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The study found that your ability to reflect on "your first impulsive response" in order to refine it or discard it, is closely related to your general intellig

The study found that your ability to reflect on "your first impulsive response" in order to refine it or discard it, is closely related to your general intelligence ability and numerical abilities. It refutes the idea that cognitive reflection is a separate skill independent of general intelligence.

Bluestein 2y ago
I guess, by some measure it should be a separate skill. It appears to be a measurable skill, apart from AGI, so there's that.- PS. It would appear to be a great, reflexive, quality for an AI to have: the ability to monitor its outputs, and improve on responses, in a "metacognitive" way.-
- prometheus76 2y ago
  Just because something is distinct does not mean it is independent.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
alphazard 2y ago
This is usually what happens when you try to tease out another skill or separate "intelligence" from the general factor, it ends up being correlated in the end.
- Teever 2y ago
  Well yeah, defects are clustered so if someone is likely to be damaged in one way they're likely to be damaged in another.
  - bbor 2y ago
    Super interesting maxim, thanks for sharing! Of course that’s part of it, but given the spatially distributed nature of the relevant networks (ie we could maybe constrain some of these Piagetian abilities to one hemisphere or lobe of the cortex, at best) I think there’s more at play than adjacency. I’m personally confident that the four faculties of the brain are each involved in reinforcing the others, and I think that provides a compelling causal mechanism correlating the development of one with increased performance among the others. For example, consider the Metaconscious gradually tweaking a baby’s Unconscious visual networks to improve their sight, and the increase in information input eventually bubbles up to develop the Metaconscious in turn.
discreteevent 2y ago
> ability to reflect on "your first impulsive response" This is why it's harder to be brave if you're smart.
- sandspar 2y ago
  Citation needed.
- nabusman 2y ago
  Isn't the other way around? Take a fireman, he's running into a burning building, whereas I'd think the first impulse would be to run away, hence he's reflecting on his first impulse to be brave.
  - jvanderbot 2y ago
    We all three of us understood this differently. I heard the old "Thinking fast and slow" dichotomy all over: You have snap impulses, and you have the ability to override them if you recognize them. Also "elephant and rider" from Haidt's books. A fireman spends time training his "elephant" (impulses) to be helpful in fire situations, first by overcoming his impulse for fear in the face of fire. This takes time. A person who is predisposed to contemplation might appear smarter on tests or be smarter in actuality (see TFA), but that doesn't have much to do with someone who has faced and conquered their fearful impulses enough that they are dampened.
  - TeMPOraL 2y ago
    I think that's training, which is the opposite of reflection - you train behaviors exactly so you don't dwell on them at the moment.
  - bena 2y ago
    It's kind of both ways. Your impulse is controlled by your amygdala. Fight or flight, where "fight" in this instance represents running into a building to save others. However, being able to reflect on your first impulse means you will sit back and assess the situation: "Can I get in?", "What are my chances?", "Am I protected enough?", "Will the structure collapse soon?", etc. So your first instinct may be to run in, but you hesitate because you want to do that critical thinking first.
nicklecompte 2y ago
It seems to me like it is yet another study which refutes the idea that we're able to scientifically measure "general intelligence" (or "cognitive intelligence," using the author's term). Instead of anything which can be called intelligence, these tests keep measuring the same wrong thing. This thing is clearly amenable to short-term improvement with practice, and possibly assistance from a trained psychologist. And I don't think it has much to do with the actual problems human brains have to solve. The fact that human brains can be trained to solve IQ test problems or math problems is interesting. But surely it's a tiny slice of what human brains can do.
- llamaimperative 2y ago
  No, it's another datapoint for IQ. General intelligence was discovered empirically, not hypothesized and then searched-for. The basic observation was that people who score highly on one intelligence-related test will generally score highly on every other intelligence-related test. The "dimensions" of intelligence, while hypothetically separable and distinct, don't actually appear to be so in practice. Smart people are smart at most things (in general), dumb people are dumb at most things (in general). This only gets shaky when one uses it to make moral arguments about people's value or worth, so I'll just explicitly say it: being smart is not a moral victory or very likely even something you earned at all. Smart and dumb people have equal claim to a dignified life here on earth.
  - bena 2y ago
    Yes, intelligence is more a multiplier of effects, rather than something useful in and of itself. You still need knowledge, skill, training, etc. Intelligence will allow you to acquire all of that more quickly and make better use of it, but intelligence without knowledge is useless. And just like taller people aren't better than shorter people, more intelligent people aren't better than less intelligent people. Nothing can make you a good person except your choices to do good things.
    - hirvi74 2y ago
      > more intelligent people aren't better than less intelligent people. I completely agree with this, and I wish it was something that was a bit more emphasized. However, I do think there lies the dangers of intelligence research. In seems that so much of the world is catered towards the idea that more intelligence = better person. I suppose the notion is that more intelligence people can produce greater value, thus they are more important/beneficial to society? In society, we have "gifted" programs, "elite" universities, "knowledge" workers, etc.. I'm probably rambling and wording this all poorly, but I guess what I am trying to allude to is that society definitely ranks people's value by intelligence in overt and subtle ways. Don't you think most parents would rather have a child with average empathy with gifted intelligence than a child that with gifted empathy and average intelligence? (Tangent below) I was required to take a legitimate IQ test (WAIS-IV) for the purposes of diagnosing/confirming a disability when I was in college. I'm not kidding when I say this, but I wish I was able to remain ignorant of the composite and subtest scores. Sure, it told me somethings about myself, but at the same time, I felt like it was some kind of report describing what domains my aspirations and limitations in life should be confined to. To me, it seems like intelligence is not important to those that have a lot of it, and it's significant to those that lack it (whether they realize it or not).

Bluestein 2y ago

I guess, by some measure it should be a separate skill. It appears to be a measurable skill, apart from AGI, so there's that.- PS. It would appear to be a great, reflexive, quality for an AI to have: the ability to monitor its outputs, and improve on responses, in a "metacognitive" way.-

prometheus76 2y ago
Just because something is distinct does not mean it is independent.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

alphazard 2y ago

This is usually what happens when you try to tease out another skill or separate "intelligence" from the general factor, it ends up being correlated in the end.

Teever 2y ago
Well yeah, defects are clustered so if someone is likely to be damaged in one way they're likely to be damaged in another.
- bbor 2y ago
  Super interesting maxim, thanks for sharing! Of course that’s part of it, but given the spatially distributed nature of the relevant networks (ie we could maybe constrain some of these Piagetian abilities to one hemisphere or lobe of the cortex, at best) I think there’s more at play than adjacency. I’m personally confident that the four faculties of the brain are each involved in reinforcing the others, and I think that provides a compelling causal mechanism correlating the development of one with increased performance among the others. For example, consider the Metaconscious gradually tweaking a baby’s Unconscious visual networks to improve their sight, and the increase in information input eventually bubbles up to develop the Metaconscious in turn.

discreteevent 2y ago

> ability to reflect on "your first impulsive response" This is why it's harder to be brave if you're smart.

sandspar 2y ago
Citation needed.
nabusman 2y ago
Isn't the other way around? Take a fireman, he's running into a burning building, whereas I'd think the first impulse would be to run away, hence he's reflecting on his first impulse to be brave.
- jvanderbot 2y ago
  We all three of us understood this differently. I heard the old "Thinking fast and slow" dichotomy all over: You have snap impulses, and you have the ability to override them if you recognize them. Also "elephant and rider" from Haidt's books. A fireman spends time training his "elephant" (impulses) to be helpful in fire situations, first by overcoming his impulse for fear in the face of fire. This takes time. A person who is predisposed to contemplation might appear smarter on tests or be smarter in actuality (see TFA), but that doesn't have much to do with someone who has faced and conquered their fearful impulses enough that they are dampened.
- TeMPOraL 2y ago
  I think that's training, which is the opposite of reflection - you train behaviors exactly so you don't dwell on them at the moment.
- bena 2y ago
  It's kind of both ways. Your impulse is controlled by your amygdala. Fight or flight, where "fight" in this instance represents running into a building to save others. However, being able to reflect on your first impulse means you will sit back and assess the situation: "Can I get in?", "What are my chances?", "Am I protected enough?", "Will the structure collapse soon?", etc. So your first instinct may be to run in, but you hesitate because you want to do that critical thinking first.

nicklecompte 2y ago

It seems to me like it is yet another study which refutes the idea that we're able to scientifically measure "general intelligence" (or "cognitive intelligence," using the author's term). Instead of anything which can be called intelligence, these tests keep measuring the same wrong thing. This thing is clearly amenable to short-term improvement with practice, and possibly assistance from a trained psychologist. And I don't think it has much to do with the actual problems human brains have to solve. The fact that human brains can be trained to solve IQ test problems or math problems is interesting. But surely it's a tiny slice of what human brains can do.

llamaimperative 2y ago
No, it's another datapoint for IQ. General intelligence was discovered empirically, not hypothesized and then searched-for. The basic observation was that people who score highly on one intelligence-related test will generally score highly on every other intelligence-related test. The "dimensions" of intelligence, while hypothetically separable and distinct, don't actually appear to be so in practice. Smart people are smart at most things (in general), dumb people are dumb at most things (in general). This only gets shaky when one uses it to make moral arguments about people's value or worth, so I'll just explicitly say it: being smart is not a moral victory or very likely even something you earned at all. Smart and dumb people have equal claim to a dignified life here on earth.
- bena 2y ago
  Yes, intelligence is more a multiplier of effects, rather than something useful in and of itself. You still need knowledge, skill, training, etc. Intelligence will allow you to acquire all of that more quickly and make better use of it, but intelligence without knowledge is useless. And just like taller people aren't better than shorter people, more intelligent people aren't better than less intelligent people. Nothing can make you a good person except your choices to do good things.
  - hirvi74 2y ago
    > more intelligent people aren't better than less intelligent people. I completely agree with this, and I wish it was something that was a bit more emphasized. However, I do think there lies the dangers of intelligence research. In seems that so much of the world is catered towards the idea that more intelligence = better person. I suppose the notion is that more intelligence people can produce greater value, thus they are more important/beneficial to society? In society, we have "gifted" programs, "elite" universities, "knowledge" workers, etc.. I'm probably rambling and wording this all poorly, but I guess what I am trying to allude to is that society definitely ranks people's value by intelligence in overt and subtle ways. Don't you think most parents would rather have a child with average empathy with gifted intelligence than a child that with gifted empathy and average intelligence? (Tangent below) I was required to take a legitimate IQ test (WAIS-IV) for the purposes of diagnosing/confirming a disability when I was in college. I'm not kidding when I say this, but I wish I was able to remain ignorant of the composite and subtest scores. Sure, it told me somethings about myself, but at the same time, I felt like it was some kind of report describing what domains my aspirations and limitations in life should be confined to. To me, it seems like intelligence is not important to those that have a lot of it, and it's significant to those that lack it (whether they realize it or not).