Describe the research that supports and the research that raises questions about choice reaction time as a measure of intelligence

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

Some investigators have proposed that intelligence can be understood in terms of speed of neuronal conduction. In other words, the smart person is someone whose neural circuits conduct information rapidly. When Arthur Jensen proposed this notion, direct measures of neural-conduction velocity were not readily available. So Jensen primarily studied a proposed proxy for measuring neural-processing speed. The proxy was choice reaction time—the time it takes to select one answer from among several possibilities.

Participants with higher IQs are faster than participants with lower IQs in their reaction time. In this particular version of the task, RT is defined as the time between when a light comes on and the finger leaves the home (central) button. In some studies, participants with higher IQs also showed a faster movement time (MT). MT is defined as the time between letting the finger leave the home button and hitting the button under the light. These findings may be due to increased central nerve-conduction velocity, although at present this proposal remains speculative.

Research indicates choice RT may be influenced by extraneous factors, including the number of response alternatives and the visual-scanning requirements of Jensen's apparatus. In this case, RT as measured would not be a result of speed of reaction time alone. In particular, manipulating the number of buttons and the size of the visual angle of the display (how much of the visual field it consumes) can reduce the correlation between IQ and reaction time. Thus, the relation between reaction time and intelligence is unclear.