Intelligence and motor skills, or lack thereof

Factual Questions
1

I’ve been wondering about this a lot lately, actually since I started in the Massage Therapy program at a local vo-tech school.

The lowest grade I’ve ever gotten on any test is an 89%, and that happened when I had completed the test hastily, and not gone back and checked it over and accidentally marked a couple of answers in the wrong blanks (we were having the end-of-module party that night, one of the girls had brought homemade kung-pao shrimp and I was hungry and in a hurry to get at the food.)

I barely study- maybe three to four hours a week, and I consistently score in the high 90’s and probably get 100% on at least half of my tests. One test, I deliberately didn’t study for, just to see how I would do, and got a 90%. That’s just from taking notes in class, sitting through the lectures, reading the chapter and doing my homework. No extra studying involved.

I also have zero motor skills, as in I once lost a job because I couldn’t move product fast enough to satisfy the boss. At my job at Wal-Mart, I average maybe about 420 items per hour on the cash register when many, if not most, of my coworkers consistently top 600 (or even 700-800-- bitcas). It takes me quite a bit longer than most people to do simple tasks when I’m hauling ass and they’re not even breathing hard. I have found that this actually give me a bit of an edge when doing massage - I am constantly hearing the instructor to tell my classmates to slow down. I can do a full body massage in fifty-five minutes (spas want you to do them in fifty, and there are some things I can do to shave that five minutes off my timing and still give a good massage…)

Many, well, actually, most of my classmates, who do have good motor skills and fine muscle coordination are struggling with the acedemic parts of the class. One girl, who is actually fairly bright, failed two of her first four tests, and she studies her butt off- on her days off, she spends the entire day studying, and either can’t retain the information or can’t get it from her brain onto paper. Others in the class are A and B students, but they really have to struggle to maintain those grades.

I know the “klutzy professor” is often the subject of comedy, but really, are there any studies out there that show a corrolation between having a cerebral cortex that can absorb, use, and transmit large amounts of information with little effort and having poor motor skills?

2

Oh, come on, somebody…

3

I’ll take a whack at it – but just a theory, no cites.

I think it’s possible that at an early age we learn what we’re good at, and we tend to stay with it. In general, we discover we’re either good at motor-skills stuff (a jock) or mental stuff (a brain).We tend to emphasize those activities in the area of our basic gift, getting more practice at them and further improving our skills.

(The two aren’t mutually exclusive, though – look at Bill Bradley, Rhodes Scholar turned pro athlete turned US senator.)

Now, the problem with being a brain, is that you tend to process stuff through that big wad o’ wet matter, even stuff that doesn’t necessarily improve by being so processed, like some physical skills. Certain skills are better done through the hands, like typing, or through the feet, like tap-dancing (my main motor-skills skill). It’s like parallel parking – not that hard to do as long as you don’t think about it too hard.

So, I’m guessing people get used to relying on one mode or the other, more than that they’re not able to process through their non-dominant mode.

(Hey, you wanted a response – you didn’t say it had to be a good response.)

4

twickster, actually, it sounds like a pretty good theory. I’ve noted that even after repeating a particular action thousands of times, I still have to think about it, if only for a split second. Nothing ever becomes automatic to me.

If I knew of a way of reprogramming my neural pathways so that repetitive motions stopped at my brain stem instead of going all the way to my cerebral cortex for processing, I’d do it.

5

That an interesting thought. I preform well in school but have problems with fine motor skills and repetitive actions. Not to the point that you experience, but I also don’t score on tests as highly as you do ;).

6

Not saying the trend isn’t there, but I don’t know if it’s all that common. I skated through high school (college is another story), but I can type 120wpm on an unfamiliar keyboard, and I tend to be pretty good at video games. A lot of gamers are bright, and most games are pretty demanding of fine motor control. Granted, that may just be excessive practice rather than talent, since the same gamers (myself included) have issues with bumping into things, people, empty air… :slight_smile:

7

The two skills aren’t mutually exclusive, but I think it’s common for a person to develop one and neglect the other.

When my sisters were raising their kids they both made an effort to balance the activities of their offspring. As a result, we’ve got four brainy kids with good physical coordination.

And, like anything else, there’s a spectrum of skills and traits found in the population. There are some folks who are just never going to be “brains” and will have to study book knowledge over and over to absorb it, and there are other folks who will never be “jocks” and find physical skills more difficult. Practice will make a difference, but only up to a point.

8

Interestingly, Arthur Jensen has spent a fair amount of his professional career trying to assert the correspondence between IQ and Response Time, with faster response correlating to higher IQ. This is his attempt to create an IQ test that is free of cultural bias. (This gets sticky when he then uses his results to claim he has found persistent differences in the reaction times of various races.)

However, as with the OP, my response time is quite slow and always has been, while my intelligence is probably not below average. Conversely, two of the brightest guys I knew in high school were amazingly quick, so I suspect (based on my anecdotal survey) that any correlations between motor skills and intelligence are purely coincidental.

(As with IQ, itself, I perceive a possibility that the whole area of motor skills, motor speed, response time, etc. may have different values for different people in different situations, opening up the huge can of worms that we are attempting to measure multiple intelligences against multiple physical speeds and assigning a single value to each set for purposes of comparison.

9

Traits are a grab-bag. I don’t think there’s a god or a great spirit or even a natural justice to make sure those who have a great singing voice will suck at math or any other equation.

I myself am slightly below average in all things. :wink:

10

This is anecdotal.

I’m not terribly bright - I tested at 143 on the Wechsler scale, but that only shows how foolish those tests really are - but I’m certainly above average. My motor skills are nevertheless just fine. I can type over one hundred words a minute with few mistakes, and while I was never a great guitarist, I could tear up some clean scales something fierce (both classical and electric) before I quit.

(Remembering things is another story. I don’t even know my own name half the time. I read books, go back to them a week later, and it’s like a new experience for me. Hrmph.)

11

Not too bright Cheese monster? I don’t think you understand how they grade these tests then.

Just to let you know, on the Weschsler scale, 145 is the 3rd deviation. Which is considered Genius. 2nd deviation is considered Gifted.(130) As in Bright, smart, better than normal, intelligent, crafty, get the picture?

I’m not sure how accurate these IQ tests on Aults are. Of course the score a person actually scores tends to be one standard devation below what they claim… :wink:

Just for those that don’t know, how they find the score of the typical IQ test (Weschler for example) is this formula-

MA
---- X 100 =IQ
CA

Where
MA is Mental Age and
CA is Current Age

What they do is take a test and give it a top score, which is pretty much impossible to get a high score on. Say 1000.

Then they take a group of kids of a particular age, quite a large group of em and give em all the tests. They average out the scores and place them withing a certian range. They label this as the average 10 year old’s intelligence. Say they score a 326.

So if a 10 year old scores a 323, which is within range of the average 10 year old, they assign them a mental age of 10. Since the kids current biological age is 10, the formula would look like this 10/10 X 100 = 100, which is the median score. Now, if a 7 year old scores a 325 on the test, which puts him about the same as a 10 year old, the forumla would look like this 10/7 X100 = ~142

Very close to your 143 in fact. But this is for a child, which AFAIK, is when these tests are most accurate. In fact, I am not entirely sure how well these tests actually work for adults.

What I think is funny is those people that take these tests when they were kids, 10, 11, etc, and 15 years later claim the same IQ.

A 7 year old that scores 325 on a test may later, at the age of 10, only score a bit higher, 330, which would probably still place him within the range of a 10 year old, which would mean his IQ is right at Average. Been known to happen as I hear it.

As for the topic- Motor skills are learned to more of a degree than Intelligence can be. Childhood is the time when the most development occurs in both motor skills and intelligence, and many “intelligent” children are so because they were ostracized form the playground and chose to read and such because of that. (not universal, but surprisingly ubiquious)

There may be a correlation between Intelligent people and lack of motor skills. That doesn’t mean there is a causation involved.

There has been a scientifically documented correlation between Height and intelligence. Taller people on average are smarter. Does that mean being tall made em smart? Or are they tall because they are smarter? Correlation does not make Causation.

(the reason that there is a correlation betwen height and IQ scores is due to nutrition and health rather than height)

12

Change this to pretty much impossible to get a PERFECT score on. :wink:

13

Oh, not precisely, though I’ve gone over my own results with the psychologist who administered the test. But I’m not “Bright, smart, better than normal, intelligent, [or] crafty”. I have an awful memory, read quite slowly, and math is a chore for me. This isn’t to say I’m not above average - I think I am - but I neither feel nor act anywhere close to genius. I’m therefore inclined to doubt the validity of IQ testing, though of course I’ve no real proof for that.

(Actually: I tend to wonder if he wasn’t leading me on some of the questions, at least on the factual portion. I’ve been assured by a psychiatrist that the psychologist’s tests are generally normal, but it makes me more suspicious of testing in general.)

14

I’d say this question ties into the other thread (can’t find it) about skill or talent. Some people, regardless of intellegence, are going to be better or worse at hand/eye coordination.

My childhood was filled with playing baseball, riding bikes with no hands, and of course, lots and lots of videogames (flying games were my favorite). Whatever talent I was born with was further developed by these games.

I don’t see a direct link between IQ and hand/eye coordination. Of course there are stereotypes of mindless brainiacs which might be the reason people think there’s a link (as you said).

I’d say you didn’t practice enough so you lack some dexterity. Maybe taking up some martial arts would fix that.

15

This is a hijack, but I wonder to what extent the “klutzy professor” stereotype is related to Asperger’s Syndrome. The stereotypical professor is obsessed with his work, has poor physical coordination, and poor social skills.

People with Aspergers (a condition related to autism) tend to focus their attention on specific, narrow subjects, and have poor physical coordination and social skills.

16

There is also a correlation between myopia (nearsightedness) and IQ. On average, those with myopia score 8 points higher on an IQ test.

Aren’t IQ scores used in courts to show competency? Aren’t they also used to determine whether a defendant is mentally retarded and therefore NOT subject to the death penalty? If so, it would seem that courts have accepted the legitimacy of IQ test scores when making fundamental decisions about defendant rights.

17

Do you have a cite for that? It sounds like the old wives’ tale “smart people wear glasses” and such, but it really wouldn’t surprise me if it were true. I’d just like to see the data.

And then, how do we know that the smartness isn’t a causative factor in the nearsightedness? Smart people tend to read more, reading focuses the eyes a shorter distance, keeping the eyes focused on shorter distances for long periods of time will eventually cause the lens to reshape to make a person myopic, etc.

18

Padmaraga posted

Here’s a link to a site discussing IQ, Myopia, and relative brain size correlations -

http://psycprints.ecs.soton.ac.uk/archive/00000144/