Your Visual Skills Are Not Correlated To Your IQ (vanderbilt.edu)

Science_afficionado writes: Psychologists at Vanderbilt University have conducted the first study of individual variation in visual ability. They have discovered that there is a broad range of differences in people's capability for recognizing and remembering novel objects and this ability is not associated with individuals' general intelligence, or IQ.
Or, as the article puts it, "Just because someone is smart and well-motivated doesn't mean he or she can learn the visual skills needed to excel at tasks like matching fingerprints, interpreting medical X-rays, keeping track of aircraft on radar displays or forensic face matching."

Comments

Were the psychologists under 30?

[Anonymous Coward]

This is not new information. Millennials should be banned from science until they are at least 45. They 'discover' the already discovered with alarming regularity, and for some reason feel compelled to publish their 'findings'. Newsflash: science is not instagram. It'd be a freaking miracle if they read an old book or paper (formerly known as 'research') instead of conducting their endless science fair projects. Newsflash #2: refusing to acknowledge the work of others is not the same thing as independence, especially not independence of *thought*. If anything, it is the sheep mentality exemplified, and more important still, it doesn't work. Management, please reimburse the ten minutes I spent on this. Thank you.

Re:Were the psychologists under 30?

[ShanghaiBill]

refusing to acknowledge the work of others is not the same thing as independence, especially not independence of *thought*.

Yet your post is contains unsupported assertions, no citations, and you acknowledge the work of nobody.

Re:IQ is not related to anything relevant

[grasshoppa]

Is that what you took away from that?

Interesting, and a bit ironic given the subject matter.

Not mutually exclusive

[rmdingler]

The most important thing to remember is that IQ tests are neither meaningless nor harbingers of all types of intelligence.

There are several 'recognized' intelligences, and arguably many more.

words (linguistic intelligence), numbers or logic (logical-mathematical intelligence), pictures (spatial intelligence), music (musical intelligence), self-reflection (intrapersonal intelligence), physical experience (bodily-kinesthetic intelligence), and social experience (interpersonal intelligence).

Re:Not mutually exclusive

[DNS-and-BIND]

The only reason we say this is that intelligence tests show that all the wrong kinds of people are intelligent. Thus the resort to "storytelling intelligence" and other nonsense. Intelligence is correlated with every kind of positive life outcome, while lack of intelligence is correlated with every kind of negative outcome. This unacceptable political outcome is why scientists say "heritability stops at the neck" bowing to the extreme social punishments for anyone who dares speak out.

Re: Not mutually exclusive

[sound vision]

You're assuming there is some singular RPGesque attribute called Intelligence which governs every decision a person makes. Physically, that would manifest itself as something like more robust connections between brain neurons... I just pulled that out of my ass, but if there's a better explanation for the mechanism that governs singular intelligence, I'd love to hear it.

The other view is that "intelligence" refers to aptitude for a particular task. To me, that model more accurately describes what we see. You see people who pass calculus with honors, but they can't determine what to say to potential dates. You see people who can balance the books of their company, but they fail to grasp the basic principles (rules and physics) of driving. You see people who can design and build houses, but they can't give you a geopolitical analysis of the wars in Afghanistan. Even when all these people have access to the same information.

There is no doubt that a person's DNA can affect their aptitudes for these various tasks. But when you say there is some singular variable that raises or lowers all these aptitudes simultaneously, that seems like a coarse simplification. Ignoring the nuances does a disservice to your understanding.

Duh!

[nospam007]

"Just because someone is smart and well-motivated doesn't mean he or she can learn the visual skills needed to excel at tasks like matching fingerprints, interpreting medical X-rays, keeping track of aircraft on radar displays or forensic face matching."

In other news:

Just because someone is smart and well-motivated doesn't mean he or she can learn to run fast.
Just because someone is smart and well-motivated doesn't mean he or she can learn to shoot accurately.
Just because someone is smart and well-motivated doesn't mean he or she can learn to paint.
Just because someone is smart and well-motivated doesn't mean he or she can learn to play a music instrument.
---

Seems Like They Need An English Teacher

[JimSadler]

A developed, specific skill is not the same as general skills. Duh ! That is about like saying that a person who is a musical genius might not do well with foreign languages. There are all kinds of abilities and as the savants demonstrate one can be a super genius in one area and unable to walk to the corner store and return home without being totally lost. There are also some really challenging tests with the colored blocks that psychologists have used for decades. Being able to remember the colors and geometries of all six sides of a cubs and solve a complex puzzle quickly can be more strenuous than many test subjects can tolerate.

Re: Nothing is related to anything relevant

[ShanghaiBill]

So what are you claiming it actually measures?

Within 20 points of the mean (80 to 120), IQ scores are strongly correlated with income and financial success. Outside that range, the correlation breaks down. If you have an IQ of 140, you are unlikely to earn much more than someone with an IQ of 120. Likewise, someone with an IQ of 60 won't earn much less than someone with an IQ of 80.

IQ is strongly and negatively correlated with incarceration. People in prison tend to be dumb. This could mean that dumb people commit more crimes, or that they are more likely to get caught and be convicted. Mostly likely it is a bit of both.

IQ is not correlated with happiness.