What intelligence tests miss

What Hacker News says

1. conistonwaterMar 2017
   Do you mean all the priming stuff? I thought the fast-slow thinking distinction was still okay. In that case, What Intelligence Tests Miss by Keith Stanovich might be a better read.
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2. eruditelyOct 2014
   Yes, but rationality in the sense of Stanovich isn't. See.

   http://www.amazon.com/Rationality-Reflective-Mind-Keith-Stan...

   Touches on the phenomenon of "Smart people acting dumb" if I have to state it utterly crudely. This is not one of the common knee-jerk reactions to intelligence metrics. The book itself is incredible.

   Summary of his previous work here http://lesswrong.com/lw/2g1/what_intelligence_tests_miss_the...

   Dysrationalia: Separating Rationality and Intelligence talks about the phenomenon informally described as "smart but acting stupid". Stanovich notes that if we used a broad definition of intelligence, where intelligence only meant acting in an optimal manner, then this expression wouldn't make any sense. Rather, it's a sign that people are intuitively aware of IQ and rationality as measuring two separate qualities. Stanovich then brings up the concept of dyslexia, which the DSM IV defines as "reading achievement that falls substantially below that expected given the individual's chronological age, measured intelligence, and age-appropriate education". ..... He argues that since we have a precedent for creating new disability categories when someone's ability in an important skill domain is below what would be expected for their intelligence, it would make sense to also have a category for "dysrationalia":

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3. bblleeJul 2014
   Reminds me of 'What Intelligence Tests Miss: The Psychology of Rational Thought,' the most interesting cognitive science book I've read. http://www.amazon.com/What-Intelligence-Tests-Miss-Psycholog...

   In short, rationality is not the same thing as intelligence and general intelligence does not correlate with rational behavior nearly as well as we might like it to. Individuals with high intelligence can and do put their mental endowments to work to argue for mistaken ideas and execute irrational plans.

   I'm now thinking of an intelligent individual who made a small misstatement in conversation, then, when challenged on that point, proceeded to explain why he was not mistaken for several minutes... then finally wised up and admitted that his original statement was wrong.

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4. realitygrillSep 2013
   The book to read here is What Intelligence Tests Miss, by Keith Stanovich. In it he argues cogently for both the importance and validity of IQ and the limitation of its scope. Rationality is not a concept contrived by theologians! (I find this idea extremely funny.)

   You are referring to Howard Gardner's popular idea of Multiple Intelligences, which has been roundly criticized for having pretty much zero support. To quote the book,

   Consider a thought experiment. Imagine that someone objected to the emphasis given to horsepower (engine power) when evaluating automobiles. They feel that horsepower looms too large in people's thinking. In an attempt to deemphasize horsepower, they then being to term the other features of the car things like "braking horsepower" and "cornering horsepower" and "comfort horsepower". Would such a strategy make people less likely to look to engine power as an indicator of the "goodness" of a car? I think not. [...] Just as calling "all good car things" horsepower would emphasize horsepower, I would argue that calling "all good cognitive things" intelligence will contribute to the deification of MAMBIT [Mental Abilities Measured By Intelligence Tests].

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5. tokenadultJul 2013
   The profiled psychologist doing the research discussed in this interesting submission mentions his book What Intelligence Tests Miss,

   http://yalepress.yale.edu/book.asp?isbn=9780300164626

   and I have recommended that book repeatedly in Hacker News discussion over the years. The book is readable, interesting, and surprising, and the bibliography cites most of the best recent research on human cognition.

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6. tokenadultMay 2013
   A book that helped change the way I think is What Intelligence Tests Miss: The Psychology of Rational Thought

   http://yalepress.yale.edu/yupbooks/book.asp?isbn=97803001646...

   http://www.amazon.com/What-Intelligence-Tests-Miss-Psycholog...

   by Keith R. Stanovich. I'll quote here from a review of the book I wrote for friends on an email list about education of high-IQ children, and sum up an answer to your question in my last paragraph:

   "For many kinds of errors in cognition, as Stanovich points out with multiple citations to peer-reviewed published research, the performance of high-IQ individuals is no better at all than the performance of low-IQ individuals. The default behavior of being a cognitive miser applies to everyone, as it is strongly selected for by evolution. In some cases, an experimenter can prompt a test subject on effective strategies to minimize cognitive errors, and in some of those cases prompted high-IQ individuals perform better than control groups. Stanovich concludes with dismay in a sentence he writes in bold print: 'Intelligent people perform better only when you tell them what to do!'

   "Stanovich gives you the reader the chance to put your own cognition to the test. Many famous cognitive tests that have been presented to thousands of subjects in dozens of studies are included in the book. Read along, and try those cognitive tests on yourself. Stanovich comments that if the many cognitive tasks found in cognitive research were included in the item content of IQ tests, we would change the rank-ordering of many test-takers, and some persons now called intelligent would be called average, while some other people who are now called average would be called highly intelligent.

   "Stanovich then goes on to discuss the term 'mindware' coined by David Perkins and illustrates two kinds of 'mindware' problems. Some--most--people have little knowledge of correct reasoning processes, which Stanovich calls having 'mindware gaps,' and thus make many errors of reasoning. And most people have quite a lot of 'contaminated mindware,' ideas and beliefs that lead to repeated irrational behavior. High IQ does nothing to protect thinkers from contaminated mindware. Indeed, some forms of contaminated mindware appeal to high-IQ individuals by the complicated structure of the false belief system. He includes information about a survey of a high-IQ society that find widespread belief in false concepts from pseudoscience among the society members."

   So Stanovich, based on the studies he cites in his book, concludes that the cognitive strategy of being a cognitive miser (using the minimal amount of information and thinking possible, even if it is too little) is such an inherent part of the human condition that external incentives and societal processes of decision-making are necessary to overcome that weakness. He has a fair amount of optimism about filling mindware gaps through educational processes that would train more thinkers in correct reasoning (as, for example, the kind of statistical training that some but not all hackers receive during higher education). He suggests that actively counteracting contaminated mindware (which is something I have a penchant for doing here on HN) is considerably more difficult, because it is precisely high-IQ individuals who are best able to defend their irrational beliefs.

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