h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Doesn't this beg the question?

Evoked potential measures intelligence because the shorter the time the higher the intelligence.

If we don't know what intelligence is, than how do we know that this is meauring it.

Rather, it should be said that, in general, the shorter the interval, the higher the subject scores on general intelligence tests. (perhaps this is also true of special intelligence tests)

Barton

It has been found that among the group that scores well on the tests optimised for finding the general intelligence "g", there is a good but inverse corolation between intelligence and the neuronal transmission speed measured by this method.

I believe that the comparison was done using the cross-correlation function, but i am not sure about this.

But there is definately the case that the higher your general IQ the smaller will be the response time to the stimulus.

sorry about the technical stuff, but you asked for it.

I don't mind the technical stuff at all. I have a good background in general science and math. And a somewhat better background in psych.

You miss my point I think. You just stated that there is a high corelation between evoked potential and general IQ scores. That means that EP measures intelligence only if IQ meausures intelligence.

If EP measures intelligence as reliably as IQ tests then while we have a suggestion as to why the correlate, that is low EP suggests faster thinking and IQ tests are timed so faster thinking equates to higher IQ scores. And we can drop the biased tests now in favor of measurements of neuron speed which can be done faster and more easily and, presumably, do not require artificial biasing to allow for poor question choices.

But nothing about this process, except for previous expectations, defines intelligence as solving problems quickly. It is the whole time issue, that is most biasing about the IQ test philosophy.

If there are special kinds of intelligence and if there is not a strong corelation between EP and *all* of these tests then what we have here is a possible explanation for the nature of what is being tested in the general IQ test which may or may not be significant in the nature of intelligence.

If anything the EP corelation tends to minimize the significance of general IQ. It points to the possibility that general IQ is nothing more than the human equivalent of the pseudo-standardized benchmark programs used on computers to establish some sort of generalized rating of computing power. If that is in fact all there is to intelligence, then perhaps we need to be more concerned with the 'software' than with the 'hardware.'

I can draw similes about these sorts of comparisons all day long but the kinds of things that a person can do that a computer cannot, I suspect, may have more to do with intelligence than with processing speed. What is worse, I am not sure that any of these tests are not the equivalents of such specialized tests of hardware as can be found to test various 'special' characteristics that are optimized through additional special attachments as well as inherent design factors.

I will also be the first to admit that I am not one of those who would be happy if intelligence just turns out to be processing speed. So, you may feel free to take my objections from that viewpoint.

Barton

Barton

evoked potential correlates well with general intelligence, which correlates to be about 70% of most of the specific intelligences. The specific intelligences are influenced by a number of things, but as I understand it (not very well) the specific intelligences are sort of like having floating point units or 3d accelerated graphics or dedicated digital signal processors on your computer. each specialised piece of hardware speeds up the stuff that it does well, but at a cost that affects the information processing system generally.

How much they reflect built in functions, and how much they reflect early life programming, is currently anyone's guess.