Oswald and Wu (2010; "Science") recently reported life satisfaction ranks for residents of the 50 U.S. states. Their rankings were framed as measures of "well-being," but were derived from responses to only a single survey item ("In general, how satisfied are you with your life?"). Here we contrast Oswald and Wu's subjective rankings with our…

The ranking of Wechsler subtests in terms of their "g" loadings is equivalent to ranking them in terms of the cognitive complexity of the tasks measured. Lower performing groups do not always fall behind higher performing groups the more complex the task. But that is the general rule, no matter whether the cause of the lower performance…

Mental chronometry (MC) studies cognitive processes measured by time. It provides an absolute, ratio scale. The limitations of instrumentation and statistical analysis caused the early studies in MC to be eclipsed by the "paper-and-pencil" psychometric tests started by Binet. However, they use an age-normed, rather than a ratio scale, which…

The worst performance rule for cognitive tasks [Coyle, T.R. (2003). IQ, the worst performance rule, and Spearman's law: A reanalysis and extension. "Intelligence," 31, 567-587] in which reaction time is measured is the result that IQ scores correlate better with longer (i.e., 0.7 and 0.9 quantile) reaction times than shorter (i.e., 0.1 and 0.3…

Discusses the correlation between inspection time (IT) and psychometric abilities. Recent research suggest that IT is probably sensitive to both focused attentional capacities to detect organization and change under severe time constraints and to decision processes that monitor responding. Discusses implications for the use of IT in explaining…

Gignac [Gignac, G. E. (2006). "Evaluating subtest "g" saturation levels via the single trait-correlated uniqueness (STCU) SEM approach: Evidence in favor of crystallized subtests as the best indicators of "g"." "Intelligence," 34, 29-46.] used a single-trait correlated uniqueness (STCU) CFA approach to…

Considers the contribution to information-processing accounts of human intelligence differences made by Arthur Jensen, commending his persistence in research and noting his reductionist orientation. Explores the question of correlated vectors studied by Jensen. (SLD)