Talk:Elementary cognitive task

Withdrawn AfD
I had gotten its number of Google hits mixed up with another page that I had tagged around the same time whilst patrolling Special:Newpages. Furthermore, I don't know too much about this subject matter anyway -- but when I saw this page's first incarnation, I honestly thought it to be lacking in context; I wasn't trying to be overzealous in speedy tagging or anything. Ten Pound Hammer and his otters • (Broken clamshells•Otter chirps) 04:17, 18 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Not a problem. An AfD nomination does a world of good for an item.Nick Connolly (talk) 05:38, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

Fringe sources
Regarding these two edits, there was two separate but related problems with this content.

The first is the over-reliance on borderline or worse WP:FRINGE sources. With context, some (but not all) of these sources could be usable in some situations, but not here for language this vague and leading. "...there is evidence...", "...correlates well..." etc. Further, saying performance on this set of cognitive tests "correlates" with g factor (psychometrics), which is itself a construct based on cognitive testing, is just an extremely empty claim. It absolutely requires more context than is provided. The heavy use of Intelligence (journal) undermines any benefit of the doubt I might give it here. Per many past discussions on WP:RSN and elsewhere, that journal is questionable for claims on human intelligence.

The second issue is one of WP:SYNTH. The article attributes this term to John Bissell Carroll in 1980, but this was placed after a lengthy discussion of Jensen's work on this from the 1970s, picking up on Wickler's work from the 1900s! Clearly 1980 isn't the first time anyone studied the underlying concept, but reliable sources still need to explain this history and how it was defined before and after, otherwise it's indistinguishable from WP:OR. According to a quick and flawed Google books search, the cited source for this connection, a book by Hunt, mentions the phrase "elementary cognitive task" twice but it appears there is a lot more context being provided here than just saying Jensen picked where Wickler left off. The source is presumably reliable, but since it was not being properly summarized and I do not have access to the full version right now, it will have to wait.

Grayfell (talk) 06:16, 22 July 2023 (UTC)


 * Oh, I should also mention that much of what I removed was originally added by an editor who was blocked specifically in relation to behavior regarding this topic. Grayfell (talk) 06:18, 22 July 2023 (UTC)