Every once in a while even cpunks need a little respite from ranting, and some refreshing topic which hasn't been beaten to a painful ad-hominem-death a thousand times already... so here's the topic. What methods are there for doing non-verbal, cross-cultural IQ tests? Some obvious things come to mind, like geomtric analogy questions, but that would seem to favor people who have strong spatial or visual reasoning, which is only one aspect of overall intelligence. Any other options?
"Dr. Evil" wrote:
What methods are there for doing non-verbal, cross-cultural IQ tests?
Either Shockley or Jensen (I always get those two confused) came up with a purely PHYSICAL IQ test the had a very high correlation with standard IQ tests. It involved a reaction speed test that had to do with pushing buttons when lights flashed or some such. It contained no possible cultural bias, yet support the findings of standard tests in that it showed a statistical difference in IQ between different racial groups. (I.e., the average scores for Asians was higher than that of Caucasians which was higher than for Blacks.) Predictably, the test was denounced by the Politically Correct, but without any substantive critique of the test itself. S a n d y
Sandy Sandfort wrote:
"Dr. Evil" wrote:
What methods are there for doing non-verbal, cross-cultural IQ tests?
Either Shockley or Jensen (I always get those two confused) came up with a purely PHYSICAL IQ test the had a very high correlation with standard IQ tests. It involved a reaction speed test that had to do with pushing buttons when lights flashed or some such.
... The test apparatus had one central button and a bunch of other lightable buttons around it. The subject pressed the central button and waited for one of the others to light, then pressed that one as quickly as he could. The test measured the time between the lighting and the subject's release of the central button as well as the time between the lighting and the subject's pressing the lit button. The first number was pretty much just reflex time, and was not particularly correlated with g, general intelligence. The second number involved selection from amongst alternatives, was positively correlated with g. And you're right, the test was denounced, though I can't figure out how the detractors found a cultural bias in it. Maybe they just attacked the notion of g. -- Steve Furlong Computer Condottiere Have GNU, Will Travel 617-670-3793 "Good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly while bad people will find a way around the laws." -- Plato
Steve Furlong wrote:
The test apparatus had one central button and a bunch of other lightable buttons around it. The subject pressed the central button and waited for one of the others to light, then pressed that one as quickly as he could.
Yup, that's the one. I just tried to do a preliminary search and came up with nada. Do you recall if it was Arthur Jensen or William Shockley? What did he call them damned thing? I don't really know what to search under. S a n d y
Sandy Sandfort wrote:
Steve Furlong wrote:
The test apparatus had one central button and a bunch of other lightable buttons around it. The subject pressed the central button and waited for one of the others to light, then pressed that one as quickly as he could.
Yup, that's the one. I just tried to do a preliminary search and came up with nada. Do you recall if it was Arthur Jensen or William Shockley? What did he call them damned thing? I don't really know what to search under.
Google: intelligence test lights button http://www.forbes.com/asap/1998/1130/281_print.html is the first result. This article is pretty much against the concept of intelligence testing. According to that article, the device is called "Jensen's button box". That may not be correct, as a google search for "jensen's button box" (quoted to filter out obvious false hits) yielded only that article. -- Steve Furlong Computer Condottiere Have GNU, Will Travel 617-670-3793 "Good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly while bad people will find a way around the laws." -- Plato
Right! The logic of that somehow escapes me -- let's see, IQ based on ability to physically respond to stimuli, and blacks, who absolutely, hands down, excel at kicking white ass on the playing field, are last? And asians are first? What sport do they prevail in? Dream on, white boy. Sheee-it -- whites can't even talk as fast as blacks, just listen to hiphop sometime. Sandy Sandfort wrote:
"Dr. Evil" wrote:
What methods are there for doing non-verbal, cross-cultural IQ tests?
Either Shockley or Jensen (I always get those two confused) came up with a purely PHYSICAL IQ test the had a very high correlation with standard IQ tests. It involved a reaction speed test that had to do with pushing buttons when lights flashed or some such. It contained no possible cultural bias, yet support the findings of standard tests in that it showed a statistical difference in IQ between different racial groups. (I.e., the average scores for Asians was higher than that of Caucasians which was higher than for Blacks.) Predictably, the test was denounced by the Politically Correct, but without any substantive critique of the test itself.
S a n d y
-- Harmon Seaver, MLIS CyberShamanix Work 920-203-9633 Home 920-233-5820 hseaver@cybershamanix.com http://www.cybershamanix.com/resume.html
on Wed, Oct 17, 2001 at 08:24:47PM -0500, Harmon Seaver (hseaver@cybershamanix.com) wrote:
And asians are first? What sport do they prevail in?
Ping-pong. Not half bad at baseball and basketball either. -- Karsten M. Self <kmself@ix.netcom.com> http://kmself.home.netcom.com/ What part of "Gestalt" don't you understand? Home of the brave http://gestalt-system.sourceforge.net/ Land of the free Free Dmitry! Boycott Adobe! Repeal the DMCA! http://www.freesklyarov.org Geek for Hire http://kmself.home.netcom.com/resume.html [demime 0.97c removed an attachment of type application/pgp-signature]
On Wed, 17 Oct 2001, Karsten M. Self wrote:
on Wed, Oct 17, 2001 at 08:24:47PM -0500, Harmon Seaver (hseaver@cybershamanix.com) wrote:
And asians are first? What sport do they prevail in?
Ping-pong. Not half bad at baseball and basketball either.
Bruce Lee -- ____________________________________________________________________ The people never give up their liberties but under some delusion. Edmund Burke (1784) The Armadillo Group ,::////;::-. James Choate Austin, Tx /:'///// ``::>/|/ ravage@ssz.com www.ssz.com .', |||| `/( e\ 512-451-7087 -====~~mm-'`-```-mm --'- --------------------------------------------------------------------
-- Harmon Seaver (hseaver@cybershamanix.com) wrote:
And asians are first? What sport do they prevail in?
On 17 Oct 2001, at 18:51, Karsten M. Self wrote:
Ping-pong. Not half bad at baseball and basketball either.
Ping pong is of course a sport that is primarily a test of reaction time, and thus is as much a measure of the efficiency of neurons as running is a measure of the efficiency of muscle fibres. --digsig James A. Donald 6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG aVVE2mCstrTGdU2P2TPh09ntCOzq4qcSMhf3wPpN 4s1CvSAymEPaNGPgQh5vHOwlK93zrTiRGZNwwDAfi
Harmon Seaver wrote:
Right! The logic of that somehow escapes me -- let's see, IQ based on ability to physically respond to stimuli...
The theory was something along the lines that IQ is primarily a function of synaptic response speed/efficiency.
Dream on, white boy. Sheee-it -- whites can't even talk as fast as blacks, just listen to hiphop sometime.
Well, I realize that racism comes in many colors. I suggest you listen to some Gilbert and Sullivan "patter" songs sometime. :'D S a n d y
At 11:28 PM 10/17/01 -0000, Dr. Evil wrote:
Every once in a while even cpunks need a little respite from ranting, and some refreshing topic which hasn't been beaten to a painful ad-hominem-death a thousand times already... so here's the topic.
What methods are there for doing non-verbal, cross-cultural IQ tests?
This has "beaten to a painful ad-hominem-death a thousand times already" in other circles, however. Not that this prohibits the following rant: When I came to calif for grad school I encountered a very bright quasi-native (Puerto Rican ethnically, though an Angelino, and now a Prof) who complained about the following on the SAT: furnace:basement::blah:blah as being geographically biassed towards cold-weather folks (e.g., Princeton, NJ), as Californians don't have basements and furnaces are in walls or attics. I was astounded that Calif's didn't have basements (though their necessity if you have something called a frost-line (brrr) has been explained here within the last year) and instantly convinced, for the first time, of some geographical cultural bias[1]. However, this isn't enough of a problem to discredit so-called "abstract" (e.g., geometric) tests, such as the Stanford-Binet IQ, or SATs, which I *do* think are largely valid[2]. Though it helps if you can figure out what the test-makers' point is; this is always a help. In any case, Dr. E, if you're still working on the 'exclude robots, include humans' problem and thinking about IQ tests, well, wow. ---- [1] I now have a house in Calif, no basement, furnace in the attic. Hopefully the foundation will float when the local clay "soil" liquefies next; our location wrt liquefaction isn't too bad, compared to northern angelos. [2] The SAT attempts to predict college performance not actual intelligence IIRC. IIRC it does so reasonably well. This too has been beaten to death.
In any case, Dr. E, if you're still working on the 'exclude robots, include humans' problem and thinking about IQ tests, well, wow.
Hehehe, no, but that is a funny thought! I can use my fuzzy text to exclude robots from a site, but maybe I should also include a little IQ test to exclude inferior minds. That is a very good idea. I'll try to write up a little server that does that.
[1] I now have a house in Calif, no basement, furnace in the attic. Hopefully the foundation will float when the local clay "soil" liquefies next; our location wrt liquefaction isn't too bad, compared to northern angelos.
Here in my yurt in Antartica, obviously, I don't have a basement, and, following energy-saving sugestions on this list, I am heating the place with inner infolded electromagnetic free energy vacuum motors, and oh boy, if you don't adjust the thermostat right on those things, it can get pretty hot in here! Someone open a window! Oh wait, yurts don't have windows. Let's see, if I were writing the SAT analogy test, I would put: Inner infolded electromagnetic free energy :: Dilithium crystals as a) Cold fusion :: Heisenburg compensator b) Splitfire sparkplugs :: Female condom c) Thighmaster :: Tiger penis virility pills d) Miracle grow :: Miracle whip e) French :: Greek
[2] The SAT attempts to predict college performance not actual intelligence IIRC. IIRC it does so reasonably well. This too has been beaten to death.
That's right, the SAT is a Scholastic Aptitude Test, and is not by any means a cross-cultural IQ test. You need a certain IQ to do well in college, but good work habits, concentration and a good memory may be more important. I am currently working on a phd here at Antarctica U.
participants (8)
-
David Honig -
Dr. Evil -
Harmon Seaver -
jamesd＠echeque.com -
Jim Choate -
Karsten M. Self -
Sandy Sandfort -
Steve Furlong