Measuring cognitive ability with the overclaiming technique

Abstract

The overclaiming technique requires respondents to rate their familiarity with a list of general knowledge items (persons, places, things). Because 20% of the items are foils (i.e., do not exist), the response pattern can be analyzed with signal detection methods to yield the accuracy and bias scores for each respondent. In Study 1, the accuracy index showed strong associations with two standard IQ tests (β = .50-.59). Study 2 replicated the validity of the accuracy index with IQ and showed coherent associations with school grades, peer ratings, and self-ratings. Study 3 ensured that the validity of the accuracy index is invulnerable to a warning about foils. Study 4 showed that validity is maintained even when the ratings are completed at home. The discussion focuses on the advantages of this self-report approach over standard ability tests, namely, minimal stress, lack of time limit, or need for supervision, and flexibility of content.

The Wonderlic Personnel Test and elementary cognitive tasks as predictors of religious sectarianism, scriptural acceptance and religious questioning☆

“…Sensitivity offers a measure of familiarity corrected for any tendency to over-claim. Research on the over-claiming task shows that sensitivity correlates about .50 with paper and pencil IQ tests (Paulhus & Harms, 2004). Next, we calculated a criterion measure (represented by the Greek letter β), which is equal to the hit rate plus the false alarm rate for each subject.…”

“…Signal detection analysis is then used to separate the person's true familiarity from his/her tendency to over-claim (i.e., to claim familiarity with concepts that do not exist). Corrected familiarity in the over-claiming task also correlates moderately well with scores on standardized IQ tests (Paulhus & Harms, 2004; see Williams, Paulhus, & Nathanson, 2002, for evidence that familiarity in the over-claiming task is an automatic process).…”

“…The third ECT employed here is the over-claiming task (Paulhus & Harms, 2004). This task measures corrected familiarity with general world knowledge items.…”

Ali znam toliko, kot mislim, da znam? Dunning-Krugerjev učinek, poznavanje neobstoječih konceptov in iluzija znanja

“…Swami, Papanicolaou, and Furnham (2011) examined overclaiming in the field of mental health, while Paulhus and Harms (2004) tested and further supported the phenomenon in regard to general knowledge. Based on these studies, we predict the following:…”

Using Multiple Methods in Personality Psychology.

“…Another approach to measuring general mental ability has been to use self-reports of intelligence or intellectual engagement (Paulhus & Harms, 2004). This approach has been much maligned by intelligence theorists because of the fact that self-report intelligence measures rarely exceed validities of .50 with typical tests of maximal performance of cognitive ability (Paulhus, Lysy, & Yik, 1998).…”