The Worst Performance Rule, or the Not-Best Performance Rule? Latent-Variable Analyses of Working Memory Capacity, Mind-Wandering Propensity, and Reaction Time

• DOI: 10.3390/jintelligence8020025
• Publication Date: 2020-06-03T08:12:09Z
• Authors: Matthew S. Welhaf; Bridget A. Smeekens; Matt E. Meier; Paul J. Silvia; Thomas R. Kwapil; Michael J. Kane
• Keywords: Robustness

The worst performance rule (WPR) is a robust empirical finding reflecting that people's task shows numerically stronger correlations with cognitive ability than their average or best performance. However, recent meta-analytic work has proposed this be renamed the "not-best performance" because mean and seem to predict similar degrees, both predicting better We re-analyzed data from previously published latent-variable study test for vs. not-best across variety of reaction time tasks in relation two constructs: working memory capacity (WMC) propensity task-unrelated thought (TUT). Using methods assessing performance-ranked-binning ex-Gaussian-modeling approaches-we found evidence rules. WMC followed (correlating equivalently longest response times (RTs)) but TUT more strongly RTs). Additionally, we created mini-multiverse following different outlier exclusion rules robustness our findings; findings remained stable multiverse iterations. provisionally conclude may only arise abilities closely linked (failures of) sustained attention.