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Intelligent people take longer to solve hard problems: study

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Re: Intelligent people take longer to solve hard problems: study

#171

Post by aendruk »

ChainOfFools wrote: post #27

I strongly suspect this effect is correlated with a weakness in short-term or working memory. Independent of general intelligence is the necessity for those with a weak short-term or working memory to compensate by relying on long-term, in depth understanding in order to JIT the necessary short-term structures into being on the spot, (often repeatedly as these images decay rapidly) in order to solve a problem. Wherea…

The way I’ve always thought about it is having a small working memory has forced me to approach problems algorithmically from an early age. For small to medium sized problems this puts me at a speed disadvantage, but when problems grow large enough to exhaust everyone’s working memory, the wholistic thinkers stumble while I am at home.

Re: Intelligent people take longer to solve hard problems: study

#173

Post by coldblues »

brazzledazzle wrote: post #83
ChainOfFools wrote: post #27

I strongly suspect this effect is correlated with a weakness in short-term or working memory. Independent of general intelligence is the necessity for those with a weak short-term or working memory to compensate by relying on long-term, in depth understanding in order to JIT the necessary short-term structures into being on the spot, (often repeatedly as these images decay rapidly) in order to solve a problem. Wherea…

Am I projecting or does this sound like an compensating strategies for an intelligent person with an executive dysfunction disorder?

To someone with ADHD (me) it does look like it. I seem to be one of the few people who want to discuss the correlation between ADHD and all of these traits, but unfortunately one of my replies didn't garner the attention I wanted.

Re: Intelligent people take longer to solve hard problems: study

#174

Post by noisy_boy »

Solvency wrote: post #31
ChainOfFools wrote: post #27

I strongly suspect this effect is correlated with a weakness in short-term or working memory. Independent of general intelligence is the necessity for those with a weak short-term or working memory to compensate by relying on long-term, in depth understanding in order to JIT the necessary short-term structures into being on the spot, (often repeatedly as these images decay rapidly) in order to solve a problem. Wherea…

I struggled in math in HS for this reason. Every time a concept was presented to me I felt like I needed to deeply understand it at the most universally root level and create a painstaking mental model of it, to a degree that I imposed on myself for some inexplicable reason. To answer "but WHY". Almost like a form of self-sabotage in hindsight because I think there are decreasing returns in "truly, deeply" grokking m…

This is like reading my life story.

I dropped out of my masters in Statistics because after a point, I had questions and due to circumstances, couldn't find answers by myself and couldn't find help (this is before the days of youtube explosion).

Eventually through serendipitous circumstances, I enrolled in a computer course and realized that I no longer had this "why" problem anymore when it came to programming - I could get answers quickly AND it allowed me to express myself the way I wanted. Didn't turn back after that.

Re: Intelligent people take longer to solve hard problems: study

#175

Post by itairall »

Solvency wrote: post #31
ChainOfFools wrote: post #27

I strongly suspect this effect is correlated with a weakness in short-term or working memory. Independent of general intelligence is the necessity for those with a weak short-term or working memory to compensate by relying on long-term, in depth understanding in order to JIT the necessary short-term structures into being on the spot, (often repeatedly as these images decay rapidly) in order to solve a problem. Wherea…

I struggled in math in HS for this reason. Every time a concept was presented to me I felt like I needed to deeply understand it at the most universally root level and create a painstaking mental model of it, to a degree that I imposed on myself for some inexplicable reason. To answer "but WHY". Almost like a form of self-sabotage in hindsight because I think there are decreasing returns in "truly, deeply" grokking m…

My short term memory sucks too. I need many exposures to retain the information for a standardized test.

I wonder if intelligent people with poor short term memories are more impressed with LLMs than those with good short term memories because that was my immediate reaction and why it is basically unthinkable for me to unsubscribe from chatGPT4.

As a paired cybernetic system I gain enormously more from LLMs compared to myself with a good short term memory and paired.

I think the deep thinker/modeler's time has come. The non-deep thinker/modeler with great flash memory time has come and gone.

Re: Intelligent people take longer to solve hard problems: study

#176

Post by jbotz »

thorncorona wrote: post #104
giovannibonetti wrote: post #57

Related: Thinking, Fast and Slow, by Daniel Kahneman. According to Wikipedia [1]: "The book's main thesis is a differentiation between two modes of thought: "System 1" is fast, instinctive and emotional; "System 2" is slower, more deliberative, and more logical." Intelligent people might rely more on System 2 than ordinary people, which pushes latency up. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thinking,_Fast_and_Slow

A large portion of the effects and studies mentioned in that book have been retracted or refuted, just fyi.

A "large portion" is an exaggeration, and I don't know that any have been "refuted". Some of the studies around "priming" (Chapter 4 of the book) have been called into question for failure of being replicated, and Kahnemann himself has since said that the published studies on priming may not be replicable. Since the publication of the book we've had a "replication crisis" in the relevant literature, so the book may not be on as solid ground as Kahnemann believed when he wrote it, but it's still a very good book with important insights.

Re: Intelligent people take longer to solve hard problems: study

#177

Post by halfcat »

xigency wrote: post #91
ajkjk wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agree with this; also, it feels like you are reading out the same theories I have somewhere in my brain and that's a weird sensation. A related theory: being good at math, especially mental math, correlates with aphantasia (not being able to see pictures in your head). People who can see images in their head learn to do arithmetic early on with visual algorithms, which are fundamentally not good for understanding as…

> A related theory: being good at math, especially mental math, correlates with aphantasia (not being able to see pictures in your head) This is the kind of condition I wonder if I have. Because on one hand, if I do a visualization exercise I would describe it as foggy at best. Then again, I struggle to understand how our brains could be wired that differently from person to person, that we could have or lack certain…

> those good at mental math might see a chalkboard like image of the problem with all the detail

Experiments with chess players and memorization shed some light on this.

DeGroot’s research showed the average person is quite poor at recalling chess positions from real games, while chess masters have almost perfect recall even after seeing the board for only a few seconds.

However, when the chess masters were given completely random arrangements of pieces on the board (as opposed to positions from real chess games), they were no better than the average person.

This and other experiments suggest it’s not a visual snapshot, but functional knowledge and chunking, such as knowing pawns typically protect one another in diagonal chains, etc.

I recall from talking with high rated chess players, they rarely visualize the board in the mind’s eye, but they just know things without thinking, like, a bishop on d3 attacks the square h7 and not h6. Not from rote memorization, but from playing and seeing that sacrificing a bishop on h7 is a thematic attacking pattern.

Re: Intelligent people take longer to solve hard problems: study

#178

Post by purplepatrick »

ChainOfFools wrote: post #27

I strongly suspect this effect is correlated with a weakness in short-term or working memory. Independent of general intelligence is the necessity for those with a weak short-term or working memory to compensate by relying on long-term, in depth understanding in order to JIT the necessary short-term structures into being on the spot, (often repeatedly as these images decay rapidly) in order to solve a problem. Wherea…

Hmm. So, we don’t know if working and short term memory are even the same thing. We also cannot say for sure that the same type of processes would be handled by short term and long term memory, so it’s not clear that you can substitute one for the other or for the same stuff. Both memories could just be feeding working memory and other structures for processing but serve different things.

It also may well be that the opposite is true — STM is prioritized by people who haven’t learned to properly recruit for profound structures. Speed may well have been a survival advantage a million years ago, but it’s not clear that this hasn’t changed since.

We also don’t know if the computing model of the brain is even appropriate at all. Humans have always assumed that the latest state of technology can represent the brain: clay and waterworks, mechanics, computers, etc.

At the end of the day, we don’t know how much we actually know about how the brain works because we don’t know what we don’t know…

Re: Intelligent people take longer to solve hard problems: study

#179

Post by dredmorbius »

galaxyLogic wrote: post #76
fxtentacle wrote: post #75

Extremely misleading title, in my opinion. Let me quote the actual research at https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-023-38626-y : "subjects with higher PMAT24_A_CR (fluid intelligence) made fewer mistakes, but were slower" Yes, intelligent people took longer to solve hard problems. But they made fewer mistakes. Getting things right on the 1st try might be much faster than needing a 2nd attempt, even if the 1st try…

Right they take longer but they actually solve the problem correctly. And if you don't solve it correctly you are not really solving it at all. The title could have been "Intelligent people take time to make sure their answer is more likely to be correct than not"

Jon Bentley notes in Programming Pearls that performance is secondary to correctness.

I thought he'd included an anecdote about a consultant tasked with solving an optimisation problem at an industrial concern who unveils his solution. A complaint is raised: yes, the method finds the correct solution, but it is slower than the old method (which didn't achieve the correct solution).

The consultant, perhaps something of a novice when it came to client relationships communications, responded that if he didn't have to find the correct answer to the problem, he could make his system much faster.

I don't find that in either PP or More Programming Pearls, however. Unfaithful memory.

Re: Intelligent people take longer to solve hard problems: study

#180

Post by almuhalil »

tyingq wrote: post #156
ilc wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you have a truly great idea. Write it down. Just writing it down, will help you remember. If not: You have the paper.

>Just writing it down, will help you remember. This is underrated. And, specifically...writing it down, with a pen or pencil. Typing it doesn't seem to have the same effect, even with some ritual of typing it into a fresh/separate document.

I'll second this. And something I've discovered is that using a good pen makes so much difference in the experience of writing.

I used to use whatever cheap ballpoint was around, and I had terrible handwriting. But on a friend's recommendation I tried a fine point gel pen, the Uniball Signo DX 0.38mm. It's such a joy to write with and my handwriting is orders of magnitude more legible.

There's apparently a whole world of pens (and pen enthusiasts) out there: https://www.penaddict.com/top-5-pens

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