Little Gray Cells Add Up

摘要

To succeed in science, it helps to be very smart. But being very, very smart is even better. That's what researchers at Vanderbilt University conclude from a longitudinal study begun at Johns Hopkins University in 1972. The Study of Mathematically Precocious Youth tracks the careers of students who were in the top 1% of scorers in the math portion of the SAT at the age of 13. Twenty-five years later, the creme de la creme within this elite group have produced the most publications and patents, psychologist David Lubinski and colleagues report. "Measures with high ceilings are needed" to reveal such distinctions, the authors say. For example, 28% of those with science doctorates had authored a peer-reviewed publication, but the probability rose with their SAT-M scores (see chart, above), according to a paper in the October issue of Psychological Science.