Great at reading or recognizing faces? You might not do so well on an IQ test. Source: Histoire
naturelle générale et particulière avec la Description du Cabinet du Roy (1749)
(Wikicommons)
The
English psychologist Charles Spearman was the first to argue that a single
factor, called "g," explains most of the variability in human
intelligence. When observing the performance of children at school, he noticed
that a child who did well in math would also do well in geography or Latin.
There seemed to be a general factor that facilitates almost any kind of mental
task.
Spearman
did, however, acknowledge the existence of other factors that seem more
task-specific:
[...]
all branches of intellectual activity have in common one fundamental function
(or group of functions), whereas the remaining or specific elements of the
activity seem in every case to be wholly different from that in all the others.
(Spearman, 1904, p. 284)
That
is where things stood for over a century. In recent years, however, we’ve begun
to identify the actual genes that contribute to intelligence. These genes are
very numerous, numbering perhaps in the thousands, with each one exerting only
a small effect. Many act broadly on intelligence in general and may correspond
to the g factor, which seems to be a widespread property of neural tissue,
perhaps cortical thickness or the integrity of white matter in the brain. Other
genes act more narrowly on specific mental tasks. The ability to recognize
faces, for instance, seems to have no relation at all to general intelligence.
You can be great at recognizing faces while being as dumb as rocks (Zhu et al., 2009).
One
way to locate these genes is through genome-wide association studies. We look
at the various alleles of genes whose locations are already known, typically
SNPs (single nucleotide polymorphisms), and see whether this source of variability
correlates with variability in a mental trait. If we find a significant
correlation, the genes for that trait must be nearby. The same kind of study can
also show us how narrowly or broadly these genes act. Do they merely influence
intelligence in general? Or do they provide more specific instructions? Such as
how to recognize certain objects or how to react to them?
A
genome-wide association study has recently shed light on various mental traits.
In most cases, a common factor seems to explain about half of the genetic variability.
This common factor is weakest for emotion identification, i.e., the ability to
identify the emotions of other people by their facial expressions. Emotion
identification actually correlates negatively with nonverbal reasoning (-0.25)
and only weakly with verbal memory (0.17) and spatial reasoning (0.26). The
highest correlation is with reading (0.40) and language reasoning. (0.45). Reading
and language reasoning are highly intercorrelated, perhaps because they share the same mental module (Robinson et al., 2014).
This
partial modularity has been confirmed by a recent twin study on reading and
math ability. If we look at the genetic component of either reading or math
ability, at least 10% and probably half affects performance on both tasks.
Conversely, the other half is specific to either one or the other (Davis et al., 2014).
An evolutionary
mystery?
But
how can reading ability have a specific genetic basis if people began to read
only in historic times? Indeed, history is said to begin with the first written
documents. Surely humans weren't still evolving at that point?
To
ask the question is to answer it. Not only were they still evolving, they were
actually doing so at a faster pace than their prehistoric ancestors. Humans
have undergone much more genetic change over the past 10,000 years than over
the previous 100,000 (Hawks et al., 2007). This is a difficult fact to swallow,
let alone digest, but we must learn to accept it and all of its implications.
The
new findings on reading ability are consistent with other ones. The human brain
has a special region, called the Visual Word Form Area, that is used to
recognize written words and letters. If it is damaged, your reading ability will
suffer but not your recognition of objects, names, faces, or general language
abilities. There will be some improvement over the next six months, but reading
will still take twice as long as it had previously. This brain region varies in
size and organization from one individual to another and from one human
population to another, being differently organized in Chinese people than in
Europeans (Frost, 2014; Gaillard et al, 2006; Glezer and Riesenhuber, 2013;
Levy et al., 2013; Liu et al., 2008).
Genome-wide
association studies may help us pinpoint the actual genes responsible for the
Visual Word Form Area. In fact, we may have already found one: ASPM. This gene influences brain growth
in other primates and has evolved in humans right up into historic times. Its
latest allele arose about 6000 years ago in the Middle East and proliferated
until it reached incidences of 37-52% in Middle Easterners, 38-50% in
Europeans, and 0-25% in East Asians. Despite its apparent selective advantage,
this allele does not improve performance on IQ tests (Mekel-Bobrov et al.,2007; Rushton et al., 2007). It is nonetheless associated with larger brain
size in humans (Montgomery and Mundy, 2010).
Its
Middle Eastern origin some 6000 years ago suggests this allele may have owed
its success to the invention of writing. Most people had trouble reading, writing,
and copying lengthy texts in ancient times, when characters were written continuously
with little or no punctuation. There was an acute need for scribes who could excel
at this task, and such people were rewarded with reproductive success (Frost, 2008; Frost, 2011).
Conclusion
Human
intelligence is modular to varying degrees, and much of this modularity seems
to have arisen during historic times. It is a product of humans adapting not
only to their physical environments but also to their more rapidly evolving
cultural environments.
While
there is such a thing as general intelligence, it seems to be only half of the
picture. Two people may have the same IQ and yet differ significantly in
various mental abilities. There may also be trade-offs between general
intelligence and more specific mental tasks. If you're great at abstract
reasoning, you may be lousy at decoding facial expressions. This may be because
the two abilities compete with each other for limited mental resources. Or it
may be that selection for abstract reasoning has occurred in an environment
where people can trust each other and have no need to scrutinize facial
expressions for signs of lying ... or imminent physical assault.
The
same applies to human populations. Two populations may have the same mean IQ,
and yet differ statistically over a large number of mental and behavioral
traits. Although these differences may be scarcely noticeable if we compare two
individuals taken at random from each population, their accumulative effect
over many thousands of individuals can steer one population along one path of
cultural evolution and the other along another. Furthermore, two populations
may arrive at a similar outcome via different paths of cultural evolution and
via different mental and behavioral packages. Europeans and East Asians have
both reached an advanced level of societal development, but this similar
outcome has been achieved in East Asian societies largely through external
mediation of rule enforcement (e.g., shaming, peer pressure, family discipline)
and in European ones mainly through internal means of control (e.g., guilt,
empathy).
References
Davis,
O.S.P., G. Band, M. Pirinen, C.M.A. Haworth, E.L. Meaburn, Y. Kovas, N. Harlaar,
et al. (2014). The correlation between reading and mathematics ability at age
twelve has a substantial genetic component, Nature
Communications, 5
http://www.nature.com/ncomms/2014/140708/ncomms5204/full/ncomms5204.html
Frost,
P. (2008). The spread of alphabetical writing may have favored the latest
variant of the ASPM gene, Medical
Hypotheses, 70, 17-20.
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0306987707003234
Frost,
P. (2011). Human nature or human natures? Futures,
43, 740-748. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.futures.2011.05.017
Frost,
P. (2014). The paradox of the Visual Word Form Area, March 1, Evo and Proud
http://evoandproud.blogspot.ca/2014/03/the-paradox-of-visual-word-form-area.html
Gaillard,
R., Naccache, L., P. Pinel, S. Clémenceau, E. Volle, D. Hasboun, S. Dupont, M.
Baulac, S. Dehaene, C. Adam, and L. Cohen. (2006). Direct intracranial, fMRI,
and lesion evidence for the causal role of left inferotemporal cortex in
reading, Neuron, 50, 191-204.
http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.76.7620&rep=rep1&type=pdf
Glezer,
L.S. and M. Riesenhuber. (2013). Individual variability in location impacts
orthographic selectivity in the "Visual Word Form Area", The Journal of Neuroscience, 33(27), 11221-11226.
http://www.jneurosci.org/content/33/27/11221.full
Hawks,
J., E.T. Wang, G.M. Cochran, H.C. Harpending, and R.K. Moyzis. (2007). Recent
acceleration of human adaptive evolution. Proceedings
of the National Academy of Sciences (USA), 104, 20753-20758.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2410101/
Levy,
J., J.R Vidal, R. Oostenveld, I. FitzPatrick, J-F. Démonet, and P. Fries.
(2013). Alpha-band suppression in the Visual Word Form Area as a functional
bottleneck to consciousness, NeuroImage,
78C, 33-45.
http://hal.inria.fr/docs/00/81/96/67/PDF/Levy_et_al.pdf
Liu, C., W-T. Zhang, Y-Y
Tang, X-Q. Mai,
H-C. Chen, T. Tardif, and Y-J. Luo. (2008). The visual word form area: evidence
from an fMRI study of implicit processing of Chinese characters, NeuroImage, 40, 1350-1361.
http://www.yi-yuan.net/english/PAPERS/PAPERS_2008/2008_The-Visual-Word-Form-Area-Evidence.pdf
Mekel-Bobrov,
N., Posthuma, D., Gilbert, S. L., Lind, P., Gosso, M. F., Luciano, M., et al.
(2007). The ongoing adaptive evolution of ASPM and Microcephalin is not
explained by increased intelligence, Human
Molecular Genetics, 16, 600-608.
http://psych.colorado.edu/~carey/pdfFiles/ASPMMicrocephalin_Lahn.pdf
Montgomery,
S. H., and N.I. Mundy. (2010). Brain evolution: Microcephaly genes weigh in, Current Biology, 20, R244-R246.
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0960982210000862
Robinson,
E.B., A. Kirby, K. Ruparel, J. Yang, L. McGrath, V. Anttila, B.M. Neale, K.
Merikangas, T. Lehner, P.M.A. Sleiman, M.J. Daly, R. Gur, R. Gur and H.
Hakonarson. (2014). The genetic architecture of pediatric cognitive abilities
in the Philadelphia Neurodevelopmental Cohort, Molecular Psychiatry, published online July 15
http://www.nature.com/mp/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/mp201465a.html
Rushton,
J. P., Vernon, P. A., and Bons, T. A. (2007). No evidence that polymorphisms of
brain regulator genes Microcephalin and ASPM are associated with general mental
ability, head circumference or altruism, Biology
Letters, 3, 157-160.
http://semantico-scolaris.com/media/data/Luxid/Biol_Lett_2007_Apr_22_3(2)_157-160/rsbl20060586.pdf
Spearman,
C. (1904). "General intelligence," objectively determined and
measured, The American Journal of
Psychology, 15, 201-292.
http://www.jstor.org/stable/1412107
Zhu,
Q., Song, Y., Hu, S., Li, X., Tian, M., Zhen, Z., Dong, Q., Kanwisher, N. and
Liu, J. (2009). Heritability of the specific cognitive ability of face
perception, Current Biology, 20, 137-142.
http://web.mit.edu/bcs/nklab/media/pdfs/Zhu_et_al_Heritability.pdf 
28 comments:
“The English psychologist Charles Spearman was the first to argue that a single factor, called "g," explains most of the variability in human intelligence. When observing the performance of children at school, he noticed that a child who did well in math would also do well in geography or Latin.”
Well, I have to say that I somehow independently (I had no clue who is Spearman neither "g") reached the similar conclusion at the age of about 15, when I was still a junior high school stud in China. And I went even further than Spearman in one of my Chinese essays at a time arguing that if one has an ability to be one of the best in one area of mental work (e.g. say one of the best engineers around), he/she must have an ability to be one of the best at any other mental work (e.g. say a famous chef – yes, to really become one of the best chefs in the world requires an extraordinary amount of mental work). The fact that we don’t see this happening in real life so often, or indeed rarely, is simplely because one has so limited time and energy in life that after he specializes in one thing for the sake of make a living or just personal interest he barely has any time left for other thing/s. It was a very controversial argument. Indeed I was arguing that e.g. a Nobel Chemistry winner has the same ability to become a Nobel Literature winner, or a “Picasso”, or a top world class architect … and vice versus, as long as the professional titles they hold are truly objectively given instead of, say, for political purpose. .
So in my mind by pure intuition I have always believed since I was little that one actually has only 1 (type of) ability. I can still recall that I argued with many until my face turned blue at a time. Am I crazy? Perhaps not quite.
It has always puzzled me why a (western)IQ test has 2 parts (spatial & verbal) instead of one. It’s not convincing AT ALL to me that
1/ spatial & verbal are completely separated mental abilities (just because they are located in different parts of brain that are seemingly different according to our current understanding of human brain??) , as the current ( Western) IQ test suggests.
2/ 1 spatial IQ point = 1 verbal IQ point -- the assumption imbedded in ( Western) IQ test scores that assume A. it requires the same brain energy unit to exchange 1 unit of spatial IQ point for 1 unit of verbal IQ point (because the brain resource is finite), and B. there are no other more complex issue/s inside the brain involved during the exchange apart from pure energy. Both A and B are borderline lunaticly bold.
Indeed, the 100-year results of worldwide IQ scores prove my intuition when I was 15 to a large extent that when one race has high spatial scores, it somehow “magically” must have high verbal scores too, and vice versus. Never have we encountered a phenomenon that when one race has low spatial scores but “magically” high verbal scores, and vice versus. Isn’t that painfully obvious enough?
Nonetheless, even though I can easily see why that the current IQ scores could be a good proxi to the true IQ, whatever that is, theoretically speaking, I don’t believe for a second the current exact ranking order of *artificially combined* general IQ score that “Ashkenazi Jews>East Asians >Western European”, because it has so many holes as argued above that sometimes it’s even comical for me to see how those big name IQ “experts” such as Murray or Harpending argue this as if it's the most assured thing since sliced bread.
Language and face reading are connected? That'll be the estrogen.
But how can reading ability have a specific genetic basis if people began to read only in historic times? Indeed, history is said to begin with the first written documents. Surely humans weren't still evolving at that point?
We'd probably find the same separate genetic basis in as large a sample of Khoi-San. A specific basis does not require a specific stimulus.
This is a bit off-topic but dyslexia is not correlated with race is it?What about Asperger's syndrome?
Peter, can you please remove the posts about me being spread by someone in the last thread please?
Thanks.
We’ve all run into men who are very mechanically-inclined, i.e. they have a strong intuition for how mechanical things work and how to fix them. My maternal grandfather was this way. I wonder if this correlates with g or if this quality represents some other cognitive ability.
Panda,
Spatial and verbal abilities are not completely separate from each other, but there is good evidence for some modularity. Intuitively, I would expect to see modularity for two reasons:
- there are thousands of genes that influence mental ability. Is it reasonable to presume that they all have the same general effect?
- selection pressures that favor certain mental traits often act neutrally or even negatively on other mental traits.
Anon,
A New York study found that low SES subjects had less activation of the Visual Word Form Area. Knowing the demographics of New York, I suspect that the VWFA is less developed in people of African ancestry, but I can't say for sure.
Anon,
Interesting question. Does anyone here know?
B&B,
O.K.
Bruce,
Mechanical ability involves an ability to imagine how things relate in three dimensions (plus the dimension of time). This kind of ability does show some modularization.
Peter, I see where you're coming from. It seems that you've misunderstood me or I didn't explain it clear enough -
My emphasis on 'g' does not systemmatically deny, not at all, that there're some degrees of modularization. Actually I believe that there must be some clear and strong modularizations going on inside brain, the similar as lungs, heart, liver etc do inside a human body.
However, it seems that modularization doesn't nessacerily have to contradict with "g". The two can be recociled if the former is taken as function-wise, while the latter the general "end-product":
- there are thousands of genes that influence mental ability. It it NOT reasonable to presume that they all have the same general effect. But why we have to start with these numerous currently- known and unkown "buttergly effects" and "dragonfly effects", if we can already gauge the size of the "end-product tornato" (g) at the other side of the Atlantic?
- selection pressures that favor certain mental traits often act neutrally or even negatively on other mental traits - true. It seems that there're 2 ways to go:
i. find out and analysize every and each modurization inside brain,alongwith the effects they have among themselves, before sum them up to get IQ. (it is an interesting ongoing SOP btw), or
ii. just directly try to measure the end product "g", in an analogy to directly have some general health check of blood etc to know one's general health statue, instead of checking every known organs. I was arguing for ii, believing that 'g' is highly positively correlated to the end result of i.
1. " The ability to recognize faces, for instance, seems to have no relation at all to general intelligence. You can be great at recognizing faces while being as dumb as rocks (Zhu et al., 2009). "
I haven't read the paper but I highly doubt the claim, because the seemingly easy task of "recognizing faces" may logically require a great deal of "g" by ways of instant "data" analysis/ "data" mining (that's high g actually) and acute memorization level, just to name two (apart from decent spatial ability?).
2. "Europeans and East Asians have both reached an advanced level of societal development, but this similar outcome has been achieved in East Asian societies largely through external mediation of rule enforcement (e.g., shaming, peer pressure, family discipline) and in European ones mainly through internal means of control (e.g., guilt, empathy)."
I have seen this line of reasons in many places. But is it a bit stereotyping, because I can argue just the opposite:
Just look at the general characterisitics of social behaviours of the East (China) and the West (Europe) - the modern Western societies and people behave orderly primarily because of Rule of Law(external means of control). One would expect that without Rule of Law, Communist China would have long been a place of chaos and outlaws. In many cases, China is, but primirily not. China as an empire, the Chinese society( both rulers and normal Chinese families) have been held together in a generally stable state for 1000s of years primarily through the rule of Confucius ideals (rule of a value and an idea in essence, not strictly lawfully binding btw - a typical internal mean of control).
Chinese in general can be argued to have lower level of empathy than the Westerners'. If that is true, it might simplely due to the much higher level of internal competitions in all areas by much larger population of China for at least 2,500 years. - but is that long enough to change genes?
My above arguement could also be further backed up by general personalities of the Chinese and the Westerners. Who is more likely to resort to internal means of control instead of external one, the one with lower degrees of agressiveness, higher level of cautiousness, lower level of impulsivity, and lower level of sociability? or the other way around? The answer seems quite obvious to me.
http://meinnaturwissenschaftsblog.blogspot.co.at/2014/08/feminist-activist-women-are.html
Feminist activist women are masculinized in terms of digit-ratio and dominance: A possible explanation for the feminist paradox
Abstract
The feminist movement purports to improve conditions for women, and yet only a minority of women in modern societies self-identify as feminists. This is known as the feminist paradox. It has been suggested that feminists exhibit both physiological and psychological characteristics associated with heightened masculinization, which may predispose women for heightened competitiveness, sex-atypical behaviors, and belief in the interchangeability of sex roles. If feminist activists, i.e. those that manufacture the public image of feminism, are indeed masculinized relative to women in general, this might explain why the views and preferences of these two groups are at variance with each other. We measured the 2D:4D digit ratios (collected from both hands) and a personality trait known as dominance (measured with the Directiveness scale) in a sample of women attending a feminist conference. The sample exhibited significantly more masculine 2D:4D and higher dominance ratings than comparison samples representative of women in general, and these variables were furthermore positively correlated for both hands. The feminist paradox might thus to some extent be explained by biological differences between women in general and the activist women who formulate the feminist agenda.
I was one of the best in Geography with an advanced vocabulary for my age during school times, but I'm completely stupid in math. Could someone explain me how to work the g factor for me ??
Comparisons of SAT scores between colleges, clearly show a division of labor specialists, where humanists tend to score higher in verbal IQ and low or average on non-verbal IQ, the technicist tend to score high on non-iq verbal and average or low on verbal iQ.
I think it's not hard to understand. My ability to decorate a lot about geography, name capital, population, ethnic composition, historical facts etc. ... relates to my inability to do math acoounts, relatively simple, or solve math complex problems.
Instead, I have a strange ability to see spatial differences in soil, however, I am so bad at math as I could be geometry.
You found a phenotype of intelligence, intelligence symmetric, where the fluctuation of skills is small and where the g factor can be applied as a modulator. Not figured out how the whole human intelligence works. And it is unlikely to be, as we build complex societies that have outsourced our own mental complexity and therefore our diversity of minds.
Santoculto
Sorry because i am read only the half off their text. But, again, seems that factor "g" related specially about Symmetric intelligence profile.
Santoculto
Panda,
The problem, here, is that the "end-product" varies from one individual to another and from one population to another. The end-product is a human who has to adapt to a specific environment. Some environments will require certain mental adapations that may be useless in another kind of environment. What good is my intelligence in a society where there is no reading material and where my social status depends on my ability to intimidate or beat other people up?
This is from Zhu et al.'s paper on face recognition:
"our finding that face-specific perceptual processing is not positively correlated with IQ adds to prior evidence for the cognitive and neural specificity of the faceprocessing system [5, 26] in supporting the modularity of mind [27, 28], that is, the idea that certain special domains of cognition are functionally distinct from each other and from more general-purpose cognitive machinery."
Rule of Law has existed in both European and East Asian societies. The difference is that European societies had two co-existing and often rival sources of authority: the Church and the State. The Church became an enforcer of State law, and the State became an enforcer of Church law. In East Asia, religion was always subordinate to the State and was never able to achieve the same degree of power, autonomy, and internal organization.
There were also pre-existing differences in Western Europe that facilitated the transition to later societies where ideology and the market economy eclipsed kinship as the main organizing principle. Western Europe seems to have had relatively weak kinship since prehistoric times.
For both reasons -- the greater power of the Church and a pre-existing weakness of kinship -- social rules have been enforced more by internal means of control and less by external means. It's a question of degree, since both have clearly been important.
Chris,
Interesting study, but why didn't the authors control for sexual orientation? "Attendees at a feminist conference" will probably be disproportionately lesbian.
Santoculto,
"Symmetry" is a relative term. A good balance of mental traits in one environment may be dysfunctional in another.
Yes, partially correct, well, starting on modern western societies perspective.
Santoculto
For all the research and publicity about spectrum genders, very little is said about 'tomboys'. I was a feminist, until I had children and discovered that 3-year old girls like pink fluffy slippers. Prior to that I really believed women were trapped in a world of pink fluffy accessories against their wishes! But there definitely is a 'princess' type of woman. Research in Holland showed that women do not show clear cut homo-heteroness in the way that men do. So my guess is that DR would be high for princess and low for tomboy but that either could be lesbian.
Peter, post-apocalypse, you may find your intellectual skills very useful in devising adequate defences or methods of creating a harmonious community from scratch, or designing devices to provide basic necessities, irrigation etc., or devising a new written language, or telling stories round the camp fire to boost morale. Macho blokes who want to recreate 'family' will gravitate towards you and provide the front line defence. Not all macho men enjoy dominance by violence.
''This is a bit off-topic but dyslexia is not correlated with race is it?What about Asperger's syndrome?''
I read,
Asperger more common in ashkenazim jews and in whites, less in apefreakkka, relativelly well distributed. But, more ''severe'' autism was found in somali immigrants in Minnesota than in whites, probably because the intelectual differences.
Dyslexia, similar path. Populations with more left handed people expected more dyslexia and autism, because both are related to brain anomalous assymetry or ''unbalanced'' brain, when the differences between strenghts and weakness are more strong.
Santoculto
Peter,
I see no obvious logical contradiction of how the “end-product” impacts to my argument if you mean one: “The end-product is a human who has to adapt to a specific environment” and “Some environments will require certain mental adapations that may be useless in another kind of environment” – both are true. But even though there never will be 2 exactly the same environments as you implies, any specific sub-environment on Earth has to satisfy some shared common yet largely most important characteristics of general environment of Earth in spite of some sub-environment- specific adaptations/abilities, and therefore this “end-product” under the Earth environment – say a human ( or say a symbol that embodies a certain set of relatively fixed general problem-solving skills for maximize the chance of survival for one and one’s offspring no matter where he is on Earth, Africa, Europe or Asia, that can be more or less measured today to a certain extend among races and within races) – can be readily compared apple-to-apple with any other “end-product” on Earth in a general sense.
E.g. don’t you think this general ability is the same either in a society where there is no reading material and where one’s social status depends on my ability to intimidate or beat other people up, or in a society where there is perfect rule of law and where one’s social statue depends pure on his ability to serve the civil society and people? For the former, the general intelligence will serve well on how to intimate or beat other people up in the best and most efficient way possible compared with the tricks deployed by the less intelligent ones if that has to be the only option for one’s survival – so-called Laws of Jungles that any human society had passed through or still has for some rather primitive societies unfortunately (e.g. “100, 000 tons of US Diplomacy – the US aircraft carrier”) , while for the latter, the general intelligence will serve well on different areas such as writing rocket science treatises, gift others a free dam instead of bombs, or whatever. This general ability in any society, East or West, or between any 2 races, in the last several 1000s years or in today, are essentially the same and comparable. I believe that even Confucius of 2, 500 years ago recognized this by phrasing sth like “every people has his own place (i.e. “ranking”, of individual or societies – a bit “racist” in today’s standard) in the world. By knowing his place clearly and acts in his place responsiblely, harmony can be achieved”. 1000s years later, perhaps inspired to prove that Confucius was spot on - Panda almost can imagine - Galileo launched his theory of how the planets positioned and moved.
Peter,
On Zhu, I highly doubt the precise definitions and validities of what are what he called “face-specific perceptual processing” and “cognitive and neural specificity of the faceprocessing system”. If both concepts are not defined scientifically rigorous enough, no matter why he could not find any positive correlation with IQ, even though I don’t challenge the existence of “the modularity of mind”. Panda’s common sense indicates that to correctly tell apart or group numerous, say 200, faces in a same age group across races ( i.e. both what one is familiar with and isn’t) in say, 10 minutes – a reasonable general test I guess, requires minimum, whether the winning guy consciously realizes himself or not, A. very good memory, and B. fast (seemingly “ruleless” facial) data points recognition, analysis and generalization to a rule done efficiently and correctly by his neurons in a flip of fingers – very much the same basic intellectual requirement for a good option market trader or a quant hedge fund dude in essence. And Zhu etc managed to find no correlation with IQ...?
On Europeans-East Asians, you haven’t convinced me at all, lol. It can be argued from both sides but the Western academics are somehow fixing their eyes on one side only. Yes it seems fair enough for you to argue that “the greater power of the Church and a pre-existing weakness of kinship -- social rules have been enforced more by internal means of control and less by external means” for Europeans. Nevertheless, by the same yardstick don’t you find it perhaps way more fair enough to argue that “ that greater power of Confucius ideals – hey, at least several hundred years earlier than the existence of any Church out there – and a pre-existing characteristics ( I’d venture by claiming perhaps way more pre-historic) of lower degrees of aggressiveness, higher level of cautiousness, lower level of impulsivity combined with lower level of sociability of the East Asians make them resort to internal means of control instead of external one logically more than the Europeans? – the evidences seem to be everywhere you look, e.g. a look at the world map to get a bit flavor: East Asians are by and large located where they were located 1000s of years ago, while the Europeans are all over the places. Which society seem to be generally more internally controlled vís-a-vís externally “controlled”?
Anonymous said...
"I was one of the best in Geography with an advanced vocabulary for my age during school times, but I'm completely stupid in math. Could someone explain me how to work the g factor for me ??"
Panda would like to give you a hand there if I may:
g factor works in such a way that if you're one of the best in Geography with an advanced vocabulary for your age during school times, you could be one of the best in having about the similar level of advanced Math vocabulary for your age during school times as well, if you were interested in and determined to learn how to spell and remember "plus", "minus", "multiply", etc. etc. etc, which of course doesn't neccesarily mean you were good or bad at Math per se.
Seriously, Anonymous you have to define riguously what "best" in Geograpghy means - wrote a well-known treatise on Geograpghy that was published in a serious mag, won a highly competive national or regional award on Geograpghy ? or just remembered a lot of advanced vocabulary of it?
''Panda would like to give you a hand there if I may:
g factor works in such a way that if you're one of the best in Geography with an advanced vocabulary for your age during school times, you could be one of the best in having about the similar level of advanced Math vocabulary for your age during school times as well, if you were interested in and determined to learn how to spell and remember "plus", "minus", "multiply", etc. etc. etc, which of course doesn't neccesarily mean you were good or bad at Math per se.''
I did not understand, but thanks for the explanation @ Panda, kindness your part.
''Seriously, Anonymous you have to define riguously what "best" in Geograpghy means - wrote a well-known treatise on Geograpghy that was published in a serious mag, won a highly competive national or regional award on Geograpghy ? or just remembered a lot of advanced vocabulary of it?''
Nonsense, this is intellectual status. Where I grew up, it does not exist, we are all equal.
Well, today I know the name of capital of approximately 70% of countries around the world.
The most special, always had genuine curiosity to learn and study what interested me.
It is completely possible to be good in verbal and bad at math, although there is a relationship between the two interpretation.
I have the world map in my head and a lot of different information about geography, as many demographics, geographic temporal dynamics, such as events, do not remember dates very well, but I know of events, its modern results and could stipulate trends.
Since childhood I have these 'obsessions'.
Besides studying about countries, I also invention countries as personal entertainment.
My vocabulary in my native language is very good. When I was 11, I already had the writing skills of a journalist of good quality. Without wanting to take advantage.
Santoculto
"It is completely possible to be good in verbal and bad at math"
This is the “mother” statement from most people in the world and all mass media or academic studies that people read. It contains multitudes of unspoken assumptions and has had massive influences on IQ-related studies for a long time. So Panda will not let it pass unchallenged and has to take this opportunity to tear it apart :
Firstly, what is “good” in eyes of one can be “quite bad” in eyes of others, and vice versus. One has to define generally accepted standard of what are “good” and “bad”, without which statements such as “good in verbal and bad in math” is absolutely meaningless. (unless like what I argue below).
What I argue is that if one is “good” at verbal, he must be by and large equally “good” at math with the same standard, and vice versus. E.g. if one is “good at verbal” means “good at vocab”, then he is about “equally good at” remembering the vocab of math ( if he is interested and have time for it of course). Or if one is “good at verbal” means “good at eloquent and convincing public speeches” (written by himself of course, not a teleprompter), then he is about equally “good at eloquent Mathematical reasoning” hence “good at Math” as well (if he is interested and have time for it of course). This is because the general ability dedicated in either verbal or math is the same/similar force, but manifested through different ways, influenced by slightly different environment.
Secondly, one assumes that all people somehow have the equal degrees of personal interest, time consumed and opportunities in life for the verbal-related and Math. This is false, because one can have “exceptionally good” math ability but have neither personal interest at all nor life opportunities at all in pursuing advanced math study hence resulting “bad” at math as a consequence (yet not necessarily as lack of ability), but “exceptionally good” at verbal instead.
"It is completely possible to be good in verbal and bad at math" – one the surface it is as a true and natural statement as “It is completely possible to be good at 100m sprint and bad at high jump”. Of course it is possible and indeed a look at the Olympics shows that there’re different bunches of athletes involved. But this is not necessarily 100% logical per se, because it neglects the stunning fact that both of these Olympics –level 100m sprinters and high jumpers share 1 common and arguablely most important factor – they all have advancely developed strong muscles – in spite of the fact that these muscles might be located in different areas of body developed through and influenced by different sub-environments (i.e. the modulariy of muscles?) of where they come from.
(cont.)
Back to IQ, what most people assume here is the following conclusion that really matters to most IQ studies including IQ test–
“Verbal and Math require different set of IQ abilities that are largely and mutually exclusive.”.
This conclusion is often “backed up” by researches that point out different regions in the brain are responsible for verbal and math hence they are different abilities.
I disagree with that.
Intuitively and logically Panda believes, for instance, if a “fantastically good” painter like Pablo Picasso is universally accepted known to be creatively abstract expressed by wild cubism angles and details,
- then he can be a “fantastically good” theoretical physician if studied in MIT,
or to be a “fantastically good” Cantonese chef if studied in length under some renowned Chinese cuisine masters,
or to be a “fantastically good” classical pianist if had opportunity learned and practiced with a “Lang Lang”,
or to be a “fantastically good” wild-card public orator if learned and influenced by a “Winston Churchill”,
or to be a “fantastically good” columnist if practised under NYT,
or to be a “fantastically good” (but boring) investment banker if forced to survive in WallStreet – indeed I even suspect a guy like Pablo Picasso could have firstly invented “Mortgage Pass-through Securities” with ease had he given a proper chance and an environment.
etc, etc.
This is because all of above, despite different skills required and some different yet comparably minor capabilities shown, share some common fundamental key ability:
abstract reasoning + logical analysis + expressively detail-oriented + memory
- this is about so-called “g” to me, responsible for the most essential part of human endeavours across board in most or all fields, yesterday and today, and can be universally comparable apple-to-apple.
It doesn't refute modularity of intelligence, but only exphaisis on the overwelming concentration of "g" and universally interchangability of it.
A key question therefore needs to be answered though, is how much of 1 unit of verbal IQ point can be translated into 1 unit of spatial point(or vice versus), given intuitively that they can't be a simple 1-to-1 exchange.
Panda@,
You want to know more about me than I even know ??
It is quite possible, I will repeat, be bad, in a nuance, and good in another nuance of the same cognitive domain.
Just break a skill in your head, like a castle, finally, a hierarchical and complex structure and the view. Embodying the skill and you can see what I'm seeing.
I know if I'm good at verbal attributes, then I will be good at solving mathematical problems. But not as long as I can remember I have a well-established mathematical ability and disability in this deficiency relates viscerally with my skills in verbal and all the rest. What made me weak in mathematics, may have influenced my ability to make poetry or imagination.
The interest is important, but it relates to the general characteristics of his mind. Is not the interest that you choose to make a skill rather than another. There is no choice. You can choose between journalism, geography and history, but how to decide which brand of microwave popcorn that you will take for home.
Santoculto
Internal vs external locus of morality may differ in a complex way with personality.
If we think of socially adroit people with a strong sense of self, then we could see that either a) their strong social abilities could liberate them from social control and manipulation (others try to control them, and with their strong abilities they see that and forge their own path), allowing and requiring them to develop an internal morality or b) their tendencies to social ability could lead them to become intensely social and so lacking in reflection and their own opinion.
If we think of socially maladroit people with a weak sense of self, we could see that either a) their weak social abilities make them vulnerable to manipulation and dependent on authority and family for social help, and thus they become morally pliable and prone to corruption or b) their tendency to low social ability could cause them to opt of out (even glorify opting out of) social relationships and so, once they are anti-social, their opinions drift freely from the crowd.
These are all plausible, so it's difficult to say what actually happens. It seems to me we would be best placed to assume locus of morality (either based on a personal code or social influence) as functionally uncorrelated to social aptitude and sense of identity.
@Panda
"This is because all of above, despite different skills required and some different yet comparably minor capabilities shown, share some common fundamental key ability:
abstract reasoning + logical analysis + expressively detail-oriented + memory
- this is about so-called “g” to me, responsible for the most essential part of human endeavours across board in most or all fields, yesterday and today, and can be universally comparable apple-to-apple.
It doesn't refute modularity of intelligence, but only exphaisis on the overwelming concentration of "g" and universally interchangability of it."
Even if intellectual ability in one domain translates to equal ability in any other domain, there are still differences in innate/aquired preferences. These preferences made the individual pick his favored domain in the first place. Differences in personality traits play their part, too. Picasso might have had high 'g', but maybe his personality was too shizoid for a world-class engineer. Moreover, artists' success is especially dependent on the environment. Many modern artists would have been burnt alive a few centuries ago.
Because reading was invented recently does not imply that the genetic basis evolved recently. Reading is based on language and vision, two abilities with a much older evolutionary history. The rest is neuronal recycling, as phrased by Stanislas Dehaene.
Reductio ad absurdum: Surely the ability to play tennis is heritable, yet it was only invented a few centuries ago. Does it follow that the genes involved have evolved in such a short time?
" Even if intellectual ability in one domain translates to equal ability in any other domain, there are still differences in innate/aquired preferences. These preferences made the individual pick his favored domain in the first place. Differences in personality traits play their part, too. Picasso might have had high 'g', but maybe his personality was too shizoid for a world-class engineer. Moreover, artists' success is especially dependent on the environment. Many modern artists would have been burnt alive a few centuries ago."
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Largely agreed. Personality, environment, family background, educational experiences, geographic locations, soicial influence, historical timeframe, pure luck, etc. etc. are all playing a role in deciding what one's profession - the field reflecting one's major achievements - gonna be, hench why Picasso became a Picasso but not a Steve Spielberg or a MIT Physician. However, it doesn't refute my proposition at all that (inate) intelletual ability, call it g or otherwise, could be by and large transferred amongst any professional fields and could be measured almost universally.
The only major thing I suspect here is that it is not a 1-to-1 translation between 1 spatial IQ point and 1 verbal IQ point as the mainstream ridiculously assumes. It directly challenges the current mainstream conlucsion of average IQ pecking order of Ashkenazi Jews, E.Asians and Euros. It is troublesome and not precise to say the least. If one has some intellectual honesty when look at the evidences pointed out by P. Rushton, one would immediately suspect that there's sth very wrong with that pecking order. Then all the straight-faced mainstream IQ experts could possiblely offer as a sort of be-all-end-all "evidences" are how many Nobel Prizes each of them has won, and which has been the corresponding porpotions accepted by the elite universities, etc... This leaves Panda speechless, as one has to be a borderline retard to believe in such "conclusive" nonsense. ROFL.
Fascinating article that interest me on a personal level. There are two traits in particular where I believe I am very far out on the opposite ends of the bell curve, and which I always felt were closely linked. One is prosopagnosia - an impaired ability to recognize faces, which leads to highly embarrassing encounters on almost a daily basis. I also happen to have truly exceptional abstract reasoning skills. I'd say that my abstract reasoning skills (advanced mathematics, logic, and similar areas) are at about the 99.9999 percentile rank. It's tough to assess where I stand relative to others on prosopagnosia. Very rarely have I encountered someone who seemed to have or admitted to having the condition to anything like the degree to which I experience it. But then, anyone who has the condition goes through life trying to hide it as much as possible. People are highly offended and insulted when I don't remember them and/or they think I have some degenerative brain disease (which is of course entirely possible). I read that 1 in 50 have some form of prosopagnosia. If that's the case, I'd guess my ability ranks at the 0.01 percentile (1 in 10,000) of the general population in ability to recognize faces.
The tragic thing is that I'm now 46 and my abstract reasoning skills are diminishing slightly and I'm sure will continue to fade as I age, but I expect my prosopagnosia will only get worse.
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