Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Intelligent people take longer to solve hard problems: study

bigthink.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

161–170 of 184 posts

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

#161

Post by smeej »

The conclusion in the title doesn't at all follow from the study in the article.

Intelligent people know they have what it takes to get the answer right, so they spend the time to do it.

Less intelligent people are familiar with their limits and their odds of getting the right answer, so they do some of the reasoning, quit, and guess from there.

That's why the intelligent people aren't just slower, but more accurate. They're actually solving the problems. The others are reaching the end of their ability much more quickly and guessing.

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

#162

Post by mcint »

mcint wrote: post #92
jawns wrote: post #15

A while back, I created an online experiment, based on a 2020 study, that identifies dogmatic thinking. https://shaungallagher.pressbin.com/blog/dogmatism.html Without giving too much away, this tracks with the 2023 study's results, in that people with higher intelligence scores are less likely to trust their System 1 gut reaction and more likely to involve their System 2 deliberate, logical processes.

This link would better serve you and the community as a top-level post. I guess you did share it 2 years ago, though it looks like commenting is now closed. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26620690 Share it again! The iron is hot! I find the initial paragraphs of analysis rather insistent, one might say dogmatic , in their praise of non-dogmatism . Some later paragraphs express my immediate response: perhaps thi…

And if you share it again, link from (a reply to) your comment.

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

#163

Post by maxerickson »

bobsoap wrote: post #116
mordae wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had 3.4 and similar number of points as you. The questions don't really work that well. E.g. the healthcare one doesn't work for my country where universal healthcare is a law and thus State truly has duty to provide it and anyone who believes otherwise is objectively wrong. I have also received more points for being "dogmatic" in that having strong opinion (that is different than mine of "neutral") on migration is…

Just because something is the current status quo in your country doesn't mean you can't have a different opinion. I think the question is perfectly valid no matter where you live. The irony is, faulting the question because "that's just the way it is here" beautifully illustrates the exact premise of the experiment. I'd say that explains a 3.4 score (at least in this game).

It can just be a matter of separating government and society. If you do that, expecting government to follow the law isn't dogmatic at all.

It's also not necessarily dogmatic to believe that you are more informed about an issue than the average person that disagrees with you. Like sure, it can be dogmatic, but it isn't necessarily dogmatic.

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

#164

Post by mcint »

jawns wrote: post #15

A while back, I created an online experiment, based on a 2020 study, that identifies dogmatic thinking. https://shaungallagher.pressbin.com/blog/dogmatism.html Without giving too much away, this tracks with the 2023 study's results, in that people with higher intelligence scores are less likely to trust their System 1 gut reaction and more likely to involve their System 2 deliberate, logical processes.

Study link directly, for the curious. (But do the experiment first if you plan to, https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2009641117)

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

#165

Post by maximus-decimus »

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…

Everything I've read about IQ says that short-term memory correlates to long-term memory. Well, except for the fact short-term memory goes down from the age of 25 and long-term memory goes down only much later around 60.

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

#167

Post by maCDzP »

jawns wrote: post #15

A while back, I created an online experiment, based on a 2020 study, that identifies dogmatic thinking. https://shaungallagher.pressbin.com/blog/dogmatism.html Without giving too much away, this tracks with the 2023 study's results, in that people with higher intelligence scores are less likely to trust their System 1 gut reaction and more likely to involve their System 2 deliberate, logical processes.

Thank you for creating that. I scored 800 and 2,52 in dogmatism.

I thought I would score lower than the average in dogmatism, but didn’t. So I’ll have to revise my belief about my own dogmatism. (:

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

#168

Post by diego_sandoval »

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…

Interesting. I've always hypothesized the opposite: IQ is basically the same as working memory.

If you do a quick search for "IQ vs working memory", all the results show a positive correlation.

On the other hand, if my hypothesis was true, we would have discovered it already, so it's probably wrong.

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

#169

Post by scruple »

jawns wrote: post #15

A while back, I created an online experiment, based on a 2020 study, that identifies dogmatic thinking. https://shaungallagher.pressbin.com/blog/dogmatism.html Without giving too much away, this tracks with the 2023 study's results, in that people with higher intelligence scores are less likely to trust their System 1 gut reaction and more likely to involve their System 2 deliberate, logical processes.

Fascinating. I scored 800 on the squares and a 2.0 on the dogmatism scale. Thanks for sharing this, the interactive quiz and research is really interesting.

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

#170

Post by Slow_Hand »

jawns wrote: post #15

A while back, I created an online experiment, based on a 2020 study, that identifies dogmatic thinking. https://shaungallagher.pressbin.com/blog/dogmatism.html Without giving too much away, this tracks with the 2023 study's results, in that people with higher intelligence scores are less likely to trust their System 1 gut reaction and more likely to involve their System 2 deliberate, logical processes.

I scored 1,000 (perfect) on the game and 1.57 on the dogmatism score, which is both lower than the average score and lower than the average in the lowest quartile (people with low dogmatism).

I'm not quite sure what conclusion to take away from this result. While the low dogmatism score is no surprise to me the research results suggest that a low dogmatism-scoring person would be more likely to opt for the "easy version" handicap to verify their hunches but limit themselves to a maximum possible score of 800.

I don't FEEL like I have exceptional perceptual abilities for identifying dots, but I trusted my instincts and honestly rated my confidence as medium (7/10 times) and low confidence (3/10) times.

I'll also add that I'm a little tired and just finished a single beer, so I feel slightly dulled in my faculties right now. I'll probably go to sleep in an hour.

Post reply on HN