Did you have an emotional response when you learned that you could only hold "7, plus or minus 2" things in your short-term working memory? Or when you found out what your adult height was going to be for the rest of your life?
The 7 plus or minus two thing is universal. Adult height non-universal, but less emotionally sensitive. Even so, it's easy to be sensitive about one's height.
IQ is a comparison between you and everyone else, on a topic which is close to the core of our being, especially for the kind of people on this forum.
I guess I shouldn't have assumed everyone thought like me. :) Is it more sensitive than intelligence in general, or just IQ? Would you react more strongly to being called "shrimp" than "stupid"?
I don't care about names. But looking down instead of up makes quite a big difference.
I don't really believe in IQ as anything more than a statistical artefact in the first place. But of course, different people are going to perform differently on different tasks.
>Did you have an emotional response when you learned that you could only hold "7, plus or minus 2" things in your short-term working memory?
Well, no - because I could use tools to extend that. And it's not about insecurity, as I'm quite comfortable with myself and my brain. I just don't see it as being a valuable reference. However, I know if I had a number I'd start comparison-shopping and I might feel either elated (if high) or depressed (if low). Is anyone here, if you have had an IQ test, honestly prepared to say that you didn't or wouldn't be curious about what that meant and that it wouldn't affect how you viewed yourself?
I just don't need to know. I guess that for me, as long as there isn't a 'goal' or a 'fence', the sky's the limit.
You can extend your effective IQ using tools as well. I bet your IQ as tested while you have access to an internet-connected computer would be way higher than your IQ as tested on a closed-book test.
I doubt it, unless you could find a cheat sheet for the test you are taking. It's not like the test is asking about information, facts or calculations; what would you type in to Google to answer a question like this? http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/0f/Rav...
It's not like purely visual questions are the only ones you'll encounter. And the Internet has plenty to offer for your question too, you just have to involve some actual people.
IQ tests are timed. It's usually not worth it to look up any answer, because the time it takes you to do this would make you skip so many other questions that your score would take a massive hit.
It's the same thing with the SAT (before they added the writing sections). It usually paid to just guess & move on if you faced a difficult question, because the time spent thinking about it would cost you so many other answers that you were better off just eating the penalty for getting it wrong. People who could actually complete the (old) SATs were at a strong advantage, as one of the most common failure modes was simply not being able to answer all the questions.
I have a very emotional response each morning, when, depending on the quality/duration of sleep I had the night before, and whether I had a late night snack, I'm able to memorize the 10 digit (Yes, 10) passcode for whatever conference call I have to dial into. I know it's going to be a good day when (about 10-20% of the time) - I can nail it in one try. Not so much when it takes me a round trip to the calendar entry. Particularly when the conference service times out.
Does anyone have a good source or summary on this "7, plus or minus 2" thing? I teach the LSAT, and have noticed it empirically when students try to solve the Logic Games section.
I've love to know more about the research backing this up. I googled, of course, but I'm sure there must be a good discussion of this that I've missed.
