How fragile is the relationship between inspection time and intelligence: The effects of apparent-motion cues and previous experience

Abstract Previous research is cited which indicates that there is a strong relationship between inspection time (IT) and conventional measures of intelligence, but only for those S s who are not able to make use of apparent-motion cues in performing the experimental task. For those S s (the majority) who are able to make use of such cues, there is no significant relationship. The present study confirmed this difference between ‘cue users’ and ‘non-users’ in a sample of 37 male volunteer S s of normal intelligence. For the 15 cue non-users, there was a high correlation between IT and scores on the Advanced Progressive Matrices test; for the cue users, the correlation did not approach significance. Cue users, when interviewed, indicated that they attended to apparent-motion cues consistently, over a wide range of stimulus exposure durations, and never made use of alternative cues to perform the experimental task. Non-users indicated either that they alternated between different approaches to the task or that they could not identify any cues to attend to. In a separate experimental task, cue users did not differ from non-users in the minimum stimulus onset asynchrony needed to perceive apparent motion. An almost equal proportion of cue users and non-users played video games regularly; playing video games had no independent effect on IT.