4 ms·

Is the "hard" one that the shapes on the left all have >=50% of their sides as single, straight lines? I've never die these types of problems before so totally

Is the "hard" one that the shapes on the left all have >=50% of their sides as single, straight lines? I've never die these types of problems before so totally unsure if I stumbled on an answer quickly, or don't understand what defines a solution.

thaumasiotes 10y ago
No, since the bottom left example has 7 sides of which only 3 are single straight lines and the top right counterexample has 7 sides of which 4 are single straight lines. The rule is that the shapes on the left all have exactly three sides as single straight lines. (Similarly, the shapes on the right have exactly three "unusual" sides.) That said, though I've referred to "the rule" and the post author also refers to "the solution" to a Bongard problem, they don't and can't have authoritative solutions, just as sequence completion problems can't. When we talk about "correct" answers to this style of question, what we mean is "what tends to occur to smart people".
- taneq 10y ago
  That's my issue with this kind of problem. There are usually a bunch of viable solutions with little if anything to differentiate them. They're not tests of intelligence so much as tests of how similar your pattern matching is to that of the test authors.
  - thaumasiotes 10y ago
    > They're not tests of intelligence so much as tests of how similar your pattern matching is to that of the test authors. Well... they are tests of intelligence. A valid test of intelligence is one that lets you determine ("predict") the intelligence of a testee from their answers. For that, you need intelligent and unintelligent people to have measurably different answer patterns, but there is no requirement that the intelligent answer patterns be objectively correct. You could have a test that was entirely subjective ("Who was the better artist, Michelangelo or Jackson Pollock?") and still use it to predict intelligence[1]. [1] That's an invented example; I'm not claiming that the particular question of Michelangelo vs. Jackson Pollock is actually predictive of intelligence, just pointing out that it could be.
    - taneq 10y ago
      But how do you select 'intelligent' people to generate your 'intelligent' answers? If it's not at some point tied back to some kind of objective performance (generating correct answers) then you're not measuring intelligence.
      - thaumasiotes 10y ago
        That's wrong. If your subjective test agrees in result with your objective test, they're measuring the same thing. That we can't begin the study of intelligence tests with a fully subjective test wouldn't mean we can't end there (and in fact, we can begin that way, because we start off with the idea that someone is smart if other people are inclined to describe them that way, not that someone is smart if they do well on a math test).
      - jldugger 10y ago
        These are not intelligence tests, they're cognition tests. The goal is not to seek the correct answer, but a correct answer.
        thaumasiotes 10y ago
        Seeking a correct answer is trivially easy, though; you can always find the rule "any of the six shapes on the left", just as you can always fit a function to any arbitrary sequence.
        jldugger 10y ago
        Right, but the context is that these problems comprise an evaluation suite for artificial intelligences. Even simply textually describing the shapes on the left and the right, is an accomplishment. A better test suite would likely provide an oracle capable of generating new images belonging to the left or right and asking the program to judge which side it belongs to.

thaumasiotes 10y ago

No, since the bottom left example has 7 sides of which only 3 are single straight lines and the top right counterexample has 7 sides of which 4 are single straight lines. The rule is that the shapes on the left all have exactly three sides as single straight lines. (Similarly, the shapes on the right have exactly three "unusual" sides.) That said, though I've referred to "the rule" and the post author also refers to "the solution" to a Bongard problem, they don't and can't have authoritative solutions, just as sequence completion problems can't. When we talk about "correct" answers to this style of question, what we mean is "what tends to occur to smart people".

taneq 10y ago
That's my issue with this kind of problem. There are usually a bunch of viable solutions with little if anything to differentiate them. They're not tests of intelligence so much as tests of how similar your pattern matching is to that of the test authors.
- thaumasiotes 10y ago
  > They're not tests of intelligence so much as tests of how similar your pattern matching is to that of the test authors. Well... they are tests of intelligence. A valid test of intelligence is one that lets you determine ("predict") the intelligence of a testee from their answers. For that, you need intelligent and unintelligent people to have measurably different answer patterns, but there is no requirement that the intelligent answer patterns be objectively correct. You could have a test that was entirely subjective ("Who was the better artist, Michelangelo or Jackson Pollock?") and still use it to predict intelligence[1]. [1] That's an invented example; I'm not claiming that the particular question of Michelangelo vs. Jackson Pollock is actually predictive of intelligence, just pointing out that it could be.
  - taneq 10y ago
    But how do you select 'intelligent' people to generate your 'intelligent' answers? If it's not at some point tied back to some kind of objective performance (generating correct answers) then you're not measuring intelligence.
    - thaumasiotes 10y ago
      That's wrong. If your subjective test agrees in result with your objective test, they're measuring the same thing. That we can't begin the study of intelligence tests with a fully subjective test wouldn't mean we can't end there (and in fact, we can begin that way, because we start off with the idea that someone is smart if other people are inclined to describe them that way, not that someone is smart if they do well on a math test).
    - jldugger 10y ago
      These are not intelligence tests, they're cognition tests. The goal is not to seek the correct answer, but a correct answer.
      - thaumasiotes 10y ago
        Seeking a correct answer is trivially easy, though; you can always find the rule "any of the six shapes on the left", just as you can always fit a function to any arbitrary sequence.
        jldugger 10y ago
        Right, but the context is that these problems comprise an evaluation suite for artificial intelligences. Even simply textually describing the shapes on the left and the right, is an accomplishment. A better test suite would likely provide an oracle capable of generating new images belonging to the left or right and asking the program to judge which side it belongs to.