Right. Here’s the relevant quote from Stanovich (2010):
In a magazine article or textbook on cognitive science, the author might describe the marvelous mechanisms we have for recognizing faces and refer to this as “a remarkable aspect of human intelligence.” Likewise, a book on popular science might describe how we have mechanisms for parsing syntax when we process language and also refer to this as “a fascinating product of the evolution of the human intellect.” Finally, a textbook on evolutionary psychology might describe the remarkably intelligent mechanisms of kin recognition that operate in many animals, including humans. Such processes-face recognition, syntactic processing, detection of gaze direction, kin recognition -are all parts of the machinery of the brain. They are also sometimes described as being part of human intelligence. Yet none of these processes are ever tapped on intelligence tests. What is going on here? Is there not a contradiction? In fact, there is not a contradiction at all if we understand that intelligence tests assess only those aspects of cognitive functioning on which people tend to show large differences. What this means is that intelligence tests will not routinely assess all aspects of cognitive functioning. There are many kinds of Type i processing that are important for us as a species, but on which there tend not to be large differences between people in the efficiency of functioning. Face recognition, syntactic processing, gaze direction detection, and kin recognition provide four examples of such domains.′ This is why such processes are not assessed on intelligence tests.
As stated, still hearsay. I understand that there are probably references somewhere, but it’s still unclear even what standards of performance are considered (“syntactic processing”?). And of course, the Type I processes relevant to this post are not like those listed, which are way too specialized to serve the role of the general default decision-making.
Well, it’s all hearsay. I didn’t do any of the experiments. :)
But I assume you’re asking me to go one step deeper. Stanovich has a more detailed discussion of this in his book Rationality and the Reflective Mind. In particular, footnote 6 on page 37 cites the following sources on individual differences (and the general lack thereof) in the autonomous mind:
Right. Here’s the relevant quote from Stanovich (2010):
As stated, still hearsay. I understand that there are probably references somewhere, but it’s still unclear even what standards of performance are considered (“syntactic processing”?). And of course, the Type I processes relevant to this post are not like those listed, which are way too specialized to serve the role of the general default decision-making.
Well, it’s all hearsay. I didn’t do any of the experiments. :)
But I assume you’re asking me to go one step deeper. Stanovich has a more detailed discussion of this in his book Rationality and the Reflective Mind. In particular, footnote 6 on page 37 cites the following sources on individual differences (and the general lack thereof) in the autonomous mind:
Anderson (2005). Marrying intelligence and cognition: A developmental view. In Sternberg & Pretz (eds.), Cognition and intelligence (pp. 268-287). Cambridge University Press.
Kanazawa (2004). General intelligence as a domain-specific adaptation. Psychological Review, 111: 512-523.
Saffran, Aslin, & Newport (1996). Statistical learning by 8-month-old infants. Science, 274: 1926-1928.
Reber (1992). An evolutionary context for the cognitive unconscious. Philosophical Psychology, 5: 33-51.
Reber (1993). Implicit learning and tacit knowledge. Oxford University Press.
Vinter & Detable (2003). Implicit learing in children and adolescents with mental retardation. American Journal of Mental Retardation, 108: 94-107.
Zacks, Hasher, & Sanft (1982). Automatic encoding of event frequency: Further readings. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 8: 106-116.
Hopefully it’s alright if I leave it to you to at least read the abstracts/first pages?