Research debunks the ‘IQ myth’
December 21, 2012
The “monkey ladder” cognitive test (credit: Adam Hampshire et al./Western University)
After conducting the largest online intelligence study on record, with more than 100,000 participants, a Canadian Western University-led research team has concluded that the notion of measuring one’s intelligence quotient or IQ by a singular, standardized test is highly misleading.
Utilizing an online study open to anyone, anywhere in the world, the researchers asked respondents to complete 12 cognitive tests tapping memory, reasoning, attention and planning abilities, as well as a survey about their background and lifestyle habits.
The results showed that when a wide range of cognitive abilities are explored, the observed variations in performance can only be explained with at least three distinct components: short-term memory, reasoning and a verbal component.
No one component, or IQ, explained everything. Furthermore, the scientists used a brain scanning technique known as functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), to show that these differences in cognitive ability map onto distinct circuits in the brain.
With so many respondents, the results also provided a wealth of new information about how factors such as age, gender, and the tendency to play computer games influence our brain function.
“Regular brain training didn’t help people’s cognitive performance at all, yet aging had a profound negative effect on both memory and reasoning abilities,” says Adrian M. Owen, the Canada Excellence Research Chair in Cognitive Neuroscience and Imaging and senior investigator on the project.
“Intriguingly, people who regularly played computer games did perform significantly better in terms of both reasoning and short-term memory, says study researcher Adam Hampshire from Western’s Brain and Mind Institute. “And smokers performed poorly on the short-term memory and the verbal factors, while people who frequently suffer from anxiety performed badly on the short-term memory factor in particular.”.
To continue the groundbreaking research, the team has launched a new online version of the tests.
“To ensure the results aren’t biased, we can’t say much about the agenda other than that there are many more fascinating questions about variations in cognitive ability that we want to answer,” explains Hampshire.
Comments (29)
by Nyk
As long as people equate intelligence with self-worth and believe that all humans have equal potential (despite the existence of Einstein, Von Neumann, Zuse, Turing, Church, McCarthy and a few others), there is never going to be honest science with regards to this topic. But we need to understand what intelligence is, and why some people are brilliant while others are the opposite, if we ever want to build intelligent machines.
by donjoe
All people DO have similar potential, but not all receive even remotely similar levels of attention and personalized education.
http://www.kurzweilai.net/schoolchildren-can-learn-complex-subjects-on-their-own
by d
I guess this contradicts the gains found from dual n-back training?
by seeker
main n-back study is misleading – unfortunately wiki says :
“Two studies published in 2012 failed to reproduce the effect of dual n-back training on fluid intelligence. These studies found that the effects of training did not transfer to any other cognitive ability tests” wiki gives references to :
^ Redick, T. S.; Shipstead, Z.; Harrison, T. L.; Hicks, K. L.; Fried, D. E.; Hambrick, D. Z.; Kane, M. J.; Engle, R. W. (2012). “No Evidence of Intelligence Improvement After Working Memory Training: A Randomized, Placebo-Controlled Study”. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General. doi:10.1037/a0029082. edit
^ Chooi, W. T.; Thompson, L. A. (2012). “Working memory training does not improve intelligence in healthy young adults”. Intelligence 40 (6): 531. doi:10.1016/j.intell.2012.07.004. edit
“
by Spencer Collins
The responders to the the subjects discussed on Kurzweilai.com are the most negative group of people on the internet. You are trying to big note yourselves by discrediting the researchers whose work is summarised on these pages. Get over yourselves! Bunch of whiners…
by Editor
Personally, I find the contrarian views stimulate my thinking. Question authority! It’s “kurzweilai.net” not .com — not to be a whiner or anything :)
by Spencer Collins
Oh dear.. a”Muphry”…
by Nac Mac Feegle
I have not read the full report, but from this article and the video I gather one thing. They have no idea what the G-factor is. “You can not categorize people based on one number.” Yes I can. Just as I can categorize them on the colour of their car if I like. That is not the point.
I conduct testing of IQ on several occasions every year. During the training required to conduct such test one thing is made perfectly clear. You can not measure G. What you can do is measure one or more abilities, or skills if you like, that correlate differently well with G.
All in all it seems that they need to go back to basics before trying to debunk something which no one serious actually claim.
by egore
Better to measure the spot than the factor
by Dejohns46
Offhand, it would seem to me that brain training, which they say had no effect, could well only be effective over a relatively long period of time, perhaps years. I would not accept this conclusion unless there is really unquestionable evidence over a relatively long period of time. For one thing, it has been said that a lifetime of learning helps protect one’s mental faculties as one ages. I still believe in the old “use it or lose it” adage, even for mental capabilities. Just one more person’s speculation…
by Major
Why waste money to prove the obvious? That’s why IQ is usually measure using WAIS (or similar) tools.
by Dr.Pratt
A single test debunks a single test…amazing! The aspect of understanding and meaning was not in these tests, which is what humans have that no other animal has. Chimpanzees outscore humans on short term memory. Was the test they used STANDARDIZED BEFORE THEY USED IT??? Very flawed study from several different levels.
by Debunker
Of course this ‘debunking’ study is itself bunk, as explained in this lucid post: http://www.thetwentyfirstfloor.com/?p=7194
by ProfessorZ
So their single test debunks the notion that a single test measures intelligence? Duh, wut?
by trakk
Apparently a single test is only good for debunking and not for measuring.
by Marcos Marin
Single number/variable.
Although there is no paradox there either. The test is testing tests testing intelligence not a test testing intelligence itself.
by Cliff
Sounds more like the results from 100,000 tests.
by Ralph Dratman
I did not do well, and felt disappointed in my performance. I am 61 and have been diagnosed with ADD by several practitioners. I usually think of myself as smart but disorganized.
All that said, some of the tasks in this series of tests seemed not to be sufficiently explained. The most glaring example, for me, was the task of moving balls around on the “tree” diagram. I did not grasp at first that one had to click the start point, then the destination point, in order to specify a move. I thought I would be dragging the balls around. I might not have done well anyway, but that confusion made it almost impossible. It might also be that I missed that information in the description of the task.
by Jerry Gorby
Howard Gardner addressed this topic decades ago in his ‘Frames of Mind’ as published by Basic Books. If I remember correctly, he received a MacArthur Fellow grant for his concepts.
by Mr.X
Where is de Broglie when he’s needed ^^
by Marcos Marin
Playing cards at the asylum?
by de Broglie
Frohe Weihnachten! I think quite a few people have said what I would say. An IQ test is a measurement, so it is hoped that it is highly correlated to g. Although g is hard to is a complicated idea, it would be wrong to throw out the concept. Obviously IQ does not have a one hundred percent correlation to genius. Prima facie it would also appear that there are different types of intelligences. Although one who is good at quantitative reasoning has a higher likelihood of being better at verbal reasoning and vice versa.
by clains
Isn’t “g” required to explain why a person picked at random will have a high correlation between for instance short-term memory, reasoning skills and a verbal skills?
In this study the question seems whether these components are dissociable from a brain network perspective. Surely, this answers a more fundemental question, but it seems to me that the pragmatic utility in knowing why certain people have all these networks be either efficient or inefficient is the power people associate with the ‘g’ concept.
Also, relatedly, yarberry’s question.
by Marcos Marin
“Regular brain training didn’t help people’s cognitive performance at all, yet”
+
“Intriguingly, people who regularly played computer games did perform significantly better”
=
What is their definition of training?! Playing cards at the asylum?
by Michael
lol I saw that and said what?! out loud. Me thinks their idea of brain training is off.
by Whittaker
One more excuse to play video games.
Thank you, Babbage, Lovelace, Turing, Zuse and others who brought forth this great technology called computer.
by Nyk
Maybe only those with a reasonably high IQ in the first place are smart enough to understand and do well in video games?
It’s already well established that IQ is correlated with reaction time. Maybe low IQ people are put off by the fact that they can’t click/push buttons fast enough to win.
by bill yarberry
Interesting research. But I assume that this research does not reject the notion that skills cluster rather than being independent. In other words, are they saying that, if there are three major indices of brain power, that those indices have a low correlation coefficient?
by Alex
That is the essential question, Bill, and in fact the three indices are highly correlated with each other leaving lots of room for an underlying factor that explains all three. We could name it randomly, say we’ll call it “G.”
The authors of this study have been harrowingly premature in their conclusions and inferences. They have an awful case of hubris, I’m afraid.