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> Kids with higher IQs will do better under time-constraint. Ehh... I don't agree with this at all. I don't think how fast or slow someone works has any relati

> Kids with higher IQs will do better under time-constraint. Ehh... I don't agree with this at all. I don't think how fast or slow someone works has any relation with IQ/intelligence.

derefr 14y ago
It's part of how IQ is defined. IQ is literally just "the (population-normalized) number that comes out of IQ tests", and IQ tests are structured as a set of pattern-matching/lateral-thinking questions which must be answered under time-constraint. Everyone can recognize a pattern or get a lateral thinking puzzle eventually. Adding the time-constraint splits the world into people who can recognize patterns quickly enough to employ that pattern-recognition in the course of their every-day life, and those who can't: thus, IQ. Without the time constraint, an IQ test wouldn't really measure anything at all. IQ is believed to relate to intelligence because the ability to see patterns sufficiently quickly gives you a kind of "intuition" for new subjects. It's like a lubrication against friction: without it, new subjects will be "at rest" in your mind, and you'll have to give them a push to get your understanding of them going. With it, they'll just slide down the funnel right into your brain. :) More technically, IQ could be seen as a measure for how much of a cost your brain puts to engaging your type-2 reasoning (http://lesswrong.com/lw/531/how_you_make_judgments_the_elephant_and_its_rider/ http://lesswrong.com/lw/531/how_you_make_judgments_the_eleph...). As expected, glucose, butter, CNS stimulants, and other things that make the brain think it has more "stored resource" to work with, are measured to enhance IQ--because they lower the brain's calculation of this cost, and therefore allow you to engage your lateral-thinking processes more easily and more often. Likewise, hunger, depression, and other things which raise your brain's cost evaluations unilaterally, also raise the cost of engaging your type-2 reasoning, and thus lower your IQ.
- IanCal 14y ago
  "Everyone can recognize a pattern or get a lateral thinking puzzle eventually." I disagree, there are tests such as this: http://www.eskimo.com/~miyaguch/power.html http://www.eskimo.com/~miyaguch/power.html which have no time limit, yet are very difficult. I don't think "everyone" has the ability to answer all of these questions. "Without the time constraint, an IQ test wouldn't really measure anything at all." It may measure how well you are able to abstract problems. Whether or not it has much to do with your ability in different disciplines is another matter, but arguing that it is simply down to timing seems somewhat silly.
  - derefr 14y ago
    You're still implicitly assuming a time-constraint, though: the amount of time the person is willing to put into the problem before giving up. Presume someone puts in years of thought to a single lateral-thinking problem, and yes, they'll get it. Anyone will get it, if just by raw brute force, testing over every possibly combination of properties of the system that might have an underlying correlation. Most people just aren't willing to do that. Given a finite amount of patience (or, equivalently, a time-constraint, which sets "patience" to a known quantity instead of allowing it to vary per individual), we can give a person an infinite stream of unit-sized lateral-thinking problems, and then see how many will be solved correctly before they "hit the wall." This is then a measure of their ability, in general, to recognize patterns quickly enough to put these insights to use: IQ.

> Kids with higher IQs will do better under time-constraint. Ehh... I don't agree with this at all. I don't think how fast or slow someone works has any relation with IQ/intelligence.

derefr 14y ago

It's part of how IQ is defined. IQ is literally just "the (population-normalized) number that comes out of IQ tests", and IQ tests are structured as a set of pattern-matching/lateral-thinking questions which must be answered under time-constraint. Everyone can recognize a pattern or get a lateral thinking puzzle eventually. Adding the time-constraint splits the world into people who can recognize patterns quickly enough to employ that pattern-recognition in the course of their every-day life, and those who can't: thus, IQ. Without the time constraint, an IQ test wouldn't really measure anything at all. IQ is believed to relate to intelligence because the ability to see patterns sufficiently quickly gives you a kind of "intuition" for new subjects. It's like a lubrication against friction: without it, new subjects will be "at rest" in your mind, and you'll have to give them a push to get your understanding of them going. With it, they'll just slide down the funnel right into your brain. :) More technically, IQ could be seen as a measure for how much of a cost your brain puts to engaging your type-2 reasoning (http://lesswrong.com/lw/531/how_you_make_judgments_the_elephant_and_its_rider/ http://lesswrong.com/lw/531/how_you_make_judgments_the_eleph...). As expected, glucose, butter, CNS stimulants, and other things that make the brain think it has more "stored resource" to work with, are measured to enhance IQ--because they lower the brain's calculation of this cost, and therefore allow you to engage your lateral-thinking processes more easily and more often. Likewise, hunger, depression, and other things which raise your brain's cost evaluations unilaterally, also raise the cost of engaging your type-2 reasoning, and thus lower your IQ.

IanCal 14y ago
"Everyone can recognize a pattern or get a lateral thinking puzzle eventually." I disagree, there are tests such as this: http://www.eskimo.com/~miyaguch/power.html http://www.eskimo.com/~miyaguch/power.html which have no time limit, yet are very difficult. I don't think "everyone" has the ability to answer all of these questions. "Without the time constraint, an IQ test wouldn't really measure anything at all." It may measure how well you are able to abstract problems. Whether or not it has much to do with your ability in different disciplines is another matter, but arguing that it is simply down to timing seems somewhat silly.
- derefr 14y ago
  You're still implicitly assuming a time-constraint, though: the amount of time the person is willing to put into the problem before giving up. Presume someone puts in years of thought to a single lateral-thinking problem, and yes, they'll get it. Anyone will get it, if just by raw brute force, testing over every possibly combination of properties of the system that might have an underlying correlation. Most people just aren't willing to do that. Given a finite amount of patience (or, equivalently, a time-constraint, which sets "patience" to a known quantity instead of allowing it to vary per individual), we can give a person an infinite stream of unit-sized lateral-thinking problems, and then see how many will be solved correctly before they "hit the wall." This is then a measure of their ability, in general, to recognize patterns quickly enough to put these insights to use: IQ.