[csydas]

Maybe I am just not familiar enough with the subject to get the point, but this article doesn't really seem to focus on their actual claim but instead it's about explaining why no one else could reproduce their findings?

I'm also still very confused on what the actual relationship is purported to be, at least based on this article. How did they determine cognitive ability here?

I'm extremely wary of claims like the title, especially this one, as it seems like something children on a playground would say and use to bully each other, and certainly I imagine that many people will use it to justify being awful to others that are perceived to be "lesser" because of the rather outrageous title of the article, the article which I still really don't get how they're even making these connections to draw such a conclusion.

[tgv]

> How did they determine cognitive ability here?

A few tests, among which specific memory tests. However, the memory tests didn't correlate, they claim only "fluid intelligence" correlates (even though they've also claimed the two are correlated). Fluid intelligence was measured "with the Raven’s Advanced Progressive Matrices, letter sets, and number series."

The problem, for me, is that there is nothing to relate intelligence (fluid or otherwise) and pupil size. Without something plausible linking the two, this is just meaningless.

And of course they rely on NHST statistics and a whole raft of modeling techniques, which is enough to call the whole article in doubt.

I dare say they used very visual tasks, which may be harder for people with small pupils under less than optimal lighting conditions.

[zrm]

> The problem, for me, is that there is nothing to relate intelligence (fluid or otherwise) and pupil size. Without something plausible linking the two, this is just meaningless.

Catecholamines:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catecholamine

They're both neurotransmitters and vasoconstrictors, but the latter effect is reversed in the pupils, so they dilate your pupils. If you're low on catecholamines then your working memory is impaired and your pupils will be smaller.

This is why amphetamine dilates your pupils and is prescribed to treat ADHD.

[K0balt]

It always makes me wonder why it is that many people seem to be extremely sensitive to the idea that cognitive capability is variable among people. There is always backlash whenever anyone does anything that seeks to measure cognitive capacity or to categorize people along those lines.

I firmly believe that cognitive ability is a -physical- trait that can be estimated with useful and actionable results.

I base this on the simple observation that age or disease related cognitive decline is a real and measurable thing.

If cognitive decline can be measured, then cognition can be measured.

If cognition can be measured, and cognitive decline is impactful, then the variability in cognition between people is meaningful.

These measurements of cognition variability correlate strongly with real-world tasking, strongly implying that cognition is a useful metric of capability.

I don’t see how any of this is in the least bit controversial.

I don’t see how cognitive capacity is somehow bad to measure, talk about, or select for in how and why we provide education to deliver maximum utility to the student.

How is this different from athletic capability? Some people can never be pro-level basketball players no matter how much they train.

The limiting traits in that respect are products of their genes and early development. I propose that cognitive capacity is not distinct in this regard. As in any n=10^9 sample there will be outliers, but outliers are not evidence that a strongly predictive relationship does not exist.

There is no apparent reason that cognitive capacity, which is presumably based on some kind of physical neural apparatus, is somehow intrinsically malleable and non- deterministic in kind that other physical traits are not.

To claim otherwise seems an extraordinary claim requiring extraordinary evidence, of which I am at a loss to discover.

I suspect, without any substantial evidence, that this peculiar bias against the idea of determinism in cognitive ability has to do with the perception that cognitive ability is largely indeterminable externally, and many people do things to seem highly capable when they are not.

This preening behaviour is inherently threatened by the idea that it could easily be discovered, and people are defensive of this subterfuge on their own behalf and/or the behalf of others.

But, that is just a suspicion, which I would gladly be disabused of if anyone else has a better insight as to the motive behind what seems to me to be a highly illogical bias.

[ggm]

"Focus on the actual claim" I see what you did there