When we factor analyzed the 1926 SAT alongside CORE, a distinct new factor emerged. This factor only appears on speeded tests, dubbed Speed by Nark.
This factor predominates much of the 1926 SAT, a test with very strict timings. In our broader model, which also includes the GRE and the AGCT, it appears across verbal, quantitative, and spatial tasks.
Here are some of our preliminary findings:
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Speed is strongly related to general intelligence, with a g-loading of approximately .80.
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It is clearly distinguishable from CORE’s Processing Speed Index, which uses Character Pairing and Symbol Search (tests of Perceptual Speed, specifically).
- Its strongest indicators include Logical Inference (.57), Artificial Language (.56), and GRE Analytical (.51). Smaller loadings appear on some CORE subtests: Quantitative Knowledge, Spatial Awareness, Figure Weights, and Graph Mapping. These CORE subtests are all non-leniently timed and are considered slightly speeded by testees.
Overall, Speed's loadings seem too diverse for it to reflect a test-taking strategy or a content-specific ability. We speculate that the Speed factor mostly reflects attentional control and, crucially, the speed at which people process relations.
However, Speed might not reflect particular cognitive mechanisms at all. Most theories cannot be ruled out or confirmed until item response times are analyzed and novel tasks are devised to test competing ideas.
OP: https://x.com/CognitiveMetric/status/2108976074340118664
