Reductionism and intelligence: the case of inspection time

Abstract

Successes in science tend to be successful attempts at reduction and causal interaction. The reduction of the interaction of bodies to the laws of motion and the reduction of chemical phenomena to elements and their interactions are good examples. In these cases reductionism leads to observed phenomena being explained by a relatively small number of basic concepts and the laws which govern the interaction of the concepts. The spectrum of inquiry that stretches from common sense to scientific psychology is infused with a tendency toward reductionism. Hippocrates and Galen originated and developed, respectively, the notion that temperamental differences might be reducible to the amounts of four bodily fluids, or humours (black bile, yellow bile, blood and phlegm), that a person produced. Astrologers reduced stable personality differences to the positions of the stars and planets at the time of birth. And differential psychologists have reduced the personality trait adjectives contained in the lexicon to about five major dimensions.

The Validity of the Graduate Record Examination for Master’s and Doctoral Programs: A Meta-Analytic Investigation

“…A number of studies have found that the average test score for colleges and law schools tend to be associated with stronger predictive validity (Bridgeman, Jenkins, & Ervin, 1999;Linn & Hastings, 1984;Ramist, Lewis, & McCamley-Jenkins, 1994). There is even evidence that for simple tasks such as choice reaction time (e.g., pressing a number key when that number flashes on the screen) performance shows an increasing association with cognitive abilities as the number of choices increases, making the task more complex (e.g., Baumeister, 1998; see also Deary, 1996).…”

Individual differences in cognition: British contributions over a century

“…The correlation is stronger, in adult samples at least, between performance-type ability measures than verbal. Mechanisms to explain this association between a psychophysical task and psychometric test scores have yet to be uncovered, though explanations in terms of higher-level processing such as strategies and motivation have been unsuccessful (Deary, 1996) and there are some interesting leads in terms of links with the P200 wave of the event-related response (Caryl, 1994). Simple auditory processing ef ciency likewise appears to associate with psychometric intelligence, but it is not clear whether auditory and visual processing tasks assess the same brain limitations (Deary, 1999).…”

Intelligence and visual and auditory information processing.

“…IT belongs to the psychophysical levels and is used here as a case study in an attempt to get at a part of the nature of intelligence (Deary, 1996). IT is a name given to four things: a task, a parameter, an individualdifferences measure, and a construct.…”

“…Having constructed simple, psychophysical tasks to measure IT parameters in visual and auditory contexts and results showing that both of these correlate significantly with cognitive ability test scores, what, if anything, can one say has been discovered about the nature of intelligence? As discussed by Deary (1996), some (call them "reductionists") have taken the correlations to mean that some form of mental speed is causal to individual differences and therefore that there is clear evidence about r .…”

“…These tasks often overlap in practice, and experiments that address one of these also often bear on the other two. Such explanatory problems are being addressed actively in the case of IT and were summarized recently (Deary, 1996;Deary & Stough, 1996). Figure 5.1 shows the types of research that are being or have already been conducted to try to explain the IT-mental ability association; these fields are discussed by Deary (1996) and Deary and Stough (1996).…”