10 ms·

Human behavioral complexity peaks at age 25: study

196 points by Hooke 9y ago

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
ue_ 9y ago
I'm 20 years old in my first year of university, and I'm probably going to fail the final exams next week. I don't think I'll be having the chance to take advantage of this peak.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- EGreg 9y ago
  Just because you don't make it in university doesn't mean you can't do some amazing things. I failed my oral exams in the Math Ph. D. Instead of retaking them, I left with a Master's, made a lot of money and started my own company which now has over 4 million users. Also, forget about the peak, if you build value for yourself, you'll have more every year. If you're building value for others and earning money, then invest it somewhere that makes a difference.
  - jacquesm 9y ago
    In fact, if money is what you're after you are probably better of getting the degree and then leaving academics, I don't know many people who stayed in the academic circuit and ended up being well off.
    - awkwardtortoise 9y ago
      In academia, only those who get tenured professorships are sitting pretty. And they get to sit pretty for decades. Everyone else has to hustle to get their crumbs. I know people who are teaching adjuncts and they get paid crumbs ( $2 or $3K PER SEMESTER ). This is at a highly competitive university where tuition + board is $80K. I could not believe it.
      - copperx 9y ago
        3K per semester with an advanced degree? That's insane. You earn more being a graduate student. Is that a non-STEM field? A regular job would be a much better option.
        TheOtherHobbes 9y ago
        Yes, it is insane. Universities have become sweatshops. There are a handful of tenured foremen/women, but everyone else is busking it. The students are psrt of the cash crop, investment income, donations from alumni, and grants make up the rest. Original thinking and game-changing research have been deprecated.
  - awkwardtortoise 9y ago
    What? What does you comment have to do with the topic? It seems like you got offended by the title, which has nothing to do with what you wrote. You seem to have a chip on your shoulder about being a failure at math ( or failing to get a PhD ).
    - EGreg 9y ago
      You are wrong :)
- kaeluka 9y ago
  Even if that really happens: there's plenty of ways you can spin this into an advantage, long term. An event like this closes some doors, but will also open others. In any case: good luck with the exams! You can do a lot of exam preparation in a week! Don't give up before it's over :-)
  - ue_ 9y ago
    Thank you; the pass mark being only 40% has given me some hope. It's been a large step up in terms of volume of content from what I did to get in.
    - Jach 9y ago
      I would rather hope to fail than to slip by with 40%-60%. You'll waste 5 years of your life (because such slackers rarely get it done in 4) and come out not knowing much and forgetting that little bit too after a year or so. I can't really give a personal cautionary tale (I am a slacker, but of the courses I passed I tried to do well at least on the final and still remember a lot of details plus where to refresh memories) but I see it often enough in others. Some of them are fine with it, some of them regret it, some of them double down and find a new school / degree program. Take a close look at what you want from the university system -- little learning but socialization or just a simple piece of paper (they look a lot nicer in a frame) is entirely justifiable, just consider how you might judge your choices in hindsight once you're at the end (as well as have an idea of what you'll do at the end).
- mikekchar 9y ago
  When I was in first year (a long time ago), the computer science department was quite new. This meant that courses were held in various different places -- engineering, science, math, etc. Unfortunately, this ultimately meant that I had to pass by the campus pub between every class, with predictable results (drinking age where I lived was 18). Whether you pass or whether you fail will not have as big an impact as you think now. What is important is understanding how to improve. For me, I staked out a chair in the library with all the foreign students who seemed to live there. I got in to school at 7:30 am and I went home at 5:00 pm. I watched what all those foreign students were doing and copied them. Later talking with them, I discovered that the reason they lived in the library was because their tuition and living expenses were covered by their extended family. You'd have 20 people sending money that they really couldn't afford just so that one person might get a foreign education and a high paying job to lift everyone out of poverty. If they failed their exams, people in their family would likely die of disease, etc as a result. So I don't know anything about your situation, but probably it's not as bad as what my friends in the library had to endure. You've got a week. It might not be enough time to salvage first year (like I said, been there, done that). But use that time to understand what you need to do from here. Go to the library. Pick out a seat where you intend to live. Today is a good day to start to see what you can do.
  - Cyph0n 9y ago
    Excellent advice. At the end of my first semester at university, my Calc I professor pulled me aside after class for a chat. We talked about a bunch of things, but one piece of advice in particular stuck with me. He said: "You are lucky to be so privileged - to study at a university for free, to have a supportive family, and to be such a smart and capable student - but you are also quite unlucky. Unlike other less privileged students around the world, you need to create your own drive. Without motivation, you'll have a tough time overcoming the inevitable difficulties you'll face in the future." So that's what I ended up doing. Firstly, I started to imagine myself being from a much less fortunate background, and therefore treated my studies as a matter of utmost importance. And secondly, I put a target in my mind for what kind of person I want to be in the far future. I visualized this in quite a bit of detail, sometimes even imagining myself being interviewed! (weird, I know) A little over 5 years later, I'm in a top 10 PhD program in my field. I'm still not certain this is what I want to do for the next 4 years, but I think I'm on top of it for now. Worst case scenario is I drop out with a MS and enter the workforce. Still, I'm immensely thankful that I have the option to think about this. Many people don't.
- lazaroclapp 9y ago
  From the abstract: "Our main finding is that the developmental curve of the estimated algorithmic complexity of responses is similar to what may be expected of a measure of higher cognitive abilities, with a performance peak around 25 and a decline starting around 60" Based on this and the points in the scatter plot, it looks to me like you have 40 years or so of mostly the same "behavioral complexity" you do now, in expectancy, but with the added benefit of accumulated knowledge. For most tasks, my bet is that the right accumulation of knowledge and learned intuition is a larger factor than any sort of base generative ability. So, rather than giving up, I'd start compounding that learning now, with an eye towards the long term...
- bootload 9y ago
  "I'm probably going to fail the final exams next week." You can improve on mental toughness to control emotion. It is not a fixed skill. Four skills needed to overcome ^fear^ and ^panic^ is through control of the limbic system: [0] - Positive self talk - Goal setting of tasks - Mental rehearsal of tasks - Arousal control (breathing) [0] "Mental Training" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AZ-24JtAFQw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AZ-24JtAFQw
  - Jach 9y ago
    Which is the most universal human characteristic - fear or laziness?
    - mercer 9y ago
      I've found that laziness is sometimes fear in disguise. I don't know how that contributes, but whatever I don't care to explain; I'll be downvoted anyways.
windlep 9y ago
I wonder how/if this relates to the fact that many mental illnesses fully manifest around 25 as well. "Roughly half of all lifetime mental disorders in most studies start by the mid‐teens and three‐fourths by the mid‐20s." - https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1925038/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1925038/
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- suneilp 9y ago
  From personal experience I'd say it can relate to mental illnesses caused by trauma, hostile environments, etc. Getting over trauma and other emotional baggage has resulted in large improvements in sustained focus, lower inhibitions, and general cognitive improvements for me and I'm well past the age of 25.
  - 52-6F-62 9y ago
    Different roots here, but same results. Gradually worsened up until ~25, though. Vastly improved after a couple of years, and seeing the tail ends ~30
- AckSyn 9y ago
  The brain reaches its full maturity around this age so it's unsurprising any mental illnesses reach their own peak in somewhat of a parallel. As a personal aside, it makes me question the sensibility of letting kids go off to war, vote, drink, or smoke before this age.
  - coldtea 9y ago
    >The brain reaches its full maturity around this age so it's unsurprising any mental illnesses reach their own peak in somewhat of a parallel. Why would that be "unsurprising"? It's not like mental illness is intuitively correlated with increases/improvements in brain functioning... If anything, one would expect the inverse: for some mental illness the increase in brain functioning around mid-twenties would somewhat help reduce it.
docere 9y ago
Perhaps this has something to do with completion of myelination to the frontal lobes.
- nkjoep 9y ago
  FWIW, I've been discovered with MS exactly at 25.
WilliamDhalgren 9y ago
yeah, but apparently barely declines untill say 60+. Speed suffers however. "The adult years were remarkable in that complexity remained at a high level for a protracted period, in spite of a slow decrease of speed during the same period. This suggest that during the adult period, people tend to invest more and more computational time to achieve a stable level of output complexity. Later in life (>70), however, speed stabilizes, while complexity drops in a dramatic way." and "These speed-accuracy trade-offs were evident in the adult years, including the turn toward old age. During childhood, however, no similar pattern is discernible. This suggests that aging cannot simply be considered a “regression”, and that CT (completion time) and complexity provide different complementary information. This is again supported by the fact that in the 25–60 year range, where the effect of age is reduced, CT and complexity are uncorrelated (r = −.012, p = .53). These findings add to a rapidly growing literature that views RIG tasks as good measures of complex cognitive abilities [21, for a review]."
- derefr 9y ago
  It almost sounds like people try harder and harder to keep up with societal expectations of continued "sharpness"... until they hit some age where cultural norms say they aren't expected to be sharp any more. And then they stop trying, which causes an outsized decline as their lowered expectations of their own capability, feeds into lowered capability, which feeds back into further-lowered expectations.
  - WilliamDhalgren 9y ago
    could be, I really don't know. I can imagine perfectly benign scenarios too; if our long-term memory grows with time, maybe there's just more possible connections/associations to filter out with time too, so that decision just becomes harder, with only the deeper old age being simply tissue decline, the exhaustion of cognitive reserves etc. Somewhat relatedly, I think I heard on some old Skeptic's guide to the universe episode about an experiment with some nootropic, maybe it was a racetam though I think it was mondafinil, and this kind of reaction time to response accuracy tradeoff was observed, on young healthy adults. Those with less correct answers slowed down, presumably concentrated better and gave better answers, but those already good at whatever the task was simply were slower and yet no better.
noobermin 9y ago
Ok, comments on fig. 2. The 95% confidence intervals are plotted, but clearly the distribution of their subjects seems to sample heavily near where they find their peak (~25 to 40 ish), and correspondingly, the drop offs are away from that area... Seems fishy to me.
- joveian 9y ago
  Also, if you look at the right side of figure 1 there are lines on the bottom of the complexity chart for each of the tasks, presumably representing people who essentially did not do the task (although they still seem to have spent a variable amount of time not doing the task). It looks like this skews older, and just by eyeballing the chart some of the 75+ would be upward trends if not for that bottom line. I skimmed the article and did not see a discussion of this.
  - BlackFly 9y ago
    Furthermore, the poor sampling near the edges of the plots leads me to suspect that the trend away from a flat line is due to Runge's phenomenon. The peak may be nothing other than the oscillations from this phenomenon leaking into the interior of their data set.
Annielang 9y ago
I like your article https://www.justvirginhair.com/ https://www.justvirginhair.com/
known 9y ago
Poverty May Affect the Growth of Children's Brains https://science.slashdot.org/story/15/03/30/2159247/poverty-may-affect-the-growth-of-childrens-brains https://science.slashdot.org/story/15/03/30/2159247/poverty-...
futun 9y ago
I completely believe this. I was far more sophisticated in my late 20's. In my late 30's I learned to stop being such a douche... and I became far simpler. We all see through the Matrix as we get older...
xux 9y ago
Did anyone even read the article. The study has nothing to do with complex behavior or "sophisticated" behavior. It's a study on your ability to generate random list of results, like "listing the hypothetical results of a series of 12 coin flips so that they would 'look random to somebody else'"
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- etherael 9y ago
  That strikes me as a poor measure of true randomness.
  - averagewall 9y ago
    Why? Do you suspect that subjects were deliberately making their choices less random because they anticipated the poor performance of another person in assessing randomness? It seems like a good assumption that they knew they were trying to fool a sophisticated randomness test that they couldn't second-guess.
    - etherael 9y ago
      No, just humans are well known to be bad at actual randomness.
      - goldenkey 9y ago
        Considering that a random generator could generate 11111111111111111111111111 5 times in a row...it's a bit hard to claim someone's test results as a failure of randomness unless you claim you want a gaussian distribution or some other type of "character of randomness." Ie. running diehard tests on it and whatnot. A fixed number of trials is deceptive unless you can see the algorithm behind the numbers. And for a human being..you can't. So unless you have a giant sample size, and even when you do, there is a bit of a mischaracterization done depending on what tests you are going to use to determine how random the data is
twiss 9y ago
In high school, my math teacher once asked us to write down a random string of zeroes and ones, similar to what they did in the study to measure "cognitive functioning". He then asked us to count the number of times we alternated between 0 and 1. He told us that while most people try to have about a 50% split between 0 and 1, many alternate too often (0101101 instead of 0100011). Maybe there are other tests that one could learn to improve one's randomness, or at least write down a random string faster (they also measured speed). In the introduction, they cite that "the complexity of a subject-produced pseudorandom sequence (…) is surprisingly resistant to practice effects". However, is it also resistant to teaching effects?
- trevyn 9y ago
  This is a great question. What are the speed requirements? https://www.quora.com/Is-it-possible-for-a-human-to-generate-a-truly-random-sequence-mentally https://www.quora.com/Is-it-possible-for-a-human-to-generate... You could probably come up with a reasonably good, fast mental PRNG algorithm, and practice that.
  - Someone 9y ago
    Pick a phrase (name, address, phone number would do), discard white space, and convert the upper two bits to binary. Example: "Pick a phrase" would become 00 01 11 11 01 00 00 10 01 11 01... That's certainly not random, but unlikely to be detectable for shorter sequences. (Edit: it probably is a fun exercise to write a program that decodes this code that reaches >75% (lossy) compression)
    - averagewall 9y ago
      That would hurt you on speed. It's much faster to just pull numbers out of your head as fast as you can write them down. That should be protection against using an algorithm. Even if you do have a fast algorithm, it would still get slower as you age, so you could use it to compare yourself at different ages. The test might also be scored using randomness tests that would pick up the repeated use of the same algorithm, like the one you described. Distribution of letters and their (ASCII?) bits won't be perfectly random. You could also hand code exceptions for known algorithms as you discover them. That's what interests me. Monitoring your own cognitive ability as you age for early detection and tracking of neurodegenerative diseases. For this, you need a test that's resistant to practice.
faragon 9y ago
TL;DR: clickbait
nabla9 9y ago
Authors' Reddit AMA: https://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/6accnw/plos_science_wednesday_hi_reddit_my_name_is/ https://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/6accnw/plos_scienc...
Rasco 9y ago
Previous discussion : https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14131086 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14131086
transverse 9y ago
I am conducting a survey as a first attempt to see what's going on. If you would be so kind, please take it here: https://j.mp/CoinFlippingSurvey https://j.mp/CoinFlippingSurvey If I get about 100 more respondents, I will release the data and analysis at the same link.
- catshirt 9y ago
  i can't tell if i'm more humored or intrigued.
- woliveirajr 9y ago
  It's not easy to click to the left or to the right 128 times. Can't you just replace it with a textbox where users type T or H, or something like that ?
  - transverse 9y ago
    I agree. It is so much easier and quicker on a smartphone though. The survey is intentionally dumbed down so non-technical users don't have to type much. You can almost say it is geared toward the general population, many of whom use smartphones.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]

196 points by Hooke 9y ago

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

ue_ 9y ago

I'm 20 years old in my first year of university, and I'm probably going to fail the final exams next week. I don't think I'll be having the chance to take advantage of this peak.

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
EGreg 9y ago
Just because you don't make it in university doesn't mean you can't do some amazing things. I failed my oral exams in the Math Ph. D. Instead of retaking them, I left with a Master's, made a lot of money and started my own company which now has over 4 million users. Also, forget about the peak, if you build value for yourself, you'll have more every year. If you're building value for others and earning money, then invest it somewhere that makes a difference.
- jacquesm 9y ago
  In fact, if money is what you're after you are probably better of getting the degree and then leaving academics, I don't know many people who stayed in the academic circuit and ended up being well off.
  - awkwardtortoise 9y ago
    In academia, only those who get tenured professorships are sitting pretty. And they get to sit pretty for decades. Everyone else has to hustle to get their crumbs. I know people who are teaching adjuncts and they get paid crumbs ( $2 or $3K PER SEMESTER ). This is at a highly competitive university where tuition + board is $80K. I could not believe it.
    - copperx 9y ago
      3K per semester with an advanced degree? That's insane. You earn more being a graduate student. Is that a non-STEM field? A regular job would be a much better option.
      - TheOtherHobbes 9y ago
        Yes, it is insane. Universities have become sweatshops. There are a handful of tenured foremen/women, but everyone else is busking it. The students are psrt of the cash crop, investment income, donations from alumni, and grants make up the rest. Original thinking and game-changing research have been deprecated.
- awkwardtortoise 9y ago
  What? What does you comment have to do with the topic? It seems like you got offended by the title, which has nothing to do with what you wrote. You seem to have a chip on your shoulder about being a failure at math ( or failing to get a PhD ).
  - EGreg 9y ago
    You are wrong :)
kaeluka 9y ago
Even if that really happens: there's plenty of ways you can spin this into an advantage, long term. An event like this closes some doors, but will also open others. In any case: good luck with the exams! You can do a lot of exam preparation in a week! Don't give up before it's over :-)
- ue_ 9y ago
  Thank you; the pass mark being only 40% has given me some hope. It's been a large step up in terms of volume of content from what I did to get in.
  - Jach 9y ago
    I would rather hope to fail than to slip by with 40%-60%. You'll waste 5 years of your life (because such slackers rarely get it done in 4) and come out not knowing much and forgetting that little bit too after a year or so. I can't really give a personal cautionary tale (I am a slacker, but of the courses I passed I tried to do well at least on the final and still remember a lot of details plus where to refresh memories) but I see it often enough in others. Some of them are fine with it, some of them regret it, some of them double down and find a new school / degree program. Take a close look at what you want from the university system -- little learning but socialization or just a simple piece of paper (they look a lot nicer in a frame) is entirely justifiable, just consider how you might judge your choices in hindsight once you're at the end (as well as have an idea of what you'll do at the end).
mikekchar 9y ago
When I was in first year (a long time ago), the computer science department was quite new. This meant that courses were held in various different places -- engineering, science, math, etc. Unfortunately, this ultimately meant that I had to pass by the campus pub between every class, with predictable results (drinking age where I lived was 18). Whether you pass or whether you fail will not have as big an impact as you think now. What is important is understanding how to improve. For me, I staked out a chair in the library with all the foreign students who seemed to live there. I got in to school at 7:30 am and I went home at 5:00 pm. I watched what all those foreign students were doing and copied them. Later talking with them, I discovered that the reason they lived in the library was because their tuition and living expenses were covered by their extended family. You'd have 20 people sending money that they really couldn't afford just so that one person might get a foreign education and a high paying job to lift everyone out of poverty. If they failed their exams, people in their family would likely die of disease, etc as a result. So I don't know anything about your situation, but probably it's not as bad as what my friends in the library had to endure. You've got a week. It might not be enough time to salvage first year (like I said, been there, done that). But use that time to understand what you need to do from here. Go to the library. Pick out a seat where you intend to live. Today is a good day to start to see what you can do.
- Cyph0n 9y ago
  Excellent advice. At the end of my first semester at university, my Calc I professor pulled me aside after class for a chat. We talked about a bunch of things, but one piece of advice in particular stuck with me. He said: "You are lucky to be so privileged - to study at a university for free, to have a supportive family, and to be such a smart and capable student - but you are also quite unlucky. Unlike other less privileged students around the world, you need to create your own drive. Without motivation, you'll have a tough time overcoming the inevitable difficulties you'll face in the future." So that's what I ended up doing. Firstly, I started to imagine myself being from a much less fortunate background, and therefore treated my studies as a matter of utmost importance. And secondly, I put a target in my mind for what kind of person I want to be in the far future. I visualized this in quite a bit of detail, sometimes even imagining myself being interviewed! (weird, I know) A little over 5 years later, I'm in a top 10 PhD program in my field. I'm still not certain this is what I want to do for the next 4 years, but I think I'm on top of it for now. Worst case scenario is I drop out with a MS and enter the workforce. Still, I'm immensely thankful that I have the option to think about this. Many people don't.
lazaroclapp 9y ago
From the abstract: "Our main finding is that the developmental curve of the estimated algorithmic complexity of responses is similar to what may be expected of a measure of higher cognitive abilities, with a performance peak around 25 and a decline starting around 60" Based on this and the points in the scatter plot, it looks to me like you have 40 years or so of mostly the same "behavioral complexity" you do now, in expectancy, but with the added benefit of accumulated knowledge. For most tasks, my bet is that the right accumulation of knowledge and learned intuition is a larger factor than any sort of base generative ability. So, rather than giving up, I'd start compounding that learning now, with an eye towards the long term...
bootload 9y ago
"I'm probably going to fail the final exams next week." You can improve on mental toughness to control emotion. It is not a fixed skill. Four skills needed to overcome ^fear^ and ^panic^ is through control of the limbic system: [0] - Positive self talk - Goal setting of tasks - Mental rehearsal of tasks - Arousal control (breathing) [0] "Mental Training" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AZ-24JtAFQw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AZ-24JtAFQw
- Jach 9y ago
  Which is the most universal human characteristic - fear or laziness?
  - mercer 9y ago
    I've found that laziness is sometimes fear in disguise. I don't know how that contributes, but whatever I don't care to explain; I'll be downvoted anyways.

windlep 9y ago

I wonder how/if this relates to the fact that many mental illnesses fully manifest around 25 as well. "Roughly half of all lifetime mental disorders in most studies start by the mid‐teens and three‐fourths by the mid‐20s." - https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1925038/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1925038/

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
suneilp 9y ago
From personal experience I'd say it can relate to mental illnesses caused by trauma, hostile environments, etc. Getting over trauma and other emotional baggage has resulted in large improvements in sustained focus, lower inhibitions, and general cognitive improvements for me and I'm well past the age of 25.
- 52-6F-62 9y ago
  Different roots here, but same results. Gradually worsened up until ~25, though. Vastly improved after a couple of years, and seeing the tail ends ~30
AckSyn 9y ago
The brain reaches its full maturity around this age so it's unsurprising any mental illnesses reach their own peak in somewhat of a parallel. As a personal aside, it makes me question the sensibility of letting kids go off to war, vote, drink, or smoke before this age.
- coldtea 9y ago
  >The brain reaches its full maturity around this age so it's unsurprising any mental illnesses reach their own peak in somewhat of a parallel. Why would that be "unsurprising"? It's not like mental illness is intuitively correlated with increases/improvements in brain functioning... If anything, one would expect the inverse: for some mental illness the increase in brain functioning around mid-twenties would somewhat help reduce it.

docere 9y ago

Perhaps this has something to do with completion of myelination to the frontal lobes.

nkjoep 9y ago
FWIW, I've been discovered with MS exactly at 25.

WilliamDhalgren 9y ago

yeah, but apparently barely declines untill say 60+. Speed suffers however. "The adult years were remarkable in that complexity remained at a high level for a protracted period, in spite of a slow decrease of speed during the same period. This suggest that during the adult period, people tend to invest more and more computational time to achieve a stable level of output complexity. Later in life (>70), however, speed stabilizes, while complexity drops in a dramatic way." and "These speed-accuracy trade-offs were evident in the adult years, including the turn toward old age. During childhood, however, no similar pattern is discernible. This suggests that aging cannot simply be considered a “regression”, and that CT (completion time) and complexity provide different complementary information. This is again supported by the fact that in the 25–60 year range, where the effect of age is reduced, CT and complexity are uncorrelated (r = −.012, p = .53). These findings add to a rapidly growing literature that views RIG tasks as good measures of complex cognitive abilities [21, for a review]."

derefr 9y ago
It almost sounds like people try harder and harder to keep up with societal expectations of continued "sharpness"... until they hit some age where cultural norms say they aren't expected to be sharp any more. And then they stop trying, which causes an outsized decline as their lowered expectations of their own capability, feeds into lowered capability, which feeds back into further-lowered expectations.
- WilliamDhalgren 9y ago
  could be, I really don't know. I can imagine perfectly benign scenarios too; if our long-term memory grows with time, maybe there's just more possible connections/associations to filter out with time too, so that decision just becomes harder, with only the deeper old age being simply tissue decline, the exhaustion of cognitive reserves etc. Somewhat relatedly, I think I heard on some old Skeptic's guide to the universe episode about an experiment with some nootropic, maybe it was a racetam though I think it was mondafinil, and this kind of reaction time to response accuracy tradeoff was observed, on young healthy adults. Those with less correct answers slowed down, presumably concentrated better and gave better answers, but those already good at whatever the task was simply were slower and yet no better.

noobermin 9y ago

Ok, comments on fig. 2. The 95% confidence intervals are plotted, but clearly the distribution of their subjects seems to sample heavily near where they find their peak (~25 to 40 ish), and correspondingly, the drop offs are away from that area... Seems fishy to me.

joveian 9y ago
Also, if you look at the right side of figure 1 there are lines on the bottom of the complexity chart for each of the tasks, presumably representing people who essentially did not do the task (although they still seem to have spent a variable amount of time not doing the task). It looks like this skews older, and just by eyeballing the chart some of the 75+ would be upward trends if not for that bottom line. I skimmed the article and did not see a discussion of this.
- BlackFly 9y ago
  Furthermore, the poor sampling near the edges of the plots leads me to suspect that the trend away from a flat line is due to Runge's phenomenon. The peak may be nothing other than the oscillations from this phenomenon leaking into the interior of their data set.

Annielang 9y ago

I like your article https://www.justvirginhair.com/ https://www.justvirginhair.com/

known 9y ago

Poverty May Affect the Growth of Children's Brains https://science.slashdot.org/story/15/03/30/2159247/poverty-may-affect-the-growth-of-childrens-brains https://science.slashdot.org/story/15/03/30/2159247/poverty-...

futun 9y ago

I completely believe this. I was far more sophisticated in my late 20's. In my late 30's I learned to stop being such a douche... and I became far simpler. We all see through the Matrix as we get older...

xux 9y ago

Did anyone even read the article. The study has nothing to do with complex behavior or "sophisticated" behavior. It's a study on your ability to generate random list of results, like "listing the hypothetical results of a series of 12 coin flips so that they would 'look random to somebody else'"

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
etherael 9y ago
That strikes me as a poor measure of true randomness.
- averagewall 9y ago
  Why? Do you suspect that subjects were deliberately making their choices less random because they anticipated the poor performance of another person in assessing randomness? It seems like a good assumption that they knew they were trying to fool a sophisticated randomness test that they couldn't second-guess.
  - etherael 9y ago
    No, just humans are well known to be bad at actual randomness.
    - goldenkey 9y ago
      Considering that a random generator could generate 11111111111111111111111111 5 times in a row...it's a bit hard to claim someone's test results as a failure of randomness unless you claim you want a gaussian distribution or some other type of "character of randomness." Ie. running diehard tests on it and whatnot. A fixed number of trials is deceptive unless you can see the algorithm behind the numbers. And for a human being..you can't. So unless you have a giant sample size, and even when you do, there is a bit of a mischaracterization done depending on what tests you are going to use to determine how random the data is

twiss 9y ago

In high school, my math teacher once asked us to write down a random string of zeroes and ones, similar to what they did in the study to measure "cognitive functioning". He then asked us to count the number of times we alternated between 0 and 1. He told us that while most people try to have about a 50% split between 0 and 1, many alternate too often (0101101 instead of 0100011). Maybe there are other tests that one could learn to improve one's randomness, or at least write down a random string faster (they also measured speed). In the introduction, they cite that "the complexity of a subject-produced pseudorandom sequence (…) is surprisingly resistant to practice effects". However, is it also resistant to teaching effects?

trevyn 9y ago
This is a great question. What are the speed requirements? https://www.quora.com/Is-it-possible-for-a-human-to-generate-a-truly-random-sequence-mentally https://www.quora.com/Is-it-possible-for-a-human-to-generate... You could probably come up with a reasonably good, fast mental PRNG algorithm, and practice that.
- Someone 9y ago
  Pick a phrase (name, address, phone number would do), discard white space, and convert the upper two bits to binary. Example: "Pick a phrase" would become 00 01 11 11 01 00 00 10 01 11 01... That's certainly not random, but unlikely to be detectable for shorter sequences. (Edit: it probably is a fun exercise to write a program that decodes this code that reaches >75% (lossy) compression)
  - averagewall 9y ago
    That would hurt you on speed. It's much faster to just pull numbers out of your head as fast as you can write them down. That should be protection against using an algorithm. Even if you do have a fast algorithm, it would still get slower as you age, so you could use it to compare yourself at different ages. The test might also be scored using randomness tests that would pick up the repeated use of the same algorithm, like the one you described. Distribution of letters and their (ASCII?) bits won't be perfectly random. You could also hand code exceptions for known algorithms as you discover them. That's what interests me. Monitoring your own cognitive ability as you age for early detection and tracking of neurodegenerative diseases. For this, you need a test that's resistant to practice.

faragon 9y ago

TL;DR: clickbait

nabla9 9y ago

Authors' Reddit AMA: https://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/6accnw/plos_science_wednesday_hi_reddit_my_name_is/ https://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/6accnw/plos_scienc...

Rasco 9y ago

Previous discussion : https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14131086 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14131086

transverse 9y ago

I am conducting a survey as a first attempt to see what's going on. If you would be so kind, please take it here: https://j.mp/CoinFlippingSurvey https://j.mp/CoinFlippingSurvey If I get about 100 more respondents, I will release the data and analysis at the same link.

catshirt 9y ago
i can't tell if i'm more humored or intrigued.
woliveirajr 9y ago
It's not easy to click to the left or to the right 128 times. Can't you just replace it with a textbox where users type T or H, or something like that ?
- transverse 9y ago
  I agree. It is so much easier and quicker on a smartphone though. The survey is intentionally dumbed down so non-technical users don't have to type much. You can almost say it is geared toward the general population, many of whom use smartphones.

deleted 9y ago

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