This really is an astonishing experimental result. Do you know how influential it has been? Have the results been replicated? I would think there would be a great deal of interest in trying to verify and extend these results with further experiments.

This is very interesting and revealing, as is most of Nesbitt’s research. I would add one personal observation for what it’s worth. I frame it as an open question rather than pointing to any conclusion.

My generation was literally raised on IQ tests, a tradition that I think continues in the US. This test reminds me of the kind of observational “logic” one finds at the heart of so many IQ test problems. I think it reflects a particular view of intelligence elaborated in the early 20th century by educational theorists (not true philosophers or psychologists, a fact which has led to a kind of revolt against IQ imperialism by people like Daniel Goleman, who proposes the EQ complement or alternative).

The IQ view of intelligence puts a particular emphasis on the recognition of related patterns concerning distinct objects or entities rather than the perception of complex structure of interrelated objects and entities within a field. It tests the ability to separate otherwise interacting planes of meaning and sense, even at the cost of forgetting them altogether in order to isolate what is considered significant. IQ thus reflects, in part, the ability to separate objects from the field and to consider the field as irrelevant. This apparently derives from a specific analytical tendency within Western science, which is one of the keys to our success with technology and experimental science.

My point is this. I actually understood what the problem was about just by looking at the pictures, without reading the text. That is the result of a form of specific conditioning that I probably share with Asian Americans but which I suspect is more pronounced for European Americans, and this for a reason Daniel Goleman would understand. I have a conditioned fear of being judged for not quickly recognizing the testing strategy of the problem presented. In other words, rather than reacting spontaneously to a visual puzzle, I immediately look for the principle behind the testing logic.

I use the word “fear” to represent a possible difference with Asians. If I have a thesis to promote it would be that what we could call “emotional perception” actually interacts and interferes with “intellectual perception” (which I think is a better description of the intelligence tested in IQ tests and, I would say, is more honest in that it recognizes a strong cultural component).

My question is therefore threefold:

How much of the conditioning is attributable to culture in general and how much to our acquired experience of IQ type tests?

Secondly, how much do emotional dispositions and strategies affect the results of any test (I mentioned fear as a motivator for myself… so what would be the effect of an absence of fear or a different degree of fear?)?

Finally, do our background cultures create or contribute to those “emotional dispositions and strategies”? (I suspect they do).