OK, you want to try it? Then watch this video — the whole thing, preferably full-screen — before you read any further. Got it? Good. Let's see how smart you (maybe) are.
In a study run by researchers at the University at Rochester and published in Biology, researchers had subjects watch that same video you just did. They also had them take a standard IQ test. What they found was that people who had an easier time seeing movement in the smaller bars as opposed to the larger ones had — drum roll please — higher IQs. Generally.
Why? That's a little tougher to explain. The theory seems to be that people with higher IQs tend to filter out the larger fields of bars kind of like filtering out background noise. And filtering out background noise and focusing on little things happens to be something that comes naturally to folks with high IQs.
Of course, having a high IQ doesn't mean you are "smart." IQ is obviously a very specific kind of measurement whereas overall intelligence is something a bit more nebulous. More than anything, the study just reveals another little quirk of how the human brain works and provides a point of insight, rather than cracking open the whole idea of "smartness."
Of course, having a high IQ doesn't mean you are "smart." IQ is obviously a very specific kind of measurement whereas overall intelligence is something a bit more nebulous. More than anything, the study just reveals another little quirk of how the human brain works and provides a point of insight, rather than cracking open the whole idea of "smartness."
Still, it's an interesting little experiment, and one you can run on yourself, on your own. And then completely dismiss when it doesn't give you the results you wanted to see.
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