Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Identification, Testing & Assessment Processing Speed as a measure of intelligence

I found a definition of processing speed (it has a lot of references, too):

You guys need to read The Economist and The Atlantic more. You'll feel better about journalists.

/end unrelated hijack

NO! The hijacking isn't over until MY demands are met!

I do read The Atlantic, and a couple of other good sources. They are well-written, but they are never first.

Loy58, you just described my 2 kiddos; they are so similar! DD had gifted processing speed and above average wm. She also makes careless mistakes and answers quickly and rather impulsively. DS is a deep thinker and has an exceptional memory. He has average processing speed. She is a big picture thinker and he notices every single detail.

/end unrelated hijack

I can take over the hijack from here.

I kind of got tired of the Economist. Stopped being useful for me.


The Atlantic is a good read.

It really depends on the journalist. You have to know who you are reading.

Hmph.

It's quite clear that nobody is considering my idiosyncratic needs here at all.

{stamps foot}

I feel deeply chagrined that you've carried on like this without me being involved. It's a natural law that I must be involved in any thread-jacking that happens in a forum of which I'm a member.

Now I have to reevaluate my entire theory of everything. Gosh, thanks. At least with my processing speed, and the simplicity of my model, that shouldn't take long.

Your model is wrong.

Faster processing speed will only enable you to get to a wronger answer faster.

Well, I never said that it was right-- or even correct, necessarily. Just that it needed to be reevaluated, and that as you note, faster processing speed means that it won't take long.

Clearly, since I am not at the center of the universe, it must be the earth as a whole, which is incredibly puzzling to me...

Great discussion as usual. Some of us will just have to agree to disagree. Polarbear was correct that level of ability among other issues factor into the end result. However, I was simply looking at the big overall picture/trend. For the record, I was not limiting processing speed to reading speed, but that is one of the most basic measures that everyone can easily witness. I was not claiming that processing speed was MORE important that verbal/perceptual reasoning ability. Furthermore, given a number of the posts that did not find value in processing speed, I should emphasize that I was looking at high ability and fast, not moderate ability but fast. DS was not an example of fast processing speed coupled with relatively lower verbal/perceptual reasoning ability. If anything, his verbal/perceptual reasoning ability exceeds his processing speed. My point was that his fast processing speed is a gift that keeps on giving, by continually giving him a leg up. Reading quickly also does not mean that you will fail to understand, retain, or synthesize the information just as reading slowly does not guarantee that you will understand, retain or synthesize the information.

I can think of many careers where slow processing speed would not be an impediment. However, based on my own particular career choices, processing speed has definitely been an asset even if it has not been the most important one. Sometimes the one who gets in the first word also gets in the last word and wins by default. Sometimes the first one who offers a good solution gets all the credit.

Anyhow, the effects of high processing speed amazes me. For example, DS at age 6 was able to read Harry Potter fluently with comprehension while still unable to reliably differentiate his b/d and p/q. His teacher who had just completed her training as a reading specialist, thought that DS was speed reading in a faster but less common way by processing information in halves instead of thirds.