The factor of speed in intelligence.

Abstract

Except by way of speculation and opinion, 3 the systematic psychology of intelligence remains almost untouched. Observationally one can say little more about intelligence than that it is what the intelligence tests test. So defined we can then go much further and state a variety of psycho-social capacities that depend in a measurable degree upon intelligence as the tests test it, but all this work has brought us little farther toward an understanding of the nature of intelligence, its meaning in psychological and physiological terms, and hence its position in the body of psycho-physiological fact. The present paper seeks to make from this point of view an initial attack upon the problem of speed in intelligence (as the tests test it). We wish to point out, however, that the experiments presented, although illustrative of certain points and indicative of others, are not sufficiently extended to determine conclusively the relation of intelligence to speed. We think that they indicate what the ultimate conclusion is likely to be, and that they point the way to a program of investigation.Among intelligence tests we have the speed tests and the 1 From the Harvard Psychological Laboratory. The junior author has conducted the experiment, tabulated the data, and made mat of the computations; the senior author has collaborated with her in the interpretation of the results.1 For example, see the Symposium on Intelligence and iu Measurement by fourteen authors, /.

The processing-speed theory of adult age differences in cognition.

“…Because the simultaneity mechanism is so fundamental, it could have an impact on many aspects of cognition, including performance in tasks without external time constraints. From the current perspective, therefore, Peak and Boring (1926) were correct in suggesting that power tests are not necessarily those that do not involve speed but may simply be those that do not take speed into account.…”

Visual Simple Reaction Time in Cyanotic Heart Disease

“…One useful index in judging the level of psychomotor performance of subjects is reaction time (RT) measurement. [4][5][6][7] Previous studies on adults at high altitudes and on subjects exposed to oxygen deprivation have shown a correlation between the degree of hypoxia and RT scores.7,8 Members of the High Altitude Expedition to Chile in 1935 had a significantly longer and more variable simple RT when tested at an altitude of 20,140 feet than at sea level. No significant change was noted at lower altitudes.…”

Inhibition in Prolonged Work Tasks

“…This led to the formulation of the so-called Poisson-Erlang model. The notion of intermediate periods of distraction has already been suggested by many authors, such as Peak and Boring (1926), Bills (1931, 1935, and Berger (1982). The Poisson-Erlang model accounts for short-term variation in the latencies, but not for any long-term trend effect.…”