Re: The Bell Curve : Reaction time and IQ
Paul Bernhardt (pb1487@u.cc.utah.edu)
3 Apr 1995 18:50:11 GMT
Arun Gupta (gupta@mrspock.mt.att.com) wrote:
: People may remember the claim that reaction time experiments (which
: have no built-in bias, by their very nature) show that there is a
: significant black/white difference. Furthermore, it is claimed that
: these tests correlate significantly with IQ. [see for example page
: 282-283 of Murray and Herrnstein's TBC ].
Arun, another excellent post on the topic. Reaction time tests can be
biased. Whites, by virtue of greater exposure to office equipment
controlled by small switches, computer equipment, etc. may do better at
reaction time tasks such as these. As an example, older persons tend to
do worse on these kinds of tasks. One reason being lack of familiarity
with the kinds of equipment used.
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