Concern about potential misuse of I.Q. detector

Press, 6 July 1988, Page 30

Concern about potential misuse of I.Q. detector

NZPA-PA London British scientists have revealed that for the last three years they have been able to measure electronically people’s intelligence quotient from the age of five. Details of their work had not yet been published for fear it might be abused in the wrong hands, they said. In spite of this precaution, one company had asked to use the electronic I.Q. test to select “dumbos” who would stay in boring jobs. The “Brave New World” scenario was unveiled by Mrs Paulette Robinson, senior research fellow at the Roben’s Institute in Guildford, Surrey, and her husband, Dr Neil Robinson, head of research at the Medelec Medical Electronics Company in nearby Woking. The electronic test developed by Mrs Robinson can also be used to screen people for early symptoms of dementia.

Vi should be a major benefit to such patients as effective drugs to treat the commonest form, Alzheimer’s disease, become available, perhaps within the next few years. But even in this area, the test could prove con-

troversial as Dr Robinson said it might be used to make sure N.A.T.O. commanders in charge of nuclear weapons “are not going crazy.” The researchers said 50 children, aged six to nine, had their I.Q.s measured using electrodes fixed to the head, a bank of computers and headphones.

Their scores were compared with results of conventional I.Q. tests and found to match closely. The children’s parents gave permission for the tests, which were done in co-operation with Mr Jim Stevenson, of the department of psychology at Surrey University.

More than 300 adults were tested in developing the screening programme for dementia, which is now being used on patients at the Surrey Royal County Hospital, Guildford. The Robinsons share misgivings about possible abuses, but hope society will ensure they will not occur.

“We were approached at one stage by a company which wanted to find low I.Q. people who would not get fed up doing a boring job,” said Dr Robinson.

Mrs Robinson said, “I

found it horrendous/’ The researchers refused to co-operate with the company which they declined to name. Dr Robinson, whose company is helping to fund the research, said, “In the hands of the wrong person the I.Q. test performed badly might black-mark a child. To use a one-shot, single test for a child and say ‘You are in this group’, is dangerous.” Mrs Robinson, a physiologist, said, “We are worried about quackery. Somebody, probably not in this county but perhaps in the United States, saying ‘This child is super-

brilliant, you have to put him in this class’.”

She plans to publish later this year. The main purpose of pursuing the development of the electronic test was not to measure 1.Q., but to detect dementia. An electronic “black box” should enable family doctors to pick up the first signs of dementia in patients, such as the beginnings of memory loss. The Robinsons hope to miniaturise the bulky and expensive computer hardware into a £2OOO ($4980) device the size of a portable typewriter, which could be available in about two years.