241. Mental Speed

Children can be impressively ingenious when given enough time to work thru a problem, but we tend to judge their mental prowess by how *quickly* they figure things out - is mental speed really the best yardstick for intelligence?

- Links for the Curious -

Vernon, Philip A., ed. Speed of Information-Processing and Intelligence. Norwood, N.J: Ablex Pub. Corp, 1987.

Neisser, Ulric. “The Concept of Intelligence,” n.d.

“High-Speed Society: Social Acceleration, Power, and Modernity,” n.d.

[bthomson]

In sixth grade we had a teacher who speed tested us on the times tables. Both my sister and I had this same teacher. We both agree to this day that she ruined us for understanding math! We were so traumatized by her methods ( and almost failed her class) that we both remember the pain of those lessons and I'm 73!

[Aurelian_-vuyz]

I have adhd and a significant information processing delay that came along with it. Speed was correlated with intelligence to such a degree at school, that I convinced myself I was stupid for many years. Thankfully I’ve mostly broken out of that way of thinking, and can appreciate the beauty of math and science that I had previously believed to be unreachable for me.

[oldalchemy]

I think the privileging of speed over other qualities (especially creativity) also underpins a general bias towards the verbal exploration of an idea, over something written. My impression is that 'intelligence' refers to *useful* thinking, and that different disciplines and roles make different demands. For example, in philosophy, although quick thinking might help you appear smart, it doesn't guarantee you'll actually contribute an original thought. Whereas quick thinking might be essential to being an astronaut, politician, or lawyer. I think about this a bunch when giving assignments. Great vid, as always!

[tideoo]

I love your video. I have always been interested in IQ and this video definitely made me think about more things!

[KynaTiona]

"No, neurons are not microchips" is always a refreshing topic, and I'm *definitely* going to have to check out Old Enough. [/Post for the algorithm]

[PetersonSilva]

Great video as always!! I'm especially thankful as a person who's over a year late for their PhD thesis and beating myself over for this taking so long (there's only so much blame I can pin on the pandemic)

[cjortiz]

Lets praise speed for what it can provide (a quick response when time is of the essence), and try to explicitly name the other qualities that need to cooperate in tandem. I'd suggest an intellectually-honest capacity for root cause analysis, metacognitive skills for moderating as little effort needed to survive with as much effort as can be committed to growth, and a general sense of eudaimonia from knowing that just being a good person is always the strictly dominant strategy.

As such, we should praise speed only insofar as it empowers RCA, a general metacognitive bimodal grand strategy, and a commitment to virtuous action. With this proper frame of reference, we can avoid the red-herring imposed by those who ascribe praise and blame over the low-hanging fruit of performative work: How could we ever discover the potential intelligence of an individual or community when they are treated as a non-living machine?

[slipperydippery]

Very interesting! Maybe the way we test (ie: mental speed based) makes us train and focus on our mental speed.
I can only remember one time in my entire school period where I had a math problem that took me a few days to solve - it's also one of the only math problems I still remember 25 years later.

[johnhershberg]

Speed has a compounding effect though. If two students start at the same time, and you were to look at their performance year by year, the ones that are quicker to learn will be much further along by year N.

This is a struggle I had to deal with my whole life. But when I finally realized I'm not in a race with other people it helped make things better. I'll get to the same point they're at. It'll just take me N + 2 years. And since there's only so much high-end "mastery" you can have in a discipline, I can also master pretty much anything they can, it'll just take longer.

[brandonsteele]

I thought this video was going to be about improving mental speed. I often feel like my brian is in slow motion, but sometimes it works quickly. I would like to figure out how to voluntarily shift it into 2nd gear.

[G_Rad_Ski]

Acuity and alacrity are interesting here too but it is definitely a complex subject that needs a lot of context.

[_shery.]

Few days ago while programming, I wrote a Thunk. This thunk will only be evaluated until it is needed or not evaluated at all. Sometimes taking time is the right way.

[userMB]

I think this video is great in showing that there is more to the concept of intelligence than speed. However, i think speed is still the defining factor simply because there are barely any 'slow' high achievers. Of course there are huge factors in achieving big things that has little to do with intelligence like social status, mental health, financial situation etc.
But for now, i think speed still has the best papers.

I also want to add a rather odd factor in intelligence; that is daydreaming.
I am a head in the clouds guy and often times when i read, watch or listen to something i can get inspired by an idea which leads to daydreaming. I then come to some creative insights and questions. When i explore those insights further, i often times find out that they were really legit. When i share those insights with friends or online, i get recognition and even praise

[Xob_Driesestig]

This phenomena that we are ‘dumber’ before our morning coffee is an interesting one.
Has anyone tried to graph it out? Like test people at different hours of the day and days of the year?
If you can take an IQ test or college test at the peak of your daily intelligence, that doesn’t really tell us much about your overall ‘intellectual stamina’.
A person who operates at 120 iq/bachelors level intelligence 24/7 might be more desirable to hire/work with than someone who can perform one feat of 130 iq/master’s level intelligence but then has to recharge for a couple days. Yet our testing system deems the second person as ‘smarter’.

[jsincoherency]

Even "speed at getting the answer" isn't necessarily governed by "operations per second", because it depends how much progress you can make in one operation.

[TheGemsbok]

As regards reading in particular, if anything, I'm suspicious of people who read extremely quickly---suspicious as to whether they've read every word, and absorbed what they've read, and understood what they've read.

[threethrushes]

As always, in life we need to know when to make a quick decision and when to make a slow decision.

Riding a motorbike I need to make quick decisions confidently - often accelerating out of a potentially dangerous situation.
Living with a partner, I need to make slow, strategic decisions for mutual cooperation.

I'm not verbally quick-witted whatsoever; I suffer from what the Germans call 'treppenwitz'. That said, I seem to make adequate slow decisions judging by my satisfaction with life.

[LeonardGreenpaw]

I say the biggest factors in "intelligence" are speed, creativity, and determination. However I did come up with that list in like 15 seconds so I could be wrong

[NuclearEagleFox]

This makes me thunk of "bean dad". The way many people focused on the fact that he didn't help his daughter figure it out at all, rather than the other aspects of the situation. Why is leaving children to their own creative devices seen as negative?

[Autists-Guide]

Can I think of a way that mental speed is privileged?
How long have I got?