Scientists Have Measured a Perceptual Ability Called 'O'. How Good Is Yours?

No one is the same. You're used to the idea that people are different in their personality and cognitive abilities.

People vary greatly in their ability to match or categorize objects. These perceptual skills are used in many everyday tasks, hobbies and even critical jobs.

The expectation is that smart and motivated people who receive the right training will eventually be able to excel in occupations that require hundreds of perceptual decisions every day.

People are compared on perceptual tasks. The evidence does not support the idea that everyone has the same ability for perceptual skills.

If you choose to spend every weekend bird-watching without getting very good at it, you can still have fun. There is a case for seeking people who can achieve the best performance when perceptual decisions affect safety, health or legal outcomes.

Our research shows that some people are better at discriminating than others.

A general ability to recognize things

Performance on a range of cognitive tasks designed to test memory, math and verbal skills is correlated. Someone who is good at sudoku is likely to be good at remembering shopping lists.

The modern idea of general intelligence is based on a collection of faculties that predict a wide range of outcomes, from income to health and longevity.

Our studies show that people who are the best at bird recognition are also the best at detecting tumors in chest X-rays. The same ability was used in other research to predict better performance.

People have different experiences with birds or medical images You are more likely to recognize them if you are familiar with them. Training and experience have an important role to play in making decisions. Everyone starts training on the same footing.

Does everyone start at square one?

We wanted to know if people start at the same baseline of perceptual talent. To investigate this question, we measured people's abilities with artificial objects they hadn't seen before, to make sure they didn't have an advantage.

In one large study, we assessed 246 people for 13 hours and tested them on a variety of tasks with computer-generated artificial objects. We asked people to remember objects, to match objects, and to make judgments about parts.

(Isabel Gauthier, CC BY-ND)

There are some examples of tasks that can be done from the top left. The answers are 1) no, 2) left, and 3) fourth.

People vary in their perceptual abilities as much as they vary in their cognitive abilities. We found that 89 percent of the differences between people on intelligence and personality tests could be explained by a general ability.

In honor of the "g" factor, we called this ability "o" for object recognition.

We found that people with high o are better at computing summary statistics for groups of objects and also better at recognizing objects. In this demo, you can compare yourself to other people.

o is a distinct ability

Is it just another name for general intelligence since it's so general? We don't believe in that.

IQ and SAT scores are not predictors of recognition of novel objects. The personality trait of conscientiousness was found to be distinct from o's. It's possible that book smarts aren't enough to excel in domain that rely on perceptual abilities.

The idea of measuring how good people are at detecting lung nodules in chest X-rays was put to the test. The people with the highest o were better at this task after controlling for intelligence and experience.

The added value is demonstrated by this finding. It may not guarantee the highest levels of performance in specializations that rely on perceptual skills when medical students are selected to be smart.

It's only fair that many doors open when you show that you are smart. General intelligence is the best way to predict success in a given domain, but only if it's enough. There are warnings that intelligence testing can lead to discrimination in hiring and career placement.

Many people downplay innate talents to emphasize the environment. They said that success can be shaped by years of practice, programs to change attitudes about learning, and even hours of playing video games.

The evidence in favor of innate talents is strong, and denying them or overpromising on the efficacy of environmental factors can be harmful. If their efforts don't succeed because of factors they can't control, people can waste time and resources that could be better spent.

One solution to this problem is to learn more about talents other than those related to intelligence. Classical notions of intelligence are just one of many factors that affect ability.

Perceptual abilities that are general could help reduce inequalities. Sex differences in the recognition of objects in some familiar categories can be caused by differences in experience, but there is no difference in the general ability.

Isabel Gauthier is a professor at the university.

Under a Creative Commons license, this article is re-posted. The original article is worth a read.