The role of speed in intelligence.

Beck, Lester F.

doi:10.1037/h0074499

Cited by 24 publications

(9 citation statements)

References 21 publications

(5 reference statements)

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“…However, they had differing expectations of whether a purified measure of speed, such as simple reaction time (SRT), would be related to more general, higher-level mental ability. A review by Beck (1933) was inconclusive.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The relationship between intelligence and reaction time varies with age: Results from three representative narrow-age age cohorts at 30, 50 and 69 years

Der

Deary

2017

Intelligence

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BackgroundReaction time (RT) has played a prominent part in research on mental ability for over a century. Throughout this time a number of questions have been repeatedly posed: what is the relationship of RT to general mental ability, and is this the same for simple and choice RT? Does the relationship change with age? How important is RT variability compared with mean values? Here we examine these questions in three population representative cohorts.MethodsParticipants were drawn from the West of Scotland Twenty-07 study, a longitudinal population based study designed to investigate socially structured health inequalities. At the fourth wave of data collection, part I of the Alice Heim 4 (AH4) test of general intelligence was administered, and reaction times were measured using a portable device. Means and standard deviations were recorded for simple and 4-choice reaction time. Full data were available for 2196 participants, comprising 714 aged 30 years, 813 aged 50, and 669 aged 69.ResultsCorrelations of simple RT means with AH4 scores were − 0.27, − 0.30 and − 0.32, for age 30, 50 and 69, respectively; and − 0.44, − 0.47 and − 0.53 for 4-choice RT. The underlying relationships showed evidence of non-linearity, particularly for simple RT, with stronger association at lower AH4 scores. This was more pronounced with age. RT variability was correlated with the mean at 0.57, 0.57, 0.58 for simple RT; and 0.53, 0.53, 0.47 for choice RT. Residuals from regressing the RT variability on the mean showed no association with AH4 in the case of simple RT but a weak association for choice RT which decreased with age.ConclusionsThere is a strong correlation of RT means with general mental ability which increases with age. The underlying relationship is complex for SRT. RT variability shows little association with mental ability when its dependence on the mean is removed. Combining samples with disparate ages may overestimate the association.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The relationship between intelligence and reaction time varies with age: Results from three representative narrow-age age cohorts at 30, 50 and 69 years

Der

Deary

2017

Intelligence

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“…Reaction time (RT) is a long established correlate of psychometric intelligence (Beck, 1933;Jensen, 2006), with higher ability individuals able to carry out cognitive operations faster than those with lower ability. In order to obtain reliable RT measurements, it is a standard practice to run many trials, which are aggregated to obtain a single representative measure of speed.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A neural analogue of the worst performance rule: Insights from single-trial event-related potentials

et al. 2016

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The worst performance rule is the tendency for participants' slowest reaction times to correlate more with psychometric intelligence than their faster reaction times. Reaction times, however, are influenced by the duration of multiple perceptual, attentional, and motor sub-processes, and it is unclear whether the same pattern exists in these sub-processes as well. We used single-trial event-related potentials to identify whether a worst performance rule pattern could be found in stimulus and response-locked P3b latency distributions and scores on a test of non-verbal psychometric intelligence. Fifty participants carried out a set of working memory oddball tasks, while electroencephalographic data were collected, and the British Version of the Intelligence Structure Test, in a separate session. Single-trial P3b latencies were identified in stimulus and response-locked data and a novel quantile bootstrapping method was used to identify which quantiles of the P3b latency distributions correlated most with test scores. In stimulus-locked data, correlations between quantile mean and test scores became more negative with increasing quantile, showing clear evidence of a worst performance rule pattern. In response-locked data, low scorers showed more extreme latencies in both tails of the distribution. However we did not observe a worst performance rule in behavioural data. These data suggest that psychometric intelligence is also associated with response-related processes, which may also contribute to the association between psychometric intelligence and reaction time variability.

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“…The vocabulary section of SCAT was not speeded for the two white groups aFor review of pertinent research, the reader's attention is drawn to papers by Beck (1933), Freeman (1933), Tryon & Jones (1933), Baxter (1941), Davidson & Carroll (1945), Cronbach & Warrington (1951), Helmstadter & Ortmeyer (1953), Lord (1956), Mollenkopf (1960), Morrison (1960), and Myers (1960), etc. JOURNAL OF EDUCA~ONALMEASUREMENT VOL.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Relative Magnitude of Speed and Power in Scat

Khan¹

1968

J Educational Measurement

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The School and College Ability Tests (SCAT) are widely used for educational decisions at different grade levels. These tests are designed to appraise capacity for school achievement and are supposed to be power tests. The elements of speed and power in a test affect other test parameters, i.e., item statistics, reliability, and validity, and should be weighted adequately for valid use of the test scores 1. The purpose of this investigation was to determine the proportion of speed and power in SCAT (Form 3B) for different content areas and cultural groups. METHODForm 3B of SCAT consists of four separately-timed parts, i.e., 30 vocabulary items (15 minutes), 25 arithmetic computational items (20 minutes), 30 verbal items (10 minutes), and 25 arithmetic problems (25 minutes). The total sample included 116 tenth-grade transfer students enrolled in four high schools in Florida. The total sample was subdivided into these four subsamples by selecting one white and one Negro group from the same city: White I (N=27), Negro I (N=29), White II (N---27), Negro II (N=33).The answer sheets of the students were scored and a total error score (X), a wrong score (W), and an unattempted score (U) was obtained for each individual. The U score depended upon the number of items that a student did not reach. If an unanswered item was followed by a reasonable number of items for which answers were marked, then, the item was scored as W assuming that the student had time to read the item but decided not to answer it. The above scores are related through the following equation (Gullikson, 1961 ), S2x = $2,,. + S'-'. + 2 r,,., SwS,,, where S21 is the variance for the i-type score, and rw,i is the correlation between the wrong and the unattempted items. For a pure power test, S2x = S2w, and for a pure speed test, Sgx = 8211 Gullikson (1961) has proposed that if S2w/S2x-~" 0 then the test is primarily a speed test, and if S2u/S2x-~" 0 then the test is primarily a power test. RESULTSThe vocabulary section of SCAT was not speeded for the two white groups aFor review of pertinent research, the reader's attention is drawn to papers by

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The role of speed in intelligence.

Cited by 24 publications

References 21 publications

The relationship between intelligence and reaction time varies with age: Results from three representative narrow-age age cohorts at 30, 50 and 69 years

The relationship between intelligence and reaction time varies with age: Results from three representative narrow-age age cohorts at 30, 50 and 69 years

A neural analogue of the worst performance rule: Insights from single-trial event-related potentials

The Relative Magnitude of Speed and Power in Scat

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