Training Does not Affect Reaction Time Correlations with General Intelligence

Practice is a widely discussed topic in intelligence research and individual differences in scholastic test performance are frequently assumed to result from differences in how and how much people practice. A great deal of research has found that practice effects distance pen-and-paper test performance from general intelligence and cause memory to become a more important explanation for test performance. Other research has found that practice affects performance on reaction time tests, which are not laden with memory content. Both cap after a moderate amount of practice. This observation supports the existence of two types of practice effects: one related to learning how to perform tasks and the other related to repeating learned test content. It is presently unknown whether practice also distances reaction time performance from general intelligence. The present study analyzed whether more practiced reaction time tests given to a sample of 264 American trainee airmen were less related to general intelligence and found that they were not. The implications for understanding intelligence are considerable.