Victorian Era people may have been more intelligent that their modern counterparts, according to new research that sheds light on modern human development.
The study was conducted by examining the reaction times to visual stimuli of people from that era up through out current age. Reaction times, or RT, are a measure of intelligence - the faster the reaction time of the test subject, the more intelligent they are deemed.
Michael A. Woodleya, from Umeå University in Sweden and Jan te Nijenhuisc of the University of Amsterdam wrote the article in the journal Intelligence that announced the findings, along with Raegan Murphy from the University College Cork in Ireland.
The Researchers looked at RT tests given over a 120-year period from 1884 to 2004. They found that the average reaction times in those tests increased over those twelve decades, and that the change was nearly identical between men and women. The average reaction time for modern males was measured at 261 milliseconds, around 38 percent slower than the 183 milliseconds recorded by men in the Victorian age. The reaction times of the women measured slowed from 188 in the 19th Century to 261 milliseconds today, a 39 percent reduction. Researchers in this study contend that these measurements correlate to a lowering of average intelligence equal to 14 IQ points over the last 130 years.
IQ tests, one the standard measure of intelligence, have fallen into disfavor among psychologists and researchers, as cultural and sociological biases in the test have been shown to skew results. RT tests are touted by some as being a more accurate test of intelligence than IQ tests, although not everyone is convinced. The manner in which the earlier studies were performed is unreliable, which may affect the results.
