Speed & Intelligence

Speed of Information Processing

How many times have we heard references to someone we know, who is labeled as clever because he is fast
at grasping a concept or quick on some mental arithmetic and phrases used to describe them like speed of
cop-on when we associate speed with intelligence. It seems one could almost say that being fast is
synonymous with being smart. ertainly in the field of psychometrics speed of information processing and it!s
correlation with g, the pro"y for intelligence is of much interest and the sub#ect of numerous studies. $peed of
information processing can easily be measured by elementary cognitive tasks %&'s(. )n e"ample of this,
would be a task requiring a correct response to a visual stimuli %e.g. whether an arrow that appears on a
screen is pointing left or right( of which the time for the response is measured from the time the stimuli appears
to the time a sub#ect responds by pressing a button. It almost seems counterintuitive that such simple tasks,
reducible to basic fundamental neuro-physiological functions, of which involves no cognitive operations, can
capture the comple" and multi-dimensional quality of the brain i.e. intelligence. However many studies have
been carried out since the *+,-s, and have shown robust correlations %negative( between the reaction time
%.'( of responses to &'s and intelligence.
'ypical correlations between single &'s %elementary cognitive tasks( and I/ are moderate, ranging from --.0
to --.1 %2ensen *++,, $heppard 0--3( but increase dramatically when tests are carried out using a battery of
&'s or if the comple"ity of the &'s increases by using competing tasks %4ogarty 5 $tankov *++6( or dual
tasks %2ensen *++,(, although the &'s bear no resemblance to conventional psychometric tests. 2ensen
e"plains that the reason that a battery of &'s correlate higher with g, is due to the fact that the global speed
component is cumulative to the battery with every &' added to the test battery, while the unique non-
cognitive speed component for each &' is only added once. 'his is analogous to adding various items in a
conventional I/ test, which increases the test correlations with other tests. 7ith respect to speed of processing
between high and low ability groups, the .' difference between High I/ sub#ects and 8ow I/ sub#ects are in
ways that are seemingly parado"ical. ) small percentage of the fastest .'s of low I/ sub#ects are almost as
fast as the fastest .'s of High I/ sub#ects and faster that the median .'s of the High I/ sub#ects %2ensen
*++,(. 9ut where they differ most is in the longest .'s produced. 'he High I/ sub#ects almost never produce
any .'s that are as slow as most of the .'s produced by the 8ow I/ sub#ects. :ore importantly, it is the
differences in longer .'s that are highly correlated with I/ and not the shortest .'s as observed by 8arson et
al. %*++-( and ;rant<ler %*++0(.
4ig *- 'he worst performance rule= 'he .' data from the original e"periment by 8arson and )lderton %*++-, 'able 1( were divided into
*> bands, the mean of which was correlated with g. :ean .' from the slowest bands correlates more strongly with g than the mean .'
from the fastest bands.
Test Taking Speed
) cursory look at a typical speeded I/ test like the attell ulture 4air III %4'( which is considered a good
measure of fluid intelligence and highly speeded %6- items to be completed in a time frame of *0.6 minutes or
an average of *6 seconds per item( seemingly, indicates that speed is indeed an important component of
intelligence or a part of intelligence if you like. ?oes this mean that a high I/ measured on the 4' would
require a high speed of information processing@ Aernon %*+,+( carried out five studies of which he e"tracted a
g factor from a battery of tests which included the 7)I$ B .)C: and the :)9 %:ultidimensional )ptitude
9attery( of which he labeled I/g . He also e"tracted a general factor from a battery of &'s from which he
labeled .'g. Carado"ically, he found that the correlations between the untimed version of the .)C: and .'g
was the highest and in contrast the digi-symbol, a speeded subtest of the 7)I$ battery had the lowest
correlation with .'g bearing in mind that the .)C: had no commonality in content with any of the &'s.
4urther, 2ensen %*++,( found that the time taken by university graduates on the .)C: was not significantly
correlated to the number of questions they answered correctly. onsequently, he distinguishes test taking
speed with speed of information processing and considers these to be completely different abilities, with test
taking speed more associated with personality and not cognitive factors.
Working Memory, Complexity & Speed
'heories on the limited capacity of working memory %7:( tend to lend support to the correlation between
speed of processing and ability. It is theori<ed that working memory has two properties which make speed of
information processing crucial for solving tasks in a given amount of time. 7: is limited in its capacity to store
information and the information entered into storage decays over time. )n e"ample of a 7: task is
remembering a *--digit phone number and then adding the digits to produce an answer. 'he capacity of the
7: in retaining the *- digits is crucial before the individual can start the addition process. 'he cause of him
failing to complete the task successfully may be attributed to two reasonsD i( if his 7: capacity is low, the *--
digit information is lost before the addition can be completed or even take place, or ii( the speed of which he
adds the *- digits is too slow and he fails to e"ecute the adding operation before the information in 7:
eventually decays and has to be re-entered. Hence, the speed with which the information can be processed is
a decisive factor to e"plain the differences in ability of individuals %Aernon *+,E( since the information retained
in working memory decays if not processed in time. $ince task comple"ity increases the demand it places on
the retention of the information in 7:, then it stands to reason that the successful processing of the task would
then be mediated by the speed of which it can be processed. In other words the heavier the burden on working
memory, the more beneficial speed of processing becomes lending support to a speed dependent 7:.
Aernon and ;antor %*+,>( predicted an increase in correlations between speed of processing and reasoning
from timed to untimed conditions. 'hey reasoned that if time constraints are rela"ed for reasoning tasks %which
correlates highly with 7:( the correlations between speed of processing and reasoning should be higher since
the measure under untimed conditions will contain more speed variance, due to the fact that under untimed
conditions the sub#ects are able to work through all of the items in a test, and the higher ability sub#ects will be
able to solve the hardest items %not usually possible under timed conditions(, thereby introducing more
variance in scores. 'he opposing hypothesis to this is that under timed conditions the more able will be able to
go through more items, with a higher percentage of correct responses, since they will work faster and more
accurately through the items compared to the slower sub#ects. $o placing time constraints will increase the
correlations between speed of processing and speeded reasoning. 7ilhelm et al. %0--*(, sets out to test this
hypothesis by using E>3 high school students. 'est instruments using reasoning and processing speed
subtests were obtained from the 9erlin :odel of Intelligence 'est %9I$-1( of which were divided into 0 groups
of reasoning tests and * group of speed test. 'he sub#ects were divided into > groups, of which all were tested
on both groups of reasoning tests under timed and untimed conditions and 1 groups worked on the speed of
processing tests. 'he correlations between tests taken by all > groups are summari<ed in table 1, reproduced
belowD
$peed of Crocessing $peeded .easoning Fn-speeded .easoning
$peed of Crocessing -.,0 -.1+ -.E1
$peeded .easoning -.>+ -.>1
Fn-speeded .easoning -.>+
'he correlations between speed of processing and speeded reasoning is higher than that between speed of
processing and un-speeded reasoning which runs counter to what was hypothesi<ed by Aernon 5 ;antor
based on the concept of a speed dependent 7:, although the relatively lower correlations are still significant
enough that a speed dependent 7: cannot be dismissed outright.
Speed, Item Difficulty & Aility
7hat would the correlations look like if with increase task difficulty, and if the performance of individuals on the
tasks were calibrated according to ability@ 7ould we still get the negative correlations so ubiquitous in the
numerous studies carried out on information processing tasks@ ?anthiir et. al. %0--6( carried out studies on
*,> undergraduate university students and sub#ects recruited from, the wider community, with Gs %processing
speed tasks or &'s(, Gf and Gc tasks. 4) was carried out on the scores for the E types of tasks %1 each for
G$, Gf and Gc tasks( to confirm the ability factors labeled as Gs, Gf and Gc. 7hat they found was that as the
item difficulty increase, the response times for both Gf and Gc items increased with larger latencies for Gf
items compared to Gc items of similar difficulty. 'he findings for the easy item are as e"pected where the
sub#ects higher on Gf perform faster for easy items but slower as the item difficulty increases. ) similar
relationship is found for Gc items. 'his means that the correlations start from negative, reducing as the level of
difficulty increases to a point where positive correlations are obtained for the hardest items. 'he negative
correlations are highest for the easiest items, with negative correlations higher on Gc items compared to Gf
items. 'his means processing speed seems to play a more important role for easier tasks %more so for Gc
items( compared to more difficult items. orrelations between :ean orrect .esponse 8atencies for the
easiest items and )bility 4actor $cores, are --.1, with Gc, --.E, with Gf and --.06 with Gs for Gc items, and
--.0- with Gc, --.0> with Gf and --.00 with Gs for Gf items. Clease refer to figure 0 %from the original paper(.

) re-analysis of the data was carried out, this time with the response latencies calibrated according to ability of
the sub#ects. 'he scores were divided into E ability groups for each of the Gf and Gc items with the results on
table 1 re-tabulated belowD
'able 1=:ean correct response latencies %$?( for ability groups, with item difficulty calibrated for ability.
)bility
Gf Items Gc Items
&asy :id-&asy :edium Hard &asy :id-&asy :edium Hard

latency
%ms(
latency
%ms(
latency
%ms(
latency
%ms(
latency
%ms(
latency
%ms(
latency
%ms(
latency
%ms(
*
*013- 0,,0- EE+,0 1-1-+ ,6E- +3** **0,6 *0->,
%E*>0( %*-16>( %**>>>( %*+,,1( %*3E*( %*,3,( %03-E( %E0**(
0
01,16 E06>6 6EE,1 6>,6> +163 **--3 **+,E *1-,*
%,+>>( %,E06( %0-*31( %0*,>3( %0->>( %E0->( %0,3*( %133>(
E
E*E66 E6,>* 6310, >+>03 +*,> *-,E1 **>0, *E06>
%3+E*( %*-+>*( %*3,+,( %0,+E0( %0-06( %0,3+( %E6,E( %E30,(
Hote= $tatistics reported for Gf item difficulties are with participants grouped according to Gf abilityD statistics
reported for Gc item difficulties are with participants grouped according to Gc ability. .esponse
latencies are in ms. * I below average, 0 I average, E I above average.
4or the Gf items, the latencies increase from easy to difficult items across ability groups with the highest
latencies for the highest ability group. 'he latencies are highest for the high ability group even for the easiest
items. 4or the Gc items the latencies increase from easy to the hardest items with the highest latencies
demonstrated among the average group. 'he latencies are much higher in general for the Gf items compared
to the Gc items. 7hat is obvious from the results are i( the data does not suggest that the sub#ects higher on
Gf and Gc are faster on the easy items nor does data suggest that ii( the difference in latencies reduces the
more difficult the items become. 'his pattern or rather the rank order of latencies with respect to item difficulty
still holds, although to a much lesser e"tent for the Gc items. )n important point to note is that the difficulty of
the items used for the higher ability group are harder than that for the lower ability group, and hence what can
be correctly concluded is that the high ability group uses more time for each increment in difficulty of the items,
compared to the low ability group. 'he findings are different from that showed in table 0, where the high ability
sub#ects %on both Gf and Gc items( are faster on the easy items. It would seem evident from this study, that the
speed of information processing or the reciprocal measure i.e. the magnitude of the latencies are mediated by
item difficulty and when calibrated for ability, are dependent on the ability level of the sub#ects. )lso the results
of this study, seemingly provides conclusions that run counter to what other studies have indicated with faster
processing speed for higher ability sub#ects. Interestingly, in testing how mental speed relates to real-world
criteria such as school performance, .indermann 5 Heubauer %0--0( with their structural equation models
obtained correlations of school performance %on 03* students between years + to **( with I/ of -.6,
processing speed and school performance of -.E6 %-.E+ for high ability sub#ects compared to -.0> for average
ability sub#ects(. 'hey concluded that although processing speed can inde" performance such as school
grades and cognitive abilities, it cannot substitute psychometric intelligence or g since the correlations between
school performance and speed of processing cannot be as high as that between school performance and I/.
It seems then that the differences in general ability is more pronounced when measured using more comple"
cognitive operations and tasks and that I/ tests are still a more reliable measure of cognitive ability compared
to applying an apparent common inde" graded along a single continuum of measurement, speed.
.eferences=
1. ?anthiir A. 7ilhelm J. 5 $chacht ). ?ecision speed in intelligence tasks= correctly an ability@ - Psychology Science, Volume 47, 2005
(2), p. 200 - 229
2. 4ogarty G., 5 $tankov 8. %*++6(. hallenging the 8aw of ?iminishing .eturns. Intelligence, 0* %0(, *63-*3>.
3. 2ensen ). .. %*++,(- 'he G 4actor, 'he $cience of mental )bility %Craeger(.
4. ;ran<ler 2ohn H %*++0( - ) test of 8arson and )ldertonKs %*++-( worst performance rule of reaction time variability. Personality
and Individual Differences Aol *E, Issue E :arch *++0 Cages 066-0>* .
5. ;yllonen, C. ., 5 hristal, .. &. %*++-(. .easoning ability is %little more than( working-memory capacity@L Intelligence, *1,
E,+M1EE.
6. 8arson, G. &., 5 )lderton, ?. 8. %*++-(. .eaction time variability and intelligence= ) worst performanceN analysis of individual
differences. Intelligence, *1, E-+-E06.
7. Heckar, &. %*++0(. ognitive analysis of intelligence= 'he significance of working memory processes. Cersonality and
Individual ?ifferences, *E %+(, *-E*-*-1>.
8. .indermann H., Heubauer ). . - Crocessing speed, intelligence, creativity, and school performance= 'esting of causal
hypotheses using structural equation models. Intelligence E0 %0--1( 63EM6,+
9. $heppard 8eah ?., Chilip ). Aernon - Intelligence and speed of information-processing= ) review of 6- years of research.
Personality and Individual Differences 11 %0--,( 6E6M66*
10. Aernon Chillip ). %*+,+( - 'he generality of g. Personality and Individual Differences Aolume *-, Issue 3, *+,+, Cages ,-E-,-1
11. Aernon, C) %*+,Ea(. .ecent finding in the nature of g. ournal of !"ecial #ducation, *3 %E(, E,,-1--.
12. Aernon, C) %*+,Eb(. $peed of information processing and general intelligence. Intelligence$ 7 %*(, 6E-3-.
13. Aernon, C. )., 5 ;antor, 8. %*+,>(. .eaction time correlations with intelligence test scores obtained under either timed or
untimed conditions. Intelligence, *-, E*6MEE-.
14. 7ilhelm J., $hul<e .., 'he relation of speeded and unspeeded reasoning with mental speed. Intelligence E- %0--0( 6E3-661.