Abstract
Within the mental speed approach to intelligence, the worst performance rule (WPR) states that the slower trials of a reaction time (RT) task reveal more about intelligence than do faster trials. There is some evidence that the validity of the WPR may depend on high g saturation of both the RT task and the intelligence test applied. To directly assess the concomitant influence of task complexity, as an indicator of task-related g load, and g saturation of the psychometric measure of intelligence on the WPR, data from 245 younger adults were analyzed. To obtain a highly g-loaded measure of intelligence, psychometric g was derived from 12 intelligence scales. This g factor was contrasted with the mental ability scale that showed the smallest factor loading on g. For experimental manipulation of g saturation of the mental speed task, three versions of a Hick RT task with increasing levels of task complexity were applied. While there was no indication for a general WPR effect when a low g-saturated measure of intelligence was used, the WPR could be confirmed for the highly g-loaded measure of intelligence. In this latter condition, the correlation between worst performance and psychometric g was also significantly higher for the more complex 1-bit and 2-bit conditions than for the 0-bit condition of the Hick task. Our findings clearly indicate that the WPR depends primarily on the g factor and, thus, only holds for the highly g-loaded measure of psychometric intelligence.
Highlights
Over the last four decades, the mental speed approach to human intelligence has provided accumulating evidence for a positive relationship between an individual’s general intelligence, referred to as psychometric g [1,2], and his/her speed of information processing as indexed by reaction time (RT) measures
In order to obtain an estimate of psychometric g, all psychometric test scores were subjected to a principal components analysis (PCA)
As g saturation of a given RT task is assumed to be positively related to task complexity (e.g., [28,29,30,31]), a Hick RT task with three levels of task complexity was employed in the present study
Summary
Over the last four decades, the mental speed approach to human intelligence has provided accumulating evidence for a positive relationship between an individual’s general intelligence, referred to as psychometric g [1,2], and his/her speed of information processing as indexed by reaction time (RT) measures (for reviews see [3,4]) Within this conceptual framework, intra-individual variability in RT has become of major interest, as it appeared that a person’s level of psychometric g is, usually, slightly more strongly related to the standard deviation of his/her RTs over n trials (RTSD) than to his/her mean RT (e.g., [5]).
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