Estimated read time: 1-2 minutes
This archived news story is available only for your personal, non-commercial use. Information in the story may be outdated or superseded by additional information. Reading or replaying the story in its archived form does not constitute a republication of the story.
UMEÅ, Sweden — The Victorians may have been much more clever than us for a number of reasons, according to a new study, but at least we are still smart enough to figure out precisely how much more intelligent they were. Down to the millisecond, as it were.
Researchers from Umeå University in Sweden, with several other researchers from around Europe, compared the reaction times of various populations as reported in 14 studes conducted between 1884 and 2004. They concluded that over time, our reactions to visual stimuli are slowing down.
The researchers used reaction times, "a real measure, with a reasonably large correlation with IQ," in order to measure what they call "general intelligence." Traditional IQ measures could not be used because they have changed considerably over time, and often introduce biases based on socioeconomic standing and educational level, according to the researchers.
related
Do you feel like your brain is losing its edge?
Getting older is a part of life. As each birthday passes, you may find yourself wishing for the keen mind you had in your youth. So many of us wonder if there is something you can do to strengthen your brain power well into middle age and beyond.For males, reaction times increased from 183ms to 253ms. Women's times increased from 188ms to 261ms.
That translates into a decline of about 14 points in IQ overall.
The study suggests that this drop in what it calls general cognitive ability is caused by smarter people declining to have children, and less intelligent people having more.
Due to many variables, there was a significant amount of "scatter" in the data, meaning the margin of error is wide in the study.
"The real magnitude of the effect might therefore be several IQ points lower or even higher," the authors state.
It should be noted, however, that intelligence is affected by many things, including nutrition, education, emotional state, amount of sleep and several other factors. Moreover, it is possible that the data used comes from non-randomized subjects.
The study was published in the latest issue of the journal Intelligence.
