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When Does Intelligence Peak?
- ohaideredevs 8y agoFluff article with misleading quote: "In this view, knowledge does not compensate for a declining adult intelligence; it is intelligence!" This doesn't introduce anything of interest to people who already know that fluid intelligence decreases and knowledge can continue increasing. Depressing.
- projectramo 8y agoWhat if the article is aimed at people who didn't know that?
- ohaideredevs 8y agoThen you got a decent introduction sprinkled with misleading commentary.
- usgroup 8y agoIndeed. Besides, and anecdotally, I think it’s moreso give-a-f%%k that decreases rather than intelligence.... Anything that purports to measure “intelligence” will be confounded by give-a-f%%k. You can’t separate the two.
- torstenvl 8y ago> processing speed and short-term memory for family pictures and stories peak and begin to decline around high school graduation I am skeptical that "short term memory for family pictures" is a discrete cogntive function. I'm even more skeptical that you can extrapolate anything generally useful about cognitive decline, since this result is exactly what I'd expect if there were no cognitive decline -- people are better at remembering things they can contextualize to the familiar, so of course they'll be able to remember new information about their families better when they still live with them than after they move out.
- wetwiper 8y agoagreed. I'd even be inclined to take it further and suggest that once leaving high school, pressures and stresses related to self sustainability (being employable, financial concerns, housing, etc etc) would become more real than any previous family memory. Also, wouldnt an understanding that materializes as one gets older of the back story into each memory story (with the frame that memory stories here as having a positive impact) have the potential to change the frame of the memory, which decreases the likelihood of it being remembered? As in, certain memories are pretty great until ypu understand how it came to be that way, in which case either the back story becomes more signigicant or it becomes more mediocore than remembered. And mediocrity is easily forgotten... I'd also suppose that as people move on with their lives, people relate to each other via shared stories... family stories have little meaning to those not involved, and so have little impact in "fitting in" in the rest of society. As that dawns on individuals leaving home, so are such stories repressed until they more actively need to be remembered.
- projectramo 8y agoDisappointed by the tasks they chose. This is because the data is collected in a lab but we have so much more data these days. Does anyone work for Udacity/EdX/Coursera? I would be interested to know if/how performance on those courses decline/improve with age. It would also be interesting to see if performance is correlated because of lurking third factor. (My money is on exercise, or time).
- psalminen 8y agoPerformance in MOOCS (or any educational setting) != Intelligence or ability to perform
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- projectramo 8y agoI guess I'm more interested in whether my ability to learn machine learning (or whatever the equivalent is in 10 years) will decrease over whether I'll be able to remember a 7 digit number. Call that what you will. I am confused about what you consider "ability to perform". Education is a context for performance.
- ohaideredevs 8y agoThe theory is that your ability to memorize a 7 digit number (working memory) IS fluid intelligence. The problem is that memorizing an x digit number is proven to be trainable, without much carry over to g or even other working memory tasks. I.e. - it's hard to train fluid intelligence rather than train the specific task which it is applied to.
- throway88989898 8y ago> performance in educational setting != ability or intelligence especially when the educational setting has an incentive to increase their performance metrics (not the same as standards)
- xyzzyz 8y agoThis[1] is the paper they quote. The paper is pretty confused, mostly by their own fault. For example: Recent evidence shows that whereas short-term memory for names and inverted faces peaks around the age of 22 years, neither short-term memory for faces nor quantity discrimination peaks until around the age of 30, a fact difficult to assimilate into the fluid-/crystalized-intelligence dichotomy (Germine, Duchaine, & Nakayama, 2011; Halberda, Ly, Wilmer, Naiman, & Germine, 2012). Whether face memory and quantity discrimination are exceptions to the fluid/crystalized rule or represent more systematic and previously unrecognized patterns of age-related difference is an open question First, there's no "fluid-/crystalized-intelligence dichotomy", since the two factors are highly correlated with each other, to the point where psychometricians prefer to derive the higher-order order factor, g. Second, clearly the authors will be very confused by results like this if they don't actually calculate g-loadings, and at the very least correlate the vector of g-loadings with the vector of age declines. Now compare the above paper with a paper studying basically same question, but using proper factor analysis[2]. In particular, if you're low on time or background, look at the graphs in Fig 2. Clearly, being able to separate g-loading from group factors and test-specific measurement error gives us much clearer picture of age-related decline. [1] - https://sci-hub.tw/10.1177/0956797614567339 https://sci-hub.tw/10.1177/0956797614567339 [2] - https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3637652/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3637652/
- gumby 8y agoFWIW I turned 55 this week and feel smarter and more capable than any time before in my life. I feel I write better code, and faster, than before. I understand articles and books better. I can't ski, bike, run, or backpack like I used to in my 20s. This is not a huge surprise.
- abc_lisper 8y agoMan, that gives me a lot of hope :)
- Theizestooke 8y agoMaybe you've just become more narcissistic :)
- harry8 8y agoMaybe you'll become kinder. :)
- AlexTWithBeard 8y agoLucky you! I feel like my coding peak was at 35 and is slowly declining ever since. I'm slowly getting better in dealing with people though.
- ken 8y agoI don't believe that "coding" is a single axis of quality, either. I'm now better at some types, and worse at others. When I was young, I was much better at reading or writing complex functions that worked correctly. As I get older, I'm much less able to, but I also wouldn't want to even if I could. I don't think that's just sour grapes. I don't want to inflict complex code on my coworkers, either. And there's many times (when I'm tired, when I'm fixing an emergency bug, etc) that I'm not at 100% mental capacity and I value not having to work right at my brain's complexity limit. 16 year old me would probably not have believed that.
- redsavagefiero 8y ago
- billf1953 8y agoDegree of change would be nice. These traits could all be very flat over time and therefore small peaks make things statistically significant.
- blunte 8y agoAnd when does the definition of intelligence stabilize?
- badrabbit 8y agoCome now,this is silly. There are people in their 60s that are so physically fit they can win a fair fist fight against a 20 something year old who ever so rarely works on his/her muscles. Why is there a presumption that intellectual capacity is any different? A person that trains their mind will do better than those that don't,that's obvious.but how many people reach anywhere near their intellectual maximum capacity? My theory is that as people get older the items of life take up much more of their time than in their earlier years which steals their potential to maintain or exceed their earlier intellectual capacity. Those that manage to make time for a mental workout in latter years would likely feel as competent as when they were young if not more. Just a theory based on observation.
- Waterluvian 8y agoI hear you. But consider this. So you're making a case that you can exercise muscles and cardiovascular system, so therefore you can exercise the brain. But what about other organs? Can you keep skin youthful through exercising it? What about hair? Eyes? I think it's equally as plausible that no, you can't exercise the brain just by using it well. (though I don't personally believe this)
- aeternus 8y agoThere is also clearly a peak and decline, even with exercise. The article does seem to cover this given the wide error bars for some of the cognitive tasks.
- jimmy1 8y ago> Can you keep skin youthful through exercising it No but you certainly can by avoiding excessive sunlight exposure and staying hydrated!
- badrabbit 8y agoIntellectual capacity increases when people study intellectually demanding subjects and decreases when neglected,this is similar to the muscular and cardiovascular systems and afaik undisputed.
- hyperpallium 8y agoPSA: Being determined is a superior predictor of success than intelligence. With age, you have a better idea of what you feel is worth doing, and why, than the easy enthusiasms of youth. Of course, those with wisdom, intelligence and youth will beat you. It's rare.
- yters 8y agoI feel my ability to think quickly and see intuitive connections has decreased, but on the other hand I've become more logical and rational in my thinking. I think the latter has become more valuable to me, because it is key for communicating with others. And clear communication is much more useful right now than rapid thought.
- runxel 8y agoFor a brief moment I thought this article will talk about the point where humanity itself peaks in intelligence and knowledge. On the other hand looking at the USA, I'd definitely say it already happened.
- z3t4 8y agoYou are probably the smartest at around 5 to 10 years old. At least when it comes to creativity and learning. Peak performance of brain capacity is probably around 20 to 25. After that you aren't getting particular less intelligent per see but stress and lack of sleep are deterrent. The risk of stroke also increases as you get older. There are probably a peak of intelligence at around age 50 when your brain is still healthy and you have acquired experience and knowledge.
- mirimir 8y agoThis is a classic example of Betteridge's law. Edit: QED >It seems that the question "When does intelligence peak?" is actually a rather meaningless question. Not only do our various cognitive functions peak at different times, but past a certain age it might make more sense to view adult intelligence not through the lens of youthful general processing speed and reasoning, but through the lens of expertise, wisdom, and purpose.
- bhl 8y agoHumans have an odd focus on individual intelligence, even though most of the achievements that we have accomplished as a species have been through collective intelligence – rarely would I say that people function and create alone.
- closeparen 8y agoOur obsession with individual intelligence is usually about selection for (leadership of) elite teams.