Fun with Cognitive Tests

Vice President Harris said that she would take a cognitive test and “would challenge him to take the same one.” Source. I was saddened that she didn’t offer to take an IQ test if he would, too. That would be OH! so much more telling.

“Cognitive” tests don’t really tell you much. They’re basically screening tests. The screens don’t tell you the severity of any impairment, the location in the brain of the problem, nor the condition causing the deficit. For any of that, a neuropsychological assessment is required.

The cognitive screening tests ARE valuable for people with known mild to moderate impairment, especially if they are in a facility, so that the staff can keep on-going tabs of the progression of the disease.

For those of us without impairment, we’ll easily pass the screen. A common screening test is the Mental Status Questionnaire (MSQ). It’s 10 questions:

1. What is the name of this place?

2. Where is it located (address)?

3. What is today’s date?

4. What is the month now?

5. What is the year?

6. How old are you?

7. When were you born (month)?

8. When were you born (year)?

9. Who is the president of the United States?

10. Who was the president before him?

This actually would be fun for the Convicted Felon if question #9 were changed to “Who won the 2020 US Presidential election?” OK, maybe not fun for him, but fun for us as he endeavors to answer the question whence it is sprung on him.

There are other cognitive tests more akin to the one the Convicted Felon took. A really quick one here, another more detailed one here.

These screeners are just looking for the ability to recall some facts: the ones to which I linked also have the memory part where the subject is given several words, needs to repeat them, do something else, and then repeat them again. The longer the test, the more ground covered.

But I’m thinking that IQ tests are the way to go. The most common is the Stanford-Binet Test, which tests “mental cognition” and would really provide more insight. It tests fluid reasoning, knowledge, quantitative reasoning, visual-spatial processing and working memory. And then one gets a score that can be compared to others’ scores. You can take a quick version of it here. But the full test takes a lot of time, and needs to be professionally analyzed. More info. This reminds me of a story. It’s in the footnote since it is completely immaterial.¹

If we REALLY wanted to have some fun, we’d look at them taking the Wonderlic test. This was developed in the 1930’s to be used for evaluating potential employees. It’s still used today, with some updates. Of interest, it was used to test football players from the 1970’s until several years ago. A few questions from it also appear in older versions of John Madden’s NFL game.

It’s a 50-question test, and the subject has 12 minutes to answer all the questions. It’s one point for each correct answer, and no penalty for wrong answers. The average score (for various versions) is about 20. It’s one of two tests used by Mensa, and a score of 37 will get a test taker into Mensa.

My guess is that Vice President Harris would at least break 30, if not 37, and the Convicted Felon would score around a third of her score. At best. If you want to take a sample Wonderlic test, you can find it here.

Granted, the Wonderlic test is not without its problems. It’s been found to have some racial bias, as decided by SCOTUS in Griggs v. Duke Power Co. For the NFL, they found a lack of correlation between scores and how players did on the field, with the exception that potential recruits who scored high were a problem for the coaches, who needed to be in charge.

Still, I think that both the Vice President and the Convicted Felon could find 12 minutes to take the Wonderlic.

In the interest of full disclosure, I have been administered the Wonderlic twice. The second time was as part of a job interview. In my long history of going to job interviews, this was singularly the worst, and once they told me a few factoids about the job, I knew I would NEVER agree to work there, but I like taking tests, so I stayed for both the Wonderlic and the personality test.

What they told me about the job that was impossible for me was that ALL employees needed to arrive to the building between 7:50 and 7:55, and the doors opened at 7:55 and you needed to be at your desk by 8. Lunch was from 11:30 to 12:15, and you were not allowed to eat at your desk. Everyone left precisely at 4:30. There were rules related to when you could refill your coffee cup (coffee was free) and when you could go to the bathroom. (That is a true story, and there was no amount of money they ever could have paid me to live with that level of regimentation.)

So there you have it: Cognitive Tests and IQ Tests. I wish that they’d find time this week, although my guess is that most of the Convicted Felon’s minions cannot spell “Wonderlic” nor would they care that he would end up being severely intellectually limited. And yes, I am WELL AWARE that there are different types of intelligence, but IMHO if one wants to be president of these United States being “classically smart” is the most important. And as an aside, the Convicted Felon wouldn’t score high on any of the other types of intelligence.

1. I once had a boss we called “Eric the Bad”. I will spare you. The germane part of the story is that he told me I was an idiot because I used the term “moron” incorrectly. I decided to look all of this up so that, in future interactions with Eric the Bad, I would be able to use these terms correctly. Standard deviations are used with the Stanford-Binet test, and based on “average” being 100, one standard deviation down (IQ of 51-70) was “moron”, the level below being “imbecile” (IQ of 26-50) and finally, “idiot” with an IQ of 0 - 25.

The company we worked for did a lot of high-level research, and to get a professional job there, you had to either provide an IQ score from a reliable testing organization, or agree to be tested by the company prior to becoming employed. They didn’t hire people who were morons, imbeciles nor idiots. Therefore, it was pretty obvious that I wasn’t an idiot.

But more importantly, I now know how to use the terms correctly. Like when talking about MAGA-world.