People with high IQs really DO see ... process sensory information differently

This would explain why DS8 can't find his shoes in the middle of his bedroom floor, LOL.

Interesting. DD seems to "over-process" information. I have had a few different people tell me she notices details that no one else would ever comment on (like how many spaces the line on a quarter note takes up, or specific patterns in musical pieces), but she is incredibly slow with seeing things that should be obvious, like 2+3=5. One psych told me he thinks DD has slow processing speed because she's not filtering things out and takes in way too much sensory information (in terms of auditory/visual perception at least). I always figured it's related to her ADHD.

Noted intelligence researcher Arthur Jensen found that reaction time is negatively correlated to IQ (smarter people are faster on average) and wrote a book "Clocking the Mind: Mental Chronometry and Individual Differences" (2006).

That's consistent with considerably higher prevalence of SPD among gifted versus neurotypical children.

http://www.spdfoundation.net/gifted.html

It also fits ASD-like elements of personality particularly following some of the research in mini-columns and some of the Eides' work.

I don't like the "high IQ" tag in the report of the research. Higher IQ would be a better fit to the participant distribution which includes a single participant over 140. But the scatter is very compelling. In the cortical thickness studies, gifted IQ and highly gifted had a completely different pattern of thickening and thinning.

I also didn't notice vision acuity in the study, which has an interesting link to IQ.

Original study:
http://www.cell.com/current-biology/abstract/S0960-9822(13)00494-6

Interesting article, thanks for posting. I wonder how (in layman terms) this correlates with processing speed in high IQ individuals. I also wonder how it relates to development optometrist test results for high IQ children.

I notice it when traffic lights change. I think high IQ people prefer to drive. That radar that is being put in autos to sense accidents ahead of time - our brains do that. Also, we are more likely to be hurt in an accident because we see it coming, tense up, then get hit and it can make our soft tissue injuries worse. I have it logged for any future such situation, if you can't get out of the way, don't tense up.

I'm thinking that this is probably a proxy phenomenon.

Personally, I don't enjoy driving all that much. DEFINITELY not city driving, which my DH is both better at and less stressed by. I see TOO MUCH, if that makes sense, and being a visual processor of information, I have trouble limiting that data input. On the open highway, I am fine-- but in a cityscape, my intuitive understanding of the physics means that I know that I can't process it all, and certainly not rapidly enough to respond in sufficient time to avoid every hazard. The chaotic/irrational driving behavior of other drivers is an uncontrolled variable.

My spouse prefers to drive, because, well, I'm not the partner with the high visual-spatial skills. And personally, while I appreciate their utility, I abominate internal combustion engines, mainly because of the exhaust/smell/pollution and the vibration.

I enjoy driving and I am usually faster off the light, but I've always just figured it was my competitive nature. Lol!

Quick thinking though, I was once in an odd accident when a drunk homeless man decided to jaywalk across 4 lanes of traffic. I didn't see him traipsing across the street because I was 2 lanes over and he was coming up on the passenger side behind that pesky bar between the windshield and the window. At the last moment, I finally saw him (he wasn't going to stop) and I slammed on the brakes. I knew I wasn't stopping fast enough, so I pulled the emergency brake to stop faster. I stopped inches from him. I looked in the rear-view mirror just in time to see the car that rear-ended me. The homeless man still got clipped from my car being thrust forward by the impact. He was knocked down from the impact, denting my fender, but he got up and quickly walked away. He didn't stay for any medical treatment. He wouldn't have been able to walk away if I hadn't pulled that emergency brake. The accident totaled the car that hit me. My husband was with me and he was dumbfounded that I had the wherewithal to pull the brake.

Not sure if that is processing speed or perception, but I'm glad I had it that morning!

I don't want to be a downer, but unless you're on snow or sand, pulling the emergency brake is more likely to increase braking distance rather than shorten it. The point of anti-lock braking systems is to prevent drivers from applying the brakes so strongly that the wheels lock up.

The coefficient of static friction that your rolling wheels have with the road is much higher than the coefficient of kinetic friction that your sliding wheels have with the road. If you pull the e-brake and induce a slide in your rear wheels, you've almost certainly increased your braking distance.

Fortunately, you haven't increased it much, because braking causes a weight transfer forward to the front wheels. Under heavy braking, the rear wheels are unloaded, and don't contribute much to stopping the car anyway. Preventing them from locking up does contribute to stability though, and with modern-day anti-lock braking systems that can brake each wheel individually, a high level of control is maintained even under panic braking. With the brake pedal fully depressed, the car should still be steerable.

Thanks for the explanation, but in the moment the parking brake did actually seem to help. I was nearly stopped, so the lockup of the tires gripped instead of just sliding. Fortunate timing as I understand what you are saying about the anti-lock being a quicker stop in most cases. This little extra brake action did seem to stop the car faster this time though. What I think it did more effectively was to stop my car from hitting him harder upon impact from behind. At least I think the emergency brake would help a little in that situation too, but maybe not.