I get the impression virtually every contestant on Jeopardy qualifies as being generally very intelligent people. By ‘very intelligent’ I mean I get the impression they’d score at least a couple standard deviations higher than the median on a Standford-Binet or Wechsler IQ test.
Thing is, being good at Jeopardy should only mean one has possession of a lot of facts, not superior reasoning or other great mental capabilities. Perhaps my impression is completely wrong and many of the contestants are utter dolts, when they aren’t under spotlights answering trivia questions quickly.
Do you get the impression contestants on Jeopardy are a good deal smarter than the average bear? Or do you think they’re only good at retaining quantities of information?
The ability to retain large amounts of information is one factor of intelligence. The motivation to seek out large amounts of information is another one. And the ability to organize, collate, and retrieve large amounts of information is yet another.
It might help to realize that our memories don’t work like books or computer storage. There, you put in a piece of information, and then take it back out at some later date. With human memories, though, we just store a set of associations, and then re-construct information from those associations. Which leads to incredible capacity, impressive pattern-matching abilities, and occasional stubborn insistence that people just know something happened in a particular way when it actually didn’t.
Lateral thinking is another important factor. By this I mean the ability to reason from a variety of what may seem unconnected information to arrive at the correct response.
My favorite example is The Name Game: “Who is John Joseph Patrick Ryan?”
This was a question on a radio quiz show I once co-hosted. All of the above went through my mind in less than two seconds and I was able to guess the right answer.
There are quite a few Dopers who have been Jeopardy! contestants, I believe. The most recent being me–I taped my appearance on the show last month, but it hasn’t aired yet (June 27–be watching, y’all!).
Because it hasn’t aired, I can’t say anything specific about my own experience. But Jeopardy! is basically a trivia game. People who are good at it tend to be people who are good at remembering a lot of stuff, and at calling it to mind quickly. People who are good at Jeopardy! also tend to be people who have watched the show a lot. There are certain patterns to Jeopardy! clues and the way that they’re written that reward long-term viewing.
That’s not to say that some reasoning ability isn’t useful. Sometimes there will be a few obvious answers to a clue, and you have to be able to narrow it down to find the right one. For example, if the category is “European Inventors,” and the first name that pops into your head in response to a particular clue is American-born Thomas Edison, that’s probably not who they’re looking for. Go with Nikola Tesla instead.
Jeopardy! players tend to be people who are curious about the world, and who read a lot as a result. As Chronos says, that’s one aspect of intelligence. But it’s a very particular aspect, and certainly not the sole measure of intelligence. Jeopardy! is a game, and being a good game player is at least as important as knowing the basic facts.
Put it this way: Good Jeopardy! players are all bright people. Not all bright people would be good Jeopardy! players.
Part of the skill needed is not just remembering stuff, but doing it very fast.
when the computer Watson played 2 very good jeopardy champions Watson won partly based on speed. But the odd thing is when Watson was wrong it was often way off.
Apropos of nothing, the former child actor who played Mike Teavee on the Willy Wonka movie just appeared on Jeopardy. As in the movie, he finished second.
And much of that is not so much remembering stuff fast, but ringing in fast. I suspect that for a great many clues, all three players know the correct answer. The one who gets to respond will be the one who rings in first.
There’s something of an art to timing your use of the signalling device, and it was one of the toughest things to master. You’re not allowed to ring in before Alex finishes reading the clue. There are lights on each side of the game board that come on when he’s done. Those lights indicate that the signalling devices are enabled, and you can ring in.
You have to time it very carefully, so that you ring in just when the lights come on, but not before. Ring in too early, and you’re locked out for about a quarter of a second (which is a long time when two other people are also ringing in). Before anyone actually plays in a real game, they play a practice game so that everyone will get some experience with the signalling device.
What made Watson so dominant was that it could time its ringing in perfectly, while Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter, for all their skill, are only human and had to rely on human reflexes.
They set something up for the blind contestant so he would know when to ring in. He must have been especially bright, since he had to remember also what categories had what answers left (although it’s possible they edited out his boo-boos.)
There is also a bit of strategy. Seeking out the Daily Double, knowing how to bid once you get it and also knowing how to bid on FJ. You’d think the latter would be simple, but there was recently a contestant who was in the lead, bid more than she had to in order to maintain the lead, and then lost because she got the answer wrong.
There is a CS thread where Doper Jeopardy contestants check in. You should find it and add yourself. There are quite a lot of us.
Did you do a hometown howdy? That’s something you tape before you go on that the local station showing Jeopardy can run before your show. The station ran it before mine, but I’ve never seen another one.
I did a study once of Doper Jeopardy contestants. We have about 2 or 3 orders of magnitude more than in the general population, which just shows how smart we all are.
For me, reading widely was far more useful than just intelligence, and a good memory helps also. I read a lot about a lot of subjects, and I read lots of reviews which are more efficient in answering trivia questions than seeing or reading the thing reviewed. I’m also really good at Trivial Pursuit and the like.
There is also luck. My Double Dare question was who did the “I’m Too Sexy” song. I went with my daughter to buy the dance mix single of that song for a play she was in, so I knew the answer was Right Said Fred, but I could tell that the audience was amazed that an old guy knew that answer.
I did do a hometown howdy! They’re still doing them. I’ve also never actually seen one on TV, but then I don’t watch much TV these days except for stuff I’ve recorded on the DVR, so I likely wouldn’t see them in casual watching. So I have no idea if my local station shows them or not.
I will look for that thread; I’m sure I’ve seen it at some point!
He had surgery in early January for a subdural hematoma and returned to work sometime after that. They film so many months in advance that there will be no disruption of the regular shows. However, there was a delay in taping the College Championship. It will now air in April instead of the originally scheduled February.
