Why Can't I See What Other People Obviously See? [IQ Test Related]

Factual Questions
1

Someone posted a link this this place in the Pit, and I decided to try out some of the tests.

On the “What comes next…” questions, I don’t even know what they want. Specifically, I’m speaking of the questions that give a series of cubes or patterns that seem [to me] totally unrelated. You’re then to choose which cube or pattern would go next in the [supposed!] sequence.

I feel very stupid when I take those tests, as I don’t even know where to start or how one would go about answering those types of questions. It all just seems to blur into a mishmash of meaningless symbols and markings when I try to find something in common between the set of symbols.

Does my mind simply not work that way? Did I miss a class in high school that would have taught me how to solve those questions?

Or, as I fear, am I just rather dull and slow?

2

I tried the ‘culture fair’ IQ test and scored 126. Top 5%, but no genius!

This test seemed harder to me than other IQ tests I’ve done. However, it’s still true that the more experience you have in doing IQ tests, the better you’ll score.

I like solving puzzles of all types, and often during this test, I felt that my puzzle-solving experience was of more use than any ‘intelligence’ I was bringing to bear.

As for how to go about solving these puzzles, I’ll put my observations in a spoiler tag in case anyone else wants to try the same test:

[spoiler]The puzzles where you have to select which cube or pattern comes next can be solved by looking for relationships between the other cubes or patterns. Typically, if you have a 3x3 array of cubes, and you’re asked to fill in the missing cube, then examining the cubes in the other two columns or rows will give you the answer. For instance, the cube in the third column may be the result of ‘adding’ (or combining) the cubes in the first two columns. Or all three columns may show the same cube, rotated through 90 degrees each time, and you have to continue the rotation to find the missing cube.

Rotation, reflection, addition and subtraction of the whole pattern or elements within the pattern… this is what you’re looking for in most cases.

The unfolded cube puzzle is a common one. I agree that the unfolded dodecahedron and icosahedrons are pretty mind-boggling, but with a little patience, you can identify the correct answer by process of elimination.

I had no idea on the puzzles which looked like a crystal face, with different segments coloured orange each time. However, even when you can’t see the pattern, you can guess intelligently. If there are always four segments coloured orange, you obviously pick an answer that has four orange segments, not three or five.[/spoiler]

3

I think this is more IMHO, but that’s just my HO. I really wouldn’t get too worked up over it. Lots of people are really smart in one thing and really stupid in another. Unless you have both the highest IQ in the world and are its universally beloved ruler, you’re lacking smartness in something or other.

4

That’s what I thought, too, Liberal. Then again, I thought there might be a specific answer along the lines of why some people can’t see 3-D images, or that I hadn’t learned a specific skill. Or, you know, that I’m just an idiot. :stuck_out_tongue: What you say is very true, though. I do rather well on the verbal tests, even if I fail the puzzles and math parts miserably.

Thanks, hammos. I don’t think I spent as much time “intelligently guessing” as I should have, as I tended to give up after getting frustrated with the puzzles. I think I’ll try again and follow your suggestions.

Mods, if this should be in IMHO, please move it for me? Thanks!

5

It seems to me that those visual/spatial pattern recognition/transposition doo-dads simply involve a skillset that not everybody has (though I’m sure practice can help some).

I agree of course that these tests measure patience, concentration, motivation, test-taking experience etc as much as anything else, however…

There really is a difference between various people’s ability to perform various mental tasks. Much as there are substantial differences between various people’s ability to perform various physical tasks.

The ways of measuring these abilities are pretty flawed of course, but it’s like any other race, hard work and good teaching can improve your score, but only up to a point. Fact is, there are some really sharp people out there !

6

I am really good at IQ tests. I have done tests where I am off the scale and always score over 140 but those questions at the site you linked to make my head hurt. I got so frustrated by the string of spatial questions that I gave up. They are usually what I find hardest in IQ tests but generally I can laboriously work them out.

7

According to one of my college professors (and no, I can’t cite it anymore, so call this an UL if you must) the score on the “visual/spatial pattern recognition/transposition” tests - the tests where you need to manipluate an object in your mind - like rotate or flip it - are the tests whose score most closely correlates with the overall IQ. That is, some people may suck at verbal and get a really low score on that section but still have a pretty high IQ, but the score of this part is pretty similar to your overall IQ.

Can any IQ testers confirm or refute this? I’ve always wondered if it was inherently true of inteligence (at least the type of “intellingece” the IQ test tests for) or a flaw in the IQ test.

8

That made my brain hurt. I did ok until the “make this 3 dimentional object in your head” parts. Now I need some aspirin.

9

I took the “culture fair” test, which is very heavy on the spacial reasoning and puzzle logic questions. I’ll leave it to the experts to determine whether the test was truly culturally neutral, but I can tell you it’s not very good for the colorblind. I’m only mildly colorblind and a few of the questions were bascially impossible for me to answer, except as an educated guess. I think several of them could have very easily been fixed with a slight modification of the color scheme too. Five minutes consulting with someone who is colorblind would have been helpful for the test designers.

There are lots of reasons why someone might not perform well on a test like this. Many of them have no bearing on actual intellectual ability. So, chatelaine don’t sweat it. :slight_smile:

10

I’m at work on a slow connection, so I haven’t taken this specific test, but I’m going to guess that part of it is “what does this 3-D object look like from the top?” or “which of these funny looking shapes could be folded up to make a dodecohedron?” and so forth?

I happen to be pretty good at the spatial thing - it’s not hard for me to flip things around in my head, fold them up, spin imaginary gears, whatever. I also, it seems like many people I know who are also good at mental spatal gymnastics, have an excellent sense of direction in the “we need to go that way!” sense, but a very bad sense of how many miles we’ve gone, and if we did it north or east, etc - ditto that I have an excellent ear and when I practiced was a pretty good musician, but sucked ass at music theory. When asked to find the pattern in number strings instead of shapes, I get bored and frustrated and give up. In other words, my brain is very good at visualizing (or hearing, in the music case) and manipulating, but not so good at the other sort of thing. (It isn’t abstracts, really, and it isn’t that I’m not good at verbal things - one does hate to say “my brain hates math” though. :slight_smile: )

Anyway, the point I was trying to get at before I tried to explain the totally unexplainable-to-other-people bits of how my brain works, is that by talking to my friends I get the feeling that either you’re good at understanding spatial relationships or you just aren’t. I don’t even really think it’s a practice thing, although surely one could practice and improve - some people just don’t seem tohave a feel for dimensional solids, I guess - they only know we’re supposed to take Assembly to Elmwood, and if you asked them to point in the direction of the mall we’re going to they’d have no idea. Ditto, some people are actually interested in the string of numbers like I’m interested in the rotated solids, and they take one look and say “Oh, they’re cube roots plus the sum of the previous numbers”. Now, maybe I could have figured it out if I’d sat there for a couple hours with a pencil and paper trying out ideas, but I wouldn’t unless you put a gun to my head and made me.

IOW, I think (because of course the plural of anecdore is data) that spatial relationships are something that you are either good at manipulating or not, and that it’s an entirely different skill from the relationships between numbers, say.

11

Most of the “what comes next” questions seem to have something to do with math. Either some number sequence, or some number relationship. The pattern ones tend to be like “turn around, then rotate X degrees” or “flip one axis, then flip another axis” or something similar.

Some of those questions required spatial reasoning, where you have to flip things around and construct 3D in your head. Some of the spatial reasoning questions on that test made my head hurt trying to visualize the answers. I just totally skipped the bizarre ones.

A lot of IQ tests require either exposure or familiarity to concepts. The math ones are much easier to do if you have a decent exposure to maths. The spatial reasoning ones are also easier if you’ve done some amount of spatial reasoning in the past. I’m of the opinion that these tests don’t necessarily test your innate abilities. For example, someone with limited exposure to English or math would score less in those sections than someone who has had significant exposure.

And note that when you clear their “Ultimate IQ Test”, they take you to a payment page offering you membership starting at US$59.95.

12

I know I have problems properly seeing some colors, but those G_DD_MN_D 3D pictures that were popular a few years back drove me nuts. Peoplke would say, "Ain’t that dog cute " and I’d say. “What dog?” :dubious:

13

Yeh, I just gave up and answered c on those spatial ones. And I still managed to get 125. Yeh, great measurement of my intelligence. :rolleyes:

14

I tried the ultimate IQ test and got 127 - I guess this means I’m gifted (at taking IQ tests). Luckily, I’m gifted enough not to swindled out of the $59.95 that they’re asking for. :rolleyes:

15

Since we don’t have a consensus on what is meant by intelligence, it seems a shame to let these tests needle your self-esteem like this. And as for handing money over…

I think Zsofia has the right idea - it’s more a question of motivation. If you enjoy manipulating shapes, finding patterns in number-strings, looking for verbal analogies etc etc, then you’ll concentrate, work at it , and get good at it. If not…

One thing has always baffled me though. Given that you DO believe that IQ tests measure your innate intelligence, why on earth would you want to know what that is? Wouldn’t it feel incredibly limiting? Even if you scored, say, 125, you’d know you were quite bright, but hardly exceptional. And suppose your score came out at under 100?
I’ve always secretly suspected mine is about 90, so that’s why I will never do an IQ test!

16

Really, have you met “average” people? I’d say there’s hardly any Dopers with an IQ of 100 or less. I’m being completely and utterly serious. There are some total asshats here, but they’re all (or nearly all) above-average intelligence asshats.

I spent most of my educational life in honors and AP classes. It wasn’t until I got to the local Junior College that I was in classes with “average” people. And I was shocked and dismayed to discover how *dumb *normal is.

Trust me, if verbs like “needle”, “manipulate” and “baffle”, along with words like “innate” and phrases like “number-strings” and “verbal analogies” are part of your working vocabulary, your IQ is NOT 90.

17

This simply tells you that I read a lot and write a lot. Hence a wide vocabulary. Is this intelligence? It’s not innate, (apart from the ability to learn language in the first place, which we all have) its the result of years of saturation in a highly verbal culture. IQ tests say they are culture-neutral - ie they can identify potential equally in the illiterate, the disadvantaged etc. I say this is impossible. What they measure is facility - different types of facility, verbal, numerical, spatial. All of which are the result of complex and highly varied individual learning paths, structured by culture.

18

I have analyzed all of your posts for reading comprehension, vocabulary, logic, analogies, and grasp of base ten numbers and I have found that your IQ is exactly 122. Now you know.

19

I was only able to answer two of the spatial ones: the one with the lines and circles, and the cube with the patterns on the faces. Having patterns gave me points of reference between the folded and non-folded images, making it fairly easy to compare them. I might have been able to do the other ones, too, but I was sick and tired of mental rotation, so I just skipped the hard ones :wink:

Final score: 146.
Conclusion: I’m good at taking IQ tests.

Of course, it helps that I’ve seen a couple of the questions before. Specifically, the series of “O, T, T, F, F, S, S, E, N, ?” and “2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, ?”. Those are both pretty common questions.

20

Actually very few of those. A lot of logic, a lot of pattern recognition, a lot of sequencing and most importantly combinations of the above.

Some of the questions made my head hurt, but I felt really, really good when I worked it through (one was flat out cool - once I saw it.)
some of them, I still have no clue as to even where I might begin.

The ‘culture fair’ was a good test - especially since you don’t end up with the “O, T, T, F, F, S, S, E, N, ?” questions that get asked so very often