Are DX and IQ overly undervalued?

[Cheeseball]

Originally Posted by Donny Brook

Players can find a clear description of the meaning of attribute levels in the box on page B14.

Those are very unspecific descriptions, and there are players who do not try to quantify their character, but rather optimize the cost of points.

Originally Posted by Varyon

The article said there was a weak correlation between intelligence and language learning

No way, it really is a non-quantified assessment made by the author (who throughout the paper contradicts himself several times by the use of personal appraisals) to say that there are more factors that influence language learning. And that in addition to the fact that the sample size was 200 students.

Originally Posted by Varyon

As for the contradiction in the quotes, the first said that IQ 126 gave a 4-5x boost to learning speed, while the second said IQ 140 gave only a 3x boost. Do you not see the issue there? You're going from normal speed at IQ 10, to ~4.5x speed at IQ 12, to 3x speed at IQ 13, to 6x speed at IQ 14. That's a roller coaster, not a clear progression.

Of course, the real world is not linear, and there are many factors that affect learning, such as the resources available to the student, the skill of the teacher, etc. I already highlighted that before when I said that intelligent people in average environments tend to fail at school. What is clear is that IQ affects learning, and GURPS does a good job at representing this.

[Cheeseball]

Originally Posted by Purple Snit

For what it's worth - I believe one main reason for the "skill to advantage" change between 3rd and 4th, is to try to fix the issue where a person with IQ 15 and a point in a language (giving Skill-15), has the same relative skill level as a native of IQ 10 who has several points in the same language (to get to skill-15).

On the other hand, this whole thing reminds me of the Monty Python "Argument Sketch"...

That's exactly what I thought when I saw it.

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by Cheeseball

No way, it really is a non-quantified assessment made by the author (who throughout the paper contradicts himself several times by the use of personal appraisals) to say that there are more factors that influence language learning. And that in addition to the fact that the sample size was 200 students.

So, to summarize:

You: Here is my assertion.
Other Posters: Here is a study that disagrees with that assertion.
You: This study is wonderful and handsome and agrees entirely with my assertion.
Other Posters: No, here's how the study very much disagrees with your assertion.
You: This study is worthless, flawed, contradicts itself, and will eat your children.

Yeah, I think I'm done here.

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by Cheeseball

That's not my name

Nor is "Cheeseball". But you are the same person who posted as Alonsua, and as MaryAnn, aren't you?

[Cheeseball]

Originally Posted by Varyon

So, to summarize:

You: Here is my assertion.
Other Posters: Here is a study that disagrees with that assertion.
You: This study is wonderful and handsome and agrees entirely with my assertion.
Other Posters: No, here's how the study very much disagrees with your assertion.
You: This study is worthless, flawed, contradicts itself, and will eat your children.

Yeah, I think I'm done here.

What? The paper says flatly that there is indeed a correlation between intelligence and language learning. The use of the word "weak" to describe that relationship is a subjective choice of the author that causes contradiction if the readers take it out of context. I have read it in its entirety, I do not need to limit myself to the imprecise use of the word "weak", and I don't know why you hold my hands responsible for words, opinions and expressions that I have never written.

[Cheeseball]

Originally Posted by johndallman

Nor is "Cheeseball". But you are the same person who posted as Alonsua, and as MaryAnn, aren't you?

I initially wrote under this name (Cheeseball) no more than a fortnight ago. I've already read some of those contributions anyway.

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by Cheeseball

I don't know why you hold my hands responsible for words, opinions and expressions that I have never written.

My apologies, you never asserted the study would messily devour someone's offspring. I am, nonetheless, done with this fruitless discussion.

[Donny Brook]

Originally Posted by Cheeseball

Those are very unspecific descriptions, and there are players who do not try to quantify their character, but rather optimize the cost of points.

And yet, those are the descriptions provided for GURPS players to understand what the stats mean in GURPS. If they read them, they in fact do understand what the stats mean at the level the game requires.

Originally Posted by Cheeseball

... The use of the word "weak" to describe that relationship is a subjective choice of the author that causes contradiction if the readers take it out of context. I have read it in its entirety, I do not need to limit myself to the imprecise use of the word "weak"...

The use of the term "weak" in that context is to indicate that it is not determinative compared to factors that proved to be stronger. You appear to be advancing a different understanding than the article describes.

Originally Posted by Cheeseball

I initially wrote under this name (Cheeseball) no more than a fortnight ago. I've already read some of those contributions anyway.

That isn't exactly a yes or a no.

[Farmer]

Originally Posted by Cheeseball

No way, it really is a non-quantified assessment made by the author (who throughout the paper contradicts himself several times by the use of personal appraisals) to say that there are more factors that influence language learning. And that in addition to the fact that the sample size was 200 students.

It is a scholarly article published in a peer reviewed journal, with hard data, clear methodology and processes, extensive supporting references, consideration of the existing literature on the subject, and confirmation of results being in line with a previous study by others. The author at no point contradicts themselves nor makes personal appraisals. The discussion is based on observed results applied through various existing lenses and theories, it breaks language into different elements (rules and grammar versus conversation and communication) with citations and logical inferences from the data.

Also, the sample size was 60 out of a cohort of 76. That is a significant number for a study of this kind. Honestly, did you actually read it or just skim for words that you thought supported your point?

[newton]

I'm gonna be honest, this seems to be needlessly complicated implementation of languages that introduces unnecessary problems to an elegant system. The way GURPS models languages gives you three easy to understand levels of language understanding in two categories. Someone can look at these levels on a character sheet and immediately understand what they mean in real life. Most people have heard someone speak broken English, accented English, and native English. I can hardly say the same thing about skill levels. I couldn't tell you if someone I heard had English-12 or English-10.