Visual intelligence 'not linked to higher IQ', finds study

Sign up for our free Health Check email to receive exclusive analysis on the week in health Get our free Health Check email Get our free Health Check email SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. “People may think they can tell how good they are at identifying objects visually,” said the study's lead author Isabel Gauthier, a psychology professor at American's prestigious Vanderbilt University. “But it turns out that they are not very good at evaluating their own skills relative to others.” Previous research has focused on the positive links between visual skills and intelligence, but Prof Gauthier said she wanted to study how these skills vary among individuals. “It suggests that we really can learn something new about people using these tests, over and beyond all the abilities we already know how to measure.” Using novel computer-generated creatures called greebles, sheinbugs and ziggerins, Prof Gauthier performed a series of tests using more than 2,000 subjects. “Because they are independent of general intelligence, the next step is to explore how we can use these tests in real-world applications where performance could not be well predicted before.” Researchers tested more than 2,000 subjects and the study was funded by the National Science Foundation awards.