finding patterns in images, numbers, letters, language…
But I think some of the most interesting pattern recognition skills are sensing patterns over a number of ‘areas’.
Take a detective who note anomalies in the way a body lay, bank activity, the body language of a witness, what one person did NOT say, some books on the victim’s shelves, and so on. Data of all sorts of different kinds. One can imagine a great detective grasping a pattern with data from the above list that another detective could not connect.
I suspect that many people with multi-area pattern recognition skills do not necessarily do well on IQ tests, or not as well as their skill might lead one to believe. I also think IQ tests miss a lot of areas - say body language.
My point however is not to criticize IQ tests, but rather to open up for discussion this idea of the mixed area pattern recognition skill.
Is the real test of this set of questions (spoiler alert…): [tab]to notice that the answers (and explanations) for questions 1 and 3 are mixed up?![/tab]
I got the other 3 no problem, but was completely stumped by the given solutions to 1 and 3 for a fair few minutes!
Funny. I have to say I never looked at the answers. I just waited until I saw what I considered the answer - pompous or not, that was my process. The link was one of the first ones that came up with the search words pattern recognition skills, so I went with it, since it seemed a fair set of examples of how IQ test test PRSs. I think this is a poor test - though perhaps people who do well on these kinds of patterns do well on the kinds of complex or more rarely thought of pattern recognition skills - like the ones I mentioned in the OP.
Personally, I find IQ tests really boring. (not because they are easy, many questions are not, by the way. It just seems like busy work) I feel like I am threading needles with my mind. However real life challenges looking for patterns I love and can get absorbed in. In fact I wish I had been a detective sometimes, or was now I suppose. At least for that portion of the work. I am very good at reading body language and also sensing when their is some kind of anomaly in verbal communication - for example when people do not say something I can feel they should have. I am also good at seeing what must have happened from aftermaths. Along with some other skills and a generally curiosity that fits with that work.
In reality this topic comes from or leads to issues related to ontology, but I also have a practical interest here. Any multi-area pattern recognition skills that you have, Sil.?