
Neuroscientists use maps of people’s brains to predict reasoning ability - klunger
http://www.wired.com/2015/10/scientists-can-now-predict-intelligence-brain-activity/
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mrdrozdov
I wouldn't consider a measurement of a brain's mapping any different than the
measurement of a person's height. Someone taller probably has a better chance
of being a good basketball player, but there are plenty of basketball players
who are excellent and not of exceptional height.

The article makes it seem as though there are absolute measurements being made
of certain elements in the brain, but it's almost more than certain to be
pattern matching or machine learning that is being done. You find some people
that are good at doing X and have them take a test. Then you take new people,
have them perform the same test, and if their scans are similar to the scans
of the initial people, then you say these new people are pre-disposed to do X
well.

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NickM
I agree with you, though I'm not sure if height is even the best metaphor: our
brains are remarkably changeable based on how we use them, so a better
comparison might be measuring an athlete's muscle mass in different parts of
the body.

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Menge
> our brains are remarkably changeable based on how we use them, so a better
> comparison might be measuring an athlete's muscle mass in different parts of
> the body.

Yes, I immediately thought of the motor skills experiments[1] that raised
brain density in the relevant regions.

I think the first half of the article was too sensational and brave new world
oriented given that the explanation for the differences in regional brain
densities and contentedness would mostly be from the home environment of a
young child.

It was a bit like predicting the availability of hearing tests will lead us to
build classrooms of super hearers instead of intervene to address hearing
issues before children fall behind.

[1]
[http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18648501](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18648501)

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Nav_Panel
I'd like to direct curious readers to my favorite story by Isaac Asimov,
called "Profession":
[http://www.inf.ufpr.br/renato/profession.html](http://www.inf.ufpr.br/renato/profession.html)

It deals with pretty much exactly this topic -- in the story, peoples'
professions are determined by brain scans (as in the study), and the requisite
professional knowledge is then loaded via a similar device (which seems much
further off). The story explores some of the ethical/societal implications of
being "exceptional" in terms of brain structure. It's an incredible piece of
fiction, and it has stuck with me over years and years even when the appeal of
stories like "The Last Question" have somewhat worn off for me.

~~~
josinalvo
Spoiler and a question in rot13

1.V nz obgurerq sbe guvf vf irel htyl-qhpxyvat-vfu

2.Jul QB gurl pnyy gurz Bylzcvpf?

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klunger
I wonder how future research will be affected by this. Say every child gets
their connectome mapped when they start school to get placed in the best type
of learning environment for them (auditory, visual etc.). Presumably, within
the data of that same scan, there will also be information about whether that
kid is violent etc. This will simply not be part of the analysis for learning
environment matching. But, the information will be there as soon as the
research to figure out what types of connectome patterns indicate a pre-
disposition to X is peer reviewed and published.

So, do we choose not to conduct research on certain subjects so that this
process can be safely used for more benign purposes? Or, do we have really
strict rules about what types of analyses can be done with a given scan? With
attending rules about deleting scan data after it has been analysed for the
intended purpose? Or something else entirely?

~~~
gwern
> Say every child gets their connectome mapped when they start school to get
> placed in the best type of learning environment for them (auditory, visual
> etc.).

There is no reason whatsoever to do this. Aside from the issue that 'multiple
intelligences' has not held up and has been abandoned, if you want to measure
their intelligence, it's unlikely that brain scans will anytime in the
foreseeable future outperform simply giving a child a 10-minute pencil-and-
paper IQ test (and highly unlikely that scans will ever be cheaper or easier
than a regular IQ test).

~~~
metasean
While I largely agree with you, I have to take issue with a couple of you
points.

> outperform simply giving a child a 10-minute pencil-and-paper IQ test (and
> highly unlikely that scans will ever be cheaper or easier than a regular IQ
> test).

For children the test takes, "48–65 minutes to administer" and requires more
than pencil-and-paper [1].

> There is no reason whatsoever to do this.

More importantly, I think doing a regular comparison of the standard IQ test
results with this new scanning method could be a good way to account for test
bias [2].

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wechsler_Intelligence_Scale_fo...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wechsler_Intelligence_Scale_for_Children)

[2]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligence_quotient#Test_bia...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligence_quotient#Test_bias)

~~~
gwern
> For children the test takes, "48–65 minutes to administer" and requires more
> than pencil-and-paper [1].

For the full-scale WAIS, perhaps. But you can still extract a good estimate
from the subscales, and needless to say, the WAIS is far from the only IQ test
out there.

> I think doing a regular comparison of the standard IQ test results with this
> new scanning method could be a good way to account for test bias [2].

Huh? The brain scans are being validated using the existing IQ tests in the
first place, and if one doesn't accept all the existing literature on the
unbiasedness of current IQ tests (where the concepts are not too difficult -
for example, I think many laymen could get through and understand most of
_Bias in Mental Testing_, Jensen 1980 [http://emilkirkegaard.dk/en/wp-
content/uploads/Bias-in-Menta...](http://emilkirkegaard.dk/en/wp-
content/uploads/Bias-in-Mental-Testing-Arthur-R.-Jensen.pdf) explaining what
biases there would be, how one would test for them, and why IQ tests are
unbiased), one is not going to accept the results of the infinitely more
complicated & subtler brain imaging pipeline where there's so many details &
variability that they had a pretty serious replicability problem for a while,
especially when they just yield the same results that the original IQ tests
would have.

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johnchristopher
tldr;

“It’s not wrong to say there are weird ethical implications to this,” Finn
says, “but we’re still a long way from doing this with enough accuracy to
apply in the real world.” Neuroscience will be waiting for its sorting hat for
a while yet.

~~~
panglott
'"In this study, the researchers predicted how well people would do on a
cognitive test by analyzing fMRI scans of 126 subjects in the Human Connectome
Project, a five-year initiative to map how areas of the human brain
communicate with each other. The subjects performed motor, memory, and
intelligence tests, including a pattern completion test that measured abstract
reasoning—what neuroscientists call fluid intelligence.

Their connectomes, it turned out, had a lot to do with how well they scored.
...A strong connection between the frontal and parietal lobes, especially,
meant a high fluid intelligence score.'

This is an interesting result as well, that connection between different areas
of the brain predict abstract reasoning ability.

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jbandela1
Great xkcd addressing this issue
[http://xkcd.com/1588/](http://xkcd.com/1588/)

~~~
nicklaf
That xkcd is spot on.

Alan Kay has said that "point of view is worth 80 IQ points".

I don't see how observing internal brain structure is going to reflect the
benefit from points of view held, even in the slightest. There could very well
be an inverse correlation, in which people having above-average natural
ability tend to brute-force their way through problems that could have been
avoided entirely with better choices. Just as Gordon Bell said: "The cheapest,
fastest, and most reliable components are those that aren't there".

You just don't hear about people getting through life, but failing to
understand the notion of, say, "not stepping out onto the crosswalk when the
street is still busy". Your environment is extrinsic to your internal brain
structure, and you encode information about your environment against your own
internal system of thought, regardless of its architecture. It's not like
people who happen to be "naturally better spatial thinkers" can somehow do a
better job at recalling their own beliefs.

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prodmerc
Brains rewire all the time. It's our number 1 feature, adaptability. A good
musician can become a good sharpshooter, a good programmer can excel at
architectural engineering.

Being a good writer - what does that mean? Someone who has had some real,
interesting experiences may be a better writer than someone who is wired to
tell good stories.

Physical features also matter - a lot. Your brain may be perfect for a nuclear
physicist, but you're no good if you're gonna have a stroke or heart attack
suddenly on the job.

And, of course, nurture over nature - people's background, how they grew up,
how they were educated from their first year to now, matters way more than
genetics.

If you don't/can't account for all of that (and more) when deciding a person's
future, then keep this science to yourself.

~~~
minority-one
On the other hand, there's a consensus in the scientific community that IQ is
the best predictor of outcome in life, despite the factors you've mentioned.

In other words, all being taken into consideration, it turns out IQ has an
incredible predicting power regarding the lives of individuals. It's actually
better at predicting life outcome than any other factor.

> And, of course, nurture over nature [...] matters way more than genetics.

That is the opposite of what current research into IQ has shown so far. If you
go on YouTube, you can find interviews with Charles Murray, and that will help
you understand this better.

> A good musician can become a good sharpshooter, a good programmer can excel
> at architectural engineering.

Yes, but it's not likely to happen (or you'd have oodles of examples).
Predicting is all about what's more likely, and in this capacity, IQ has
proven over and over again to be the single best predictor.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
I'm doubtful of that consensus. Is it a real measured thing, or just 'common
knowledge' which adds up to urban legend.

I'd understood that the best predictor of success at a job is
Conscientiousness. More than test scores, economic class, fancy schools.

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ilaksh
But brains form new connections all the time, and some activities result in
lots of new connections. So this isn't a static thing that is enitirely
inherited.

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anortons
"Some brains are better than others at certain things, simply because of the
way they’re wired. And now, scientists are closer to being able to determine
precisely which brains those are, and how they got that way ... Intelligence
research is relatively young."

No, it's not. The Eugenic movement started the quest for the "better" brain
nearly a century and a half ago, and we all know how that turned out...

~~~
minority-one
The movement for the better brain started much before half a century ago.

If you study Jewish history you will find out they have been doing this all
along. For instance, as a very literate culture, they would encourage the less
capable of learning to leave the faith, much like a Rumspringa without end.
This had the effect of culling the less intelligent, which was an effect they
understood and seeked purposefully. On the other side of the coin, as opposed
to Christianity which discourages its representatives (priests) from
reproducing, Rabbis were encouraged to have prolific offspring on account of
their being the most educated people, and the community engineering so that
there will be more intelligent Jews (sons of cultured Rabbis) than
unintelligent ones (those who are encouraged to give up on faith studies).

But yes, evil Germans and their eugenics, carry on.

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cttet
When you see the brutal average that people in the "connectome" does for brain
signals/images, you will not believe in this line of research too much ...

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SilasX
One step closer to physically realizing Newcomb's problem?

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plg
did they do their due diligence in preventing overfitting? I suppose I should
read the paper and see for myself

