The 4 Variable IQ Test (spam on topic, please)

dragon wench · Post by **dragon wench** » Tue Jun 07, 2005 9:47 am

[QUOTE=Athena]Actually...
some study showed that coffee stimulates brain activity (no, really,) and those of us that drink it do better on tests!

[/QUOTE]
[QUOTE=VonDondu]Tests have also shown that caffeine has a laxative effect, so you'd better finish those tests quickly.

[/QUOTE]

So maybe what this means is that those people who are less.. ahem.... 'full of it' are less impeded where brain activity is concerned....

Sytze · Post by **Sytze** » Tue Jun 07, 2005 9:48 am

[QUOTE=VonDondu]Tests have also shown that caffeine has a laxative effect, so you'd better finish those tests quickly.

[/QUOTE]
lol! I knew there was a reason why I didn't drink caffeine except for the fact that it made my mouth twist. In a bad way.

Luis Antonio · Post by **Luis Antonio** » Tue Jun 07, 2005 9:48 am

80% interpersonal, 60% visual, 140% verbal, and 120% mathematical.

Surprises me such a low visual score, but... anyway, verbal and mathematical (economist, heh) are right.

Magrus · Post by **Magrus** » Tue Jun 07, 2005 9:50 am

[QUOTE=dragon wench]@Magrus, LMAO! But that makes us sound like such elitists

[/QUOTE]

Oh, I'm not saying I'm better than everyone else. I just have this nasty habit of finding most people intolerable at best through their lack of using a brain and such. Wait...I guess your right. *sighs* If they only used their brains....

[QUOTE=frogus23]Does nobody else think that 'logical' is a very important type of mental reasoning, not deserving to be left out? The quiz seemed to ask logic-brain type questions as well I wonder where the results went...[/QUOTE]

I believe that would have fallen into the mathematical category.

fable · Post by **fable** » Tue Jun 07, 2005 9:53 am

[QUOTE=frogus23]@Fable I have a great scheme to arange just this, and we'll clean up on he inheritance as well. As far as I can see, all we need is a white evening suit, an identical suit made of touch-paper, a country estate and a panicky Orangutan with razorblades.

[/QUOTE]

I'm working on scaring the orangutan, now.

What? The dependency on caffeine and the top results that follow, or that nice little fall into the deep when you stop using it?

Yes.

Sytze · Post by **Sytze** » Tue Jun 07, 2005 9:58 am

[QUOTE=fable]Yes.

[/QUOTE]
Stop that! You might've scored high on the interpersonal area, but I won't let you mess with my head.

C Elegans · Post by **C Elegans** » Tue Jun 07, 2005 10:22 am

[QUOTE=VonDondu]Maybe it will help to look at the results this way:

56% of women your age scored less than 80% on interpersonal reasoning
78% of women your age scored less than 140% on visual
47% of women your age scored less than 60% on verbal
58% of women your age scored less than 120% on mathematical
[/QUOTE]

No, not at all since it means exactly the same as the original. What bugs me is that if as many as 47%, 56%, 78% and 58% respectively (ie more than the majority) scored less than I on these factors, what did score instead? If 78% scored less than I on visual, all these 78% must have scored higher than I on other variables. Yet, a majority score lower than I on all varibles except verbal, which is still close to half. Thus, of the 78% who score less than I on visual, a large part must score less than I on one or more other variable as well. Meaning that they instead must score far higher than I on something in order to add up to the 400% in the end. I guess that either mine, or the majority's profile is quite unbalanced. Seeing my profile contains more than twofold variation, I suppose it's mine.

I wonder how they define "visual" since I am the least visually oriented person I know of that is not actually blind. I suffer from propagnosia (pathologically bad face memory), the only cognitive domain I don't have extremly high test scores in is visual pattern recognition (makes sense since faces are visual patterns), and don't think in visualisations, I think in abstract network systems.

[quote="Athena]some study showed that coffee stimulates brain activity (no"]

Caffein is a stimulant, it increases the global arousal (awakeness) level, and everything that increases global arousal to a slightly higher (not too high!) level increases performance in cognitive tests. That includes cocain, amphetamine, nicotine, ephinedrine and a variety of generally unhealthy drugs!

Btw, did you think your result fit you better than I think mine fit me?

I also wonder what the little cute brains with multicoloured corteces are supposed to mean.

Tower_Master · Post by **Tower_Master** » Tue Jun 07, 2005 11:23 am

My purpoted "Brain" :

Your brain: 80% interpersonal, 80% visual, 140% verbal, and 100% mathematical!

Dating advice:

Don't date someone if your interpersonal percentages differ by more than 80%.
Don't be friends with someone if your verbal percentages differ by more than 100%.
Don't have sex with someone if their math percentage is over 200%.

People my age and gender:

You scored higher than 58% on interpersonal
You scored higher than 47% on visual
You scored higher than 90% on verbal
You scored higher than 54% on mathematical

VonDondu · Post by **VonDondu** » Tue Jun 07, 2005 11:28 am

[QUOTE=C Elegans]If 78% scored less than I on visual, all these 78% must have scored higher than I on other variables...[/QUOTE]
You seem to be assuming that all 78% must have scored higher than you did on ALL other variables, but it doesn't have to be that way. Theoretically, they only have to score higher than you did on ONE other variable to reach a total of 400 points if their other two scores are the same as yours. For instance, half of them could be in the 42% that scored higher than you did in Mathematical, and half of them could be in the 44% that scored higher than you did in Interpersonal. You seem to be counting all of the people who scored less than you did in Visual as the same people who scored less than you did in everything else, but that's the thing--they're not the same people. I haven't figured out how to graph the results, so I share your frustration.

I could be wrong, though, because my brain is about to explode for other reasons, and I'm probably not thinking straight. Just because I'm predisposed to think mathematically (I got 200% Mathematical the second time I took the test, which means I'm almost undesirable as a sex partner), that doesn't mean I'm any good at math.

Xandax · Post by **Xandax** » Tue Jun 07, 2005 1:14 pm

VonDondu wrote:You seem to be assuming that all 78% must have scored higher than you did on ALL other variables, but it doesn't have to be that way. Theoretically, they only have to score higher than you did on ONE other variable to reach a total of 400 points if their other two scores are the same as yours. <snip>

Yeah that is plausible because for instance, if noticing my scores, then I got one very high (200%) and the rest "low" compared

I could be wrong, though, because my brain is about to explode for other reasons, and I'm probably not thinking straight. Just because I'm predisposed to think mathematically (I got 200% Mathematical the second time I took the test, which means I'm almost undesirable as a sex partner), that doesn't mean I'm any good at math.

I agree, and I would think mathematical in this instance is just as much a sign of deduction and logics as it is simply math. I am no wizard at math by default even though I scored a 200% on mathemathical, but I do use logics, deduction and a mathematical way of thinking each day when working.
I would also think that for instance a structured way of viewing things would be included in to mathemathical in this test, because I often try to use diagrams, charts and similar with solving complex problems at work, as an attempt to visualize the problemarea and possible solution. I especially use it when "brainstorming" about a problem. So I would think the "Visual" aspect of this test covers much more abstract concepts, which could explain why others perhaps score lower in the visual then they would expect.
However, this is guesswork from the testresult and the rather well-knowing of myself and my workings

I've not read much on the page they displayed

giles337 · Post by **giles337** » Tue Jun 07, 2005 1:42 pm

Your brain: 80% interpersonal, 80% visual, 140% verbal, and 100% mathematical!

C Elegans · Post by **C Elegans** » Tue Jun 07, 2005 2:11 pm

VonDondu wrote:You seem to be assuming that all 78% must have scored higher than you did on ALL other variables, but it doesn't have to be that way.

No, not all, I am not so illogical

, but some. I wrote "Thus, of the 78% who score less than I on visual, a large part must score less than I on one or more other variable as well.. To clarify, the 78% could not have scored less than I on all other variables seeing the average on the other variables were less than mine in 58%, 56% and 47% respectivly. Thus there must be a considerable overlap between the 78% group and the other groups.

Theoretically, they only have to score higher than you did on ONE other variable to reach a total of 400 points if their other two scores are the same as yours.

Yes, but not all of them. All 78% did probably not score close to my score, there should be a distribution from very low to very high, so some (those who scored much lower than I) would need to score much higher than I on one or more variable.

You seem to be counting all of the people who scored less than you did in Visual as the same people who scored less than you did in everything else, but that's the thing--they're not the same people. I haven't figured out how to graph the results, so I share your frustration.

I know they are not the same people, but as I said above there must be a considerable overlap. If we presume the variables, like all other "intelligence" variables have an approximately Gaussian distribution, there must be a lot of the 78% who have far lower scores than I on visualisation. We do however not know the distribution. If we knew the distribution, mean and standard deviation we could easily figure this out. We would also be able to convert our relative %-results to a non-relative scale so we can compare our results to a standardised scale. If I understand this test correctly, my 140% in visual is not necessarily the same as anyone elses' 140% in visual, since the % is dependent on your own individual distribution, ie your other answers. Thus, I don't know if my "more visual than 78% of women my age" is in absolute numeric terms or if they simply mean my proportion of "visual" is higher than for 78% of women my age.

Did you see any such data?

VonDondu · Post by **VonDondu** » Tue Jun 07, 2005 3:19 pm

[QUOTE=C Elegans]...Thus, I don't know if my "more visual than 78% of women my age" is in absolute numeric terms or if they simply mean my proportion of "visual" is higher than for 78% of women my age.

Did you see any such data?[/QUOTE]
No. That's part of the problem--there's not enough information to work with. What I would like to have is a formula that I could prove or disprove, but I haven't been able to produce one.

I understand what you're saying, because I thought the very same thing when I first saw the numbers. (Hence my little joke about frogus doing more reasoning of all kinds than his peers.) But after giving the matter more thought, I became more confused, and I changed my line of thinking.

C Elegans · Post by **C Elegans** » Tue Jun 07, 2005 3:58 pm

@Vondondu: I am utterly braindead by now and too tired to look at the test again, but if there is no distributional data published, or even a conversion formula of some kind, we may speculate until we fall asleep.

In summary though (maybe Mahar will make me eat this later) I am not really supporting the idea of different intelligences since many of the "intelligences" actually correlate highly with each other. It may be a useful concept to understand individual learning better, but in the science of intelligence, ie the cognitive neuroscience, it has limited validity. (I do think it's useful in pedagogics, though.)

jopperm2 · Post by **jopperm2** » Tue Jun 07, 2005 4:25 pm

You scored higher than 47% on interpersonal

You scored higher than 36% on visual

You scored higher than 73% on verbal

You scored higher than 82% on mathematical

Odd, I'm pretty bad at math..
Though i do think in a mathematical way, I am just not skilled at complex math. I also talk on the phone for a living about tachnical things. So I guess these scores are not too odd really.

Monolith · Post by **Monolith** » Tue Jun 07, 2005 5:15 pm

Here are my results. Interesting, more or less what I expected. Although I thought that my interpersonal whatever would be slightly higher. But the mathematical part...i'm not bad at maths...I just don't like it. But that's what the test is all about, isn't it?

You scored higher than 58% on interpersonal

You scored higher than 83% on visual

You scored higher than 90% on verbal

You scored higher than 25% on mathematical

My brain:
80% interpersonal
140% visual
140% verbal
and 40% mathematical!

Curdis · Post by **Curdis** » Tue Jun 07, 2005 7:37 pm

I smell trouble

100% interpersonal

160% visual

0% verbal

140% mathematical!

You scored higher than 73% on interpersonal

You scored higher than 85% on visual

You scored higher than 0% on verbal

You scored higher than 66% on mathematical

The visual and mathmatical didn't surprised me but for a professional communicator, Musician, Music Teacher, Musical Instrument Sales, I think the verbal is a little off whack. Still it is always good to flat line a test or two.

I am concerned with a question which tacitly asked the test subject to seperate the greek philosophers and mathematicians (as well as architects and playwrites?). This question is factually absurd. - Curdis ! ate.

Dottie · Post by **Dottie** » Tue Jun 07, 2005 10:51 pm

20% interpersonal
120% visual
40% verbal
220% mathematical

No sex for me either.

I blame confusing questions. Like always.

Silur · Post by **Silur** » Wed Jun 08, 2005 1:55 am

Your brain: 60% interpersonal, 120% visual, 40% verbal, and 180% mathematical!

You scored higher than 46% on interpersonal
You scored higher than 67% on visual
You scored higher than 36% on verbal
You scored higher than 85% on mathematical

Phew! That was close

No big surprises there. On the other hand, the test looks fairly easy to fake any way you would want.

VonDondu · Post by **VonDondu** » Wed Jun 08, 2005 5:49 am

[QUOTE=Silur]On the other hand, the test looks fairly easy to fake any way you would want.[/QUOTE]
Why would you want to fake your results? It's not an aptitude test; it's about which types of reasoning you prefer to use. None is better than the others, unless you value one more than the rest.

I have to say that some of the questions had only one "right" answer for me, and I don't think I could bring myself to lie about my preferences. For example, the most remarkable thing about birds is their migration habits, the most impressive Greeks were the architects, and the most remarkable thing about humans is our ability to use language and pass information to each other. I mean, sure, I could select the "wrong" answers to change the results, but it just wouldn't feel right.