Russell T. Warne, PhD - Psychologist, author, and educator

07/22/2025

Today, I'm traveling to Chicago for the annual conference of the International Society for Intelligence Research. I'll be live tweeting the conference from the RIOT IQ account on X. You can follow the account here:

https://x.com/RiotIQ

07/21/2025

A short editorial in Nature Reviews Bioengineering argues that writing down one's ideas is an important part of the thinking process because it organizes the author's thoughts and forces them to understand an idea thoroughly. That doesn't change in the age of A.I.-generated writing.

This aligns with my recent article about the enduring importance of knowing facts in the era of A.I.

Read the full editorial in the screenshot or at https://doi.org/10.1038/s44222-025-00323-4

07/20/2025

New video! What is an IQ test? Why do psychologists choose the tasks they put on the tests? Find out in this new (short) video:

Ever wondered what IQ tests actually measure and how they work? Join us as Dr. Russell T. Warne, expert in psychological assessment, breaks down everything y...

07/19/2025

Another major paper has been retracted. The article was a meta-analysis, and it was retracted because the authors improperly excluded studies that found no relationship between mindfulness and brain structure... and then concluded that mindfulness could change brain structure. Obviously, it is impossible to draw that conclusion if you pre-emptively exclude all the data that undermines it.

Psychologist Eiko Fried first raised this obvious concern in February 2024, and it was finally retracted this month. That's 15 months that such an obvious error was allowed to linger. Why did it take so long to fix this?

Link to the retraction notice:

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the si...

07/18/2025

A new article examines performance on executive functioning (EF) tasks in different child populations: British children, semi-schooled and unschooled Kunene children in Angola and Namibia, and children with ineffective schooling in the Bolivian rainforest. Unsurprisingly, the British children perform best. The importance of this article is that the authors argue that this shows that EF tasks do not measures a universal process of cognitive development. Rather, they measure the type of development that happens in societies with widespread education.

I've said for years that intelligence is a universal trait, but that the manifestations of intelligence are often culturally-specific. This article provides evidence in favor of that view.

Read the article with no paywall here:

In cognitive science, the term “executive function” (EF) refers to universal features of the mind. Yet, almost all results described as measuring E...

07/17/2025

In a hurry and still need some science? Check out this 1-minute video from RIOT IQ in which I explain what IQ tests measure.

Dr. Russell T. Warne explains what IQ tests measure, how intelligence testing works, and what your IQ score actually means. ...

07/16/2025

📣Big news!📣

IT'S HERE!!! The RIOT IQ test has launched. This is a culmination of a year and a half of work to create the world's most advanced, scientifically valid online intelligence test.

As a follower of my professional page, you can take the test with a 50% discount. Just use the code EARLYACCESSRIOT at checkout.

Take the test here:
https://fhx27.r.sp1-brevo.net/mk/cl/f/sh/SMK1E8tHeFuBnCi9w68aZrq53S5Q/0euOIyP03grH

Note that the scoring system is preliminary; as we update our data, your score will change automatically to be more accurate.

07/15/2025

For psychologists the standard view of children's attachment is that the ways that a parent acts causes the child to react with differing styles and levels of emotional attachment. But there is now a challenge this model, arguing that it does not take into account intelligence and the genetic transmission of behavior from parent to child.

In a recent article, the authors' model is that the parent's intelligence is an ultimate cause of the child's attachment and that the child's intelligence also has an impact on their behavior. In short, smarter parents have more stable and positive attachment styles to their children, and smarter children discern better how to respond to parental behavior (good or bad). You can see diagrams showing the similarities and differences in the two models (see second image). A summary of the authors' evidence is in the third image.

There needs to be more research and data to test it. But the model seems plausible. Read the full article here: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.dr.2022.101054

07/14/2025

One persistent finding in intelligence research is a large s*x difference in spatial ability. On average, men tend to perform better on spatial tasks than women. This includes object rotation tasks that often appear on intelligence tests. An interesting article examines this difference further by considering examinees' response times.

In two studies, there was no difference in how long males and females took to answer the test questions. For both males and females, individuals who spent more time on the test performed better. However, for examinees who took the same amount of time, males outperformed females in both studies.

There are some important conclusions that can be drawn from this article:
➡️Sex differences in object rotation do not occur because women use a slower but effective strategy and then run out of time.
➡️Mental rotation performance and mental rotation speed are separate traits.
➡️Encouraging people to take more time on object rotation tasks probably will not improve scores significantly.

Read the full article: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.lindif.2013.10.003

07/13/2025

Another video from RIOT IQ discusses how we'll be preventing cheating on the Reasoning and Intelligence Online Test. We won't give away all our secrets, but hopefully this video shows how seriously we take cheating.

Find out how cheating can be prevented on an IQ test. Intelligence expert, Dr. Russell T. Warne, reveals how the RIOT can reduce the likelihood of cheating o...

07/13/2025

My kids think I'm a YouTube star because of these videos from the RIOT IQ social media team. In this latest video, I explain how the RIOT is different from other intelligence tests, who can take it, and the validation process.

Intelligence testing expert Dr. Russell T. Warne reveals what makes the RIOT (Reasoning and Intelligence Online Test) different from other IQ tests. Learn ab...

07/13/2025

How should people use the RIOT IQ test? Find out in this 1-minute video.

Dr. Russell T. Warne explains how and when the RIOT should be used. Learn the appropriate ways and advantages of using the RIOT compared to other IQ tests. ...