Do your eye movements reveal your performance on an IQ test? - A study linking eye movements and socio-demographic information to fluid intelligence

Oct 3, 2026

Upload by James

Understanding the main factors contributing to individual differences in fluid intelligence is a central challenge in psychology. Building on Cattell’s Culture-Fair IQ Test, the study analyzes how eye-movement patterns and socio-demographic information relate to a participant’s ability to correctly solve a CFT item. Eye movements contain discriminative information for predicting success, and they complement socio-demographic data. Combined information yields higher predictive performance than either source alone, with explainability methods highlighting key features such as the number of saccades and mean pupil diameter.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages23

Reading Time58 min

AccessFree to download

Abstract

Introduction

With his theory of human intelligence published in 1963, Cattell

Using eye movements to capture individual differences in fluid intelligence

PLOS ONE OPEN ACCESS Citation: Kasneci E, Kasneci G, Trautwein U, Appel T, Tibus M, Jaeggi SM, et al. (2022) Do your eye movements reveal your performance on an IQ test? A study linking eye movements and sociodemographic information to fluid intelligence. PLoSONE 17(3): e0264316 . [https://doi.org/10.1371/](https://doi.org/10.1371/)[ ](https://doi.org/10.1371/)[journal.pone.0264316](journal.pone.0264316) Editor: Paolo Roma, Sapienza, University of Rome, ITALY Received: March 4, 2021 Accepted: February 8, 2022 Published: March 29, 2022 Copyright: © 2022 Kasneci et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Data Availability Statement: Data are available from [https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/JGOCKI](https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/JGOCKI). Funding: This research was supported as part of the LEAD Graduate School \& Research Network [GSC1028], which was funded within the framework of the Excellence Initiative of the German federal and state governments. Enkelejda Kasneci is a member of the Machine Learning Cluster of Excellence, EXC number 2064/1– Project number 390727645. RESEARCH ARTICLE Do your eye movements reveal your performance on an IQ test? A study linking eye movements and socio-demographic information to fluid intelligence Enkelejda Kasneci1 *, Gjergji Kasneci2, Ulrich Trautwein3, Tobias Appel3, Maike Tibus3, Susanne M. Jaeggi4, Peter Gerjets5 1 Human-Computer Interaction, Department of Computer Science, University of Tu¨bingen, Tu¨bingen, Germany, 2 Data Science and Analytics, Department of Computer Science, University of Tu¨bingen, Tu¨bingen, Germany, 3 Hector Research Institute of Education Sciences and Psychology, University of Tu¨bingen, Tu¨bingen, Germany, 4 School of Education, University of California, Irvine, CA, United States of America, 5 Leibniz-Institut fu¨r Wissensmedien, Tu¨bingen, Germany * [Enkelejda.Kasneci@uni-tuebingen.de](Enkelejda.Kasneci@uni-tuebingen.de) Abstract Understanding the main factors contributing to individual differences in fluid intelligence isone of the main challenges of psychology. A vast body of research has evolved from the theoretical framework put forward by Cattell, who developed the Culture-Fair IQ Test (CFT 20-R) to assess fluid intelligence. In this work, we extend and complement the current state of research by analysing the differential and combined relationship between eye-movement patterns and socio-demographic information and the ability of a participant to correctly solve a CFT item. Our work shows that a participant’s eye movements while solving a CFT item contain discriminative information and can be used to predict whether the participant will succeed in solving the test item. Moreover, the information related to eye movements complements the information provided by socio-demographic data when it comes to success prediction. In combination, both types of information yield a significantly higher predictive performance than each information type individually. To better understand the contributions of features related to eye movements and socio-demographic information to predict a participant’s success in solving a CFT item, we employ state-of-the-art explainability techniques and show that, along with socio-demographic variables, eye-movement data. Especially the number of saccades and the mean pupil diameter, significantly increase the discriminating power. The eye-movement features are likely indicative of processing efficiency and invested mental effort. Beyond the specific contribution to research on how eye movements can serve as a means to uncover mechanisms underlying cognitive processes, the findings presented in this work pave the way for further in-depth investigations of factors predicting individual differences in fluid intelligence.

FAQs

What does the study investigate regarding eye movements and IQ performance?

It examines whether eye-movement patterns reveal how well participants perform on an IQ test item from Cattell’s Culture-Fair IQ Test (CFT).

How do eye-movement features and socio-demographic data contribute to predicting success?

Eye-movement information predicts whether participants solve a CFT item correctly, and it complements socio-demographic information. Together, they achieve significantly higher predictive performance than either type alone.

Which eye-movement measures are especially important according to the explainability analysis?

The number of saccades and the mean pupil diameter significantly increase the discriminating power for predicting success.

Oct 3, 2026

Upload by James