New York University: NYU’s Mind, Ethics, and Policy Program Will Address Questions Surrounding Non-Human Minds. “NYU’s ‘Mind, Ethics, and Policy Program’ will conduct pioneering research on the nature and intrinsic value of non-human minds, including those of animals and artificial intelligences.”
PsyPost: Intelligent people became less happy during the pandemic — but the opposite was true for unintelligent people. “A person’s level of intelligence was related to their psychological response to COVID-19 pandemic, according to new research published in the Journal of Personality. The study found that more intelligent people tended to be less happy with their lives during the pandemic than their less intelligent counterparts. The new findings provide evidence that higher intelligence can have a downside in the modern world and support a growing body of research known as the savanna theory of happiness.”
The Conversation: Your smartphone is not making you dumber — digital tech can enhance our cognitive abilities . “Conventional wisdom tells us that over-reliance on technology may take away from our ability to remember, pay attention and exercise self control. Indeed, these are important cognitive skills. However, fears that technology would supplant cognition may not be well founded.”
Boing Boing: People who contracted Covid may have “substantial” drop in intelligence, according to The Lancet. “A new paper published in the peer-reviewed journal The Lancet found that ‘People who had recovered from COVID-19, including those no longer reporting symptoms, exhibited significant cognitive deficits versus controls.’”
MakeUseOf: How Smart Are You? 5 Free Online Cognitive Tests to Check How Well Your Brain Works. “There are a ton of online IQ tests, but there is more to smarts than intelligence alone. Some of these tests are completely non-verbal. Others have been around since the 1930s and are still relevant. Some are used by the NFL, and some will even find your inherent biases. And they’re all free.”
Researchers have developed an algorithm to predict a Facebook user’s intelligence based on their profile photo. “The algorithm doesn’t just take faces into account, but also ‘behavioral cues’ such as how people pose for the camera, the clothes they wear, and the presence of friends and partners in their pictures — all of which reveal information about people’s lifestyles and the way they choose to present themselves to the world. The study used profile images from 1,122 Facebook users who had taken an IQ test, and analyzed recurring photo features with higher or lower scores.”
