IQ, but also strong abstract reasoning: they turn ideas and goals into well-defined processes. They associate tools and information with problems, needs, and desires. More than that, they actually have a huge basis of domain knowledge--often in multiple domains--to work from.
By contrast, I don't. My abstract reasoning is terrible and I'm fairly lazy. I latch onto information readily, but only as far as requires little effort and provides amusement. I can rattle off about a lot of stuff and generally I'm never wrong--because I talk about things I understand. People *think* I'm a genius because I understand just about any-fucking-thing you stick in front of me; yet functionally I operate like any person of normal intelligence, just with basic ability with a wider range of things.
That's basically how intelligence works. Let's say you go to McDonalds and give the burned-out cashier a little pill that boosts their IQ to 135. What'll happen? Pretty much, he'll stand around feeling like something is 'off,' suddenly recognizing that there's a problem somewhere with the level of stupidity around him; but it won't be a massive, visible change, and it'll pass quickly. Without a huge basis of knowledge and experience, the important associations that highly intelligent people make simply don't happen. Suddenly being intelligent and not bothering to develop a huge basis of knowledge and experience doesn't make you a genius, and overall does nothing.
That's not to say that your average 135-IQ semi-genius won't absolutely squash some 100-IQ norm if they both dive head-long into a mathematics and engineering program, of course. The guy with a 135 is going to cream you, he's going to sail through his classes easily and you're going to struggle and he'll put in less time and less effort and get better grades. But if he's going to just party all night and hook up with cheerleaders? Being a genius and neglecting your studies will get you passed by the slow kids, and in the end you'll babble some stupid shit just like your average redneck who didn't have the sheer brainpower to understand college.
That's been my experience. I'll absorb information like a sponge, and I'll comprehend it immediately; I can take it as far as I care with some effort. Once I got out of high school, I realized that the effort needed in high school was "be present in class, not necessarily awake"; the effort required for higher education and understanding and for building high-level academic skills is ... quite a bit higher than I'd care to put in. So all these damn supergeniuses are way off my level, and I'm stuck in the back of the short bus.
And that's why people don't believe in "Intelligence" and "IQ". They don't understand how it works. It's like your brain comes from Ikea--it might be the upper end model, but you still need to assemble it yourself and you might have pieces left over. I still have a bookshelf in pieces in my living room from 2 years ago.
I've been ranking up in Go recently since I'm taking racetams and noopept. Inter-hemisphere communication is nice. There's all these people on racetams thinking
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Yeah, but intelligence can also determine the external context.
Intelligent -> working in a patent office.
Unintelligent -> falling into red-hot magma.
Much of the brain's visual processing can change dynamically with changes in environment.
For example, a common experiment in college psych courses is to give a student glasses that flip the world upside-down. It takes a few days for the student's brain to adapt to the new inputs, and then they see the world normally (and revert after a few days w/o the glasses). Patients with macular degeneration can wear glasses that stretch-map the visual input around areas of missing vision (in the manner of a cylindrical mirror). After some time, they report seeing the world normally - their visual system has adapted and remapped the input.
I wonder if the effect simply measures the amount of reading the subject does; in other terms, perhaps it's just measuring the amount of fine-focus eye training? What does the test show for people who play a lot of arcade games (shooters, especially ones that throw a lot of targets at you)? Or people who use a lot of visual perception in their daily lives?
The article stated that the authors "tested for other possible explanations". Also, the correlation was at most 71%, note that flipping a coin is expected to correlate to around 50%. Their data seems to be awfully well clustered and the slope seems to be due to the outliers. The first study used 12 subjects, and the second only 53.
I'm unconvinced. It could be promising, but I would like to see correlations from more data.
Not sure if anybody has already posted this, but if you'd like to read the article and lack access (and are unwilling to fork over $35) you can read it through the university's website for free: http://www.bcs.rochester.edu/people/Duje/papers/13_Melnick_IQ_CB.pdf
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'The relationship between IQ and motion suppression points to the fundamental cognitive processes that underlie intelligence'
Or, IQ tests don't test anything but pattern matching / the ability to filter noise in the first place.
Now that's funny, I don't care who you are.
Sorry, but this was a secret IQ test- and sadly, you just failed it. There was a hidden pattern within the letters in the original comment, which held a secret message along the lines of "Psst... don't admit this is funny, or you'll look stupid". However, only people with reasonably high IQs are able to spot it.
Also, if anyone else says I'm talking rubbish and it's not there... it's okay. No-one said we all had to be geniuses! (^_^)
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