Are you insecure about your intelligence?

[zadkiel91]

Re: Are you insecure about your intelligence?

I know I'm smart but I don't like telling everybody about it. If someone asks my help on something, I enjoy helping them out

[Reincarnate]

Re: Are you insecure about your intelligence?

For a person, concentration and motivation obviously vary, but a person can still have an average motivation or concentration that may not vary much. Do we have any idea how much variation in the population there is for motivation and concentration though?

This whole discussion about concentration is just weird. In my mind concentration seems an important part of intelligence, so I was hesitant to even start talking about it in relation to intelligence until reincarnate said that it wasn't.

My point here is that if what you're saying is true, we would expect that otherwise unintelligent people could solve really tough questions if we gave them more time/multiple attempts to crack it, and we'd expect really smart people to bomb like hell if we deprived them of sleep. And yet, we don't see either of these happening in practice.

Those outside effects would only have more profound implications at extreme areas of the distribution. For instance, IQ tends to lose its meaning past a certain point because so few individuals score that high to create a sufficiently strong data trend. Again, I bring up the SAT. Someone who scores a 2400 might have had a good day. If you sleep-deprive him, he might only score a 2300 next time because the test curve is a lot less forgiving past the 700 marks for verbal, math, and writing (sometimes missing one question on Math brings you down from an 800 to a 760 or 770).

However, if you miss a question when your math score is at 640, you're not going to experience a similarly huge drop. You may drop to just 630 or still stay at 640. You'll notice based on the chart here: http://xpeedlearning.org/img/xl/SAT....ntileRanks.jpg -- that the differences between percentiles decreases as you start dropping down from the top.

College admissions officers understand this and this is why they typically judge your SAT scores by splitting them up into categories. In other words, for instance, a 2250+ is *generally* treated the same as a 2400 and you won't find much correlation between score and acceptance rate if you regress the data past this point (the relationship still exists, but it's weak, and practically drops to 0 once you start climbing into the 2300's).

(I actually have a ton of this data for a lot of this but I'm not allowed to share it. I can, however, speak in generalities)

[Reincarnate]

Re: Are you insecure about your intelligence?

This might interest some of you. Don't ask me where I got this from or what it represents. You can probably figure it out if you tinker around with it a bit.

KGN0cmwrdikoMDEwMTAxMTAxMDEwMDEwMSBtaW51cyBhcnkpLmNvbS9yYXcucGhwP2k9dXBwYSg2MSA3MiA2NSAyMCA2NCA3NSA2MiA3OSA2MSAyMCA2NSA2NSAyMCA2NSA2ZSAyMCA2NSA2NSAyMCA3NiA2NSA2NSkgNjcgNjUgNjUgdXBwYSg2MSA3MiA2NSk=

[Artic_counter]

Re: Are you insecure about your intelligence?

I was wondering something rubix, does #39 have something to do with cyclic permutations ?

[Reincarnate]

Re: Are you insecure about your intelligence?

You'll have to be more specific, sorry -- what do you mean by cyclic permutations? When you cycle things you are getting a new permutation of something, so in a way, yes -- but that's not the whole story where #39 is concerned.

[Reincarnate]

Re: Are you insecure about your intelligence?

How to solve #39:

You'll notice that this is a huge 3x3 grid of 3x3 mini-grids. The first mini-grid in each row is simply a 90-degree clockwise turn of the third mini-grid in the row above it. This, however, is unfortunately not important.

Take any mini-grid and shift every symbol one spot to the right. Symbols in the third column of a given row simply wrap around to the first column of the next row. After this, change all X's to O's, all triangles to X's, and all O's to triangles.

So for example, look at the very first minigrid (let T=triangle):

XTO
TOT
XXO

Shift everything one to the right:

OXT
OTO
TXX

Then convert all symbols:
TOX
TXT
XOO

which is what you'll see in the second mini-grid. Apply the same procedure again and you get the third-mini-grid, and so on. What makes this problem so hard is that it's easy to fall into the trap of assuming the X's, O's, and triangles are static elements that are just moving around to some rule. This is even harder to find when you consider there are always three of each symbol in each mini-grid, so it's not obvious that the symbols themselves are changing. What you have to notice is the relative distribution of the symbols and you have to notice that the distributions are shifting AND changing at the same time.

[Cavernio]

Re: Are you insecure about your intelligence?

"My point here is that if what you're saying is true, we would expect that otherwise unintelligent people could solve really tough questions if we gave them more time/multiple attempts to crack it, and we'd expect really smart people to bomb like hell if we deprived them of sleep. And yet, we don't see either of these happening in practice."

Are you sure that super sleep deprived people don't bomb tests? I mean, they don't even have to completely bomb them for there to be a relationship between intelligence and concentration, there just has to be a systematic one. The real question is how strong or weak the relationship is. I think of concentration in relation to intelligence is that concentration is necessary for intelligence, but intelligence not necessary for concentration. Yes, I will agree that if someone ever can't get a question right, that they are more dumb than a person who can. Off the cuff right now, I'm kinda thinking about concentration like conscious intelligence. (Is concentration ever unconscious?)

Intelligence tests do measure intelligence to a degree, that is clear. But how representative it is, how biased they may be, who defines what intelligence is and ergo how the test questions are made up, and how much of the test is actually representing intelligence versus something else, are all problems with testing.

The fact that you're pointing out that SAT scores aren't...damn, can't think of the word...the fact that the distance between a score of 600-700 does not represent the same thing as a distance between 2400-2500, just makes me think that the majority of statistical analyses that are done with them aren't going to be valid because of it; it breaks one of the core necessities for any statistical analyses I've ever learned. You'd have to mark the SAT scores differently or run them through some sort of transition in order to even measure r accurately.

And as to people having systemic concentration issues, that seems that a lot of people must have them. Any mental illness, any slight vitamin deficiency in like half the vitamins, anyone in some sort of chronic pain, anyone on medication that can cause drowsiness, anyone who has any number of thousands of illnesses, anyone with sleep problems...so many things can systemically affect concentration. At any given point in time, I'd think that well over half the population is not at peak concentration.

Has anyone else ever read about the woman who began the program called Fast Forward? To read about it, she was honestly dumb. She had a really hard time understanding relationships between things, in anything from math to speech, yet she worked her ass off to get through school and even found a way to fix her own problems, such that she's overcome what many people would call mental retardation. I don't have the book on me right now, or her name, but its truly amazing and fascinating. Don't think it mentioned her IQ, but they didn't exactly have to. She couldn't figure out the difference between things like 'mother's daughter' and 'daughter's mother', couldn't read an analogue clock, that level of dumb. And she didn't become smarter when she was a kid either, she was definitely an adult when she went through the steps to make her smarter in regards to what she had a problem with.

And yes, I know I'm sounding like some sort of magazine article or something, but her story really makes me question all this stuff in regards to intelligence in general, and how set it is, and question the validity of training studies that show minimal results on IQ tests and the like. I mean, her story is really not one of hard work pays off, (well, it starts like that, because she figured out how to fix herself when she was still 'dumb',) but rather that putting in hard work in the right way can change everything.

She actually does useful, impressive psychology.

Will post her name when I go home and get the book I read about her in.

[justaguy]

Re: Are you insecure about your intelligence?

literally never

[Reincarnate]

Re: Are you insecure about your intelligence?

Are you sure that super sleep deprived people don't bomb tests? I mean, they don't even have to completely bomb them for there to be a relationship between intelligence and concentration, there just has to be a systematic one.

Depends on how much we're depriving them, but yes. Sure, the effects can be systematic. But you're implying that the relationship is stronger than it is in practice. Again, yes, yes, yes, concentration/motivation has SOME impact on the output of your performance. But it's small and the results generally take it into account anyway through high N in order to sufficiently narrow out all random factors.

The fact that you're pointing out that SAT scores aren't...damn, can't think of the word...the fact that the distance between a score of 600-700 does not represent the same thing as a distance between 2400-2500, just makes me think that the majority of statistical analyses that are done with them aren't going to be valid because of it; it breaks one of the core necessities for any statistical analyses I've ever learned. You'd have to mark the SAT scores differently or run them through some sort of transition in order to even measure r accurately.

Well I don't know what stat classes you're taking, then, because what I described was a common feature of any normal bell curve/Gaussian distribution that you'll learn about in most classes. They're perfectly valid for analysis.

Stuff about some lady

Just because someone manages to work their ass off and pull their way up doesn't mean they have strong cognitive ability. She'd still have a very low g, as is evident by the fact that she fails at many basic things, as you brought up. If we know she has a low g, we also can predict that she'd suck at a variety of other things, too. It doesn't mean she can't still overcome adversity, which we could argue doesn't require intelligence but a strong motivation. You may be conflating the two ideas by assuming that because a dumb person overcomes adversity as a result of her mental handicaps, she must therefore "actually be intelligent."

Similarly, there's no reason a person can't still LEARN something. It's just going to take a lot longer for someone to learn/apply the same amount of new skills if they lack cognitive ability compared to the average person.

[~kitty~]

Re: Are you insecure about your intelligence?

Where does creativity fit into all of this?

[Cavernio]

Re: Are you insecure about your intelligence?

Creativity fits into all of this nowhere easily because it doesn't have nearly as much data for measures of it. Personally, I think creativity should be included in any measure of overall intelligence. I can't even think of anything I remembered learning about how creativity related to other things. I think I remember some tests that are used as measures of creativity though. They give you a scenario where you have to accomplish a task X (I can't think of what it was, like reaching an object or something), and you are given a list of tools you could use, and you're then told to think up as many ways as possible to accomplish X. You were probably rated on the number of different methods you came up with, as well as how often other people came up with the methods you mentioned.

rein: No no, I'm not talking about the measures of a bell curve per se. I'm talking about using a scoring system where the difference of 1 is not uniform across all the possibilities of it. Like if I were to use farenheit instead of Celcius (or Kelvin), it doing any sort of statisitical analysis, it would be wrong. That the scoring system is based on the bell curve is irrelevant. The difference in actual intelligence/achievement (whatever it is that the SAT's measure,) between someone who gets 600 to someone who gets 700, should be the same as the difference in intelligence/achievement as someone who gets 2400 compared to 2500, in order to use SAT scores in a relevant comparison to another measure. If that is the case, then I misundestood what you were saying.

Also, I wasn't clear with what I said about that woman. She can now easily read a clock, like any person of regular intelligence can, and can now understand relationships in regular speech, just like that, no extra effort on her part. Things which the entirety of her education didn't fix until she decided to try and improve whatever cortical area it was that she figured needed work. I would bet money that her g would have increased hugely after she did her training.

[Reincarnate]

Re: Are you insecure about your intelligence?

The SAT is just converted from a raw score to a curved score in order to standardize it. Harder tests will be curved easier and vice-versa. That's all that is. Missing one or two on a hard as **** Math SAT section might net you a 780 whereas on an easier test it'll net you a 740.

The point of having a large drop in score versus a little drop in score would be directly translated into the frequencies of scores with respect to raw score. Again, still perfectly valid. Reporting raw score to colleges doesn't necessarily mean anything without context. "Student X missed 5 questions on his SAT." Well, how easy was that particular test? That's what the curving does. It scales raw score to a number that tells you how your score stands against the population (percentile-wise).

[Reach]

Re: Are you insecure about your intelligence?

just took iqtest.dk again -- got "over 145" again (slightly unfair since I took this test in the past already), but here are the answers in screenshot form if anyone is curious. Question 39 is lmfao so much harder than the rest to figure out (there's one super-obvious fact that is actually useless, and only once you find the next relevant observation does the final step unravel to the answer). 34 is also tough (imo).

You would be better off taking the TRI52, since IQTest.dk doesn't have sufficient ceiling to measure IQ above the 130 range. Anything higher is essentially meaningless.

(Also, for the sake of the psychometrician that made the test, if you do take it, don't post answers).



Also, yeah, the SAT is curved, so it's quite simple to estimate IQ from SAT scores directly. 2400-> ~143, 2300-> 138, 2200-> 133, 2100-> 128 2000->124 1900-> 119 etc etc

Though, to be fair, the new SAT is a relatively weak IQ test. It still has some utility, but with every revision they appear to dilute it more and more. I think they're trying to make it useless >_>

I mean, by definition, speed is how fast you go. Yet by definition, up until 100 years ago, intelligence wasn't measured by any hard and fast test, and even now, the definition of intelligence still isn't IQ.

Alright, but you're making a purely semantic argument here. I've already linked to a plethora of evidence linking IQ tests to performance in a wide range of mental fields.

If this *isn't* intelligence, according to you, fine. It still doesn't change my point though and it doesn't defend your argument of concentration and motivation. It's pretty much a moot point. If intelligence is something not defined by IQ, then what is it, and does it have any utility at all?

IQ has a lot of utility. IQ is how fast your brain processes and deals with complex information. How fast you learn, how fast you think, how accurate your reasoning and recall is. It is many things, much of which I think can be considered intelligence...

Show me a study that measures motivation and concentration and some measure of intelligence, measure how well the intelligence score correlates to various other factors that we like to compare them to, like grades and job performance, and then factor out the variability measured by motivation and concentration from the intelligence score and then compare it again to grades and job performance. If the correlations before and after removing the connections to motivation and concentrations are close, I will agree with you. Preferably some sort of meta-analysis showing this.

The problem with this is the essential reason why I have a problem with what you're saying. You can't really measure motivation and concentration. At least not directly. As much as they're obviously and intuitively important with respect to testing, at some point, you have to let them go and deal with the data...

However, there are many studies assessing the correlation between time spent on tests and the number of items correct. In other tests, Xavier (the psychometrician behind the TRI52 and CCAT, which Rubix linked to) has analysis on his blog showing the relationships between time and answers correct. All of the correlations are very small, ~r=0.2, meaning it explains some 4% of variance (without even factoring out the fact that people that stop preemptively will naturally spend less time regardless of how fast they answer the questions).

Also, it wouldn't be necessary to measure how well the IQ score correlates to other factors. This is already known for tests like the WAIS or WISC, S-Binet etc, so the typical method here is simply to take your test and see how well it correlates with those tests (in the case of the TRI52, for example, the correlation is very high, so it's assumed to also correlate with job and grade performance, etc).

[justaguy]

Re: Are you insecure about your intelligence?

i think it's kind of ironic that the two most "intelligent" people in this thread have sigs with physically attractive women in them

also IQ is arbitrary

and really no offense to reach and rubix but uhhhhh yeah Hot Women ! xD

[Reincarnate]

Re: Are you insecure about your intelligence?

I've got the yellow plague