A reader sent me the following email:
Hello Mr. Pumpkin,
I took the WAIS IV on 2016, and I got a FSIQ of 121 (GAI of 125). I was 23 years old at the time.
My verbal comprehension index was 130, with a 13 on similarities, and a 16 on both vocabulary and information. My perceptual reasoning index was 115, with a 12 on block design, a 14 on matrix reasoning, and a 12 on symbol search. On the working memory index I scored a 96, and I got an 11 on arithmetic, and a 7 on digit span. Lastly, on my processing speed index I got a 124, with a 17 on symbol search, and a 12 on coding.
I was given no interpretation, but I did note the wide discrepancy between VCI and WMI, which is more than 23 points. I was diagnosed with ADHD as a child.
Do my scores mean I am just an average person, and that I only got a 130 on VCI because I like to read a lot and I am in a PhD program in cognitive neuroscience? I did not struggle in college, and in my masters I found the classes too easy. I have only one publication, and another in progress.
I am also concerned that before I took the WAIS IV, I had administered the matrix reasoning subtest of the WISC IV to several children as part of a research study, and that my 14 on matrix reasoning is highly inflated. Would there be a practice effect between matrix reasoning of WAIS and WISC?
No I don’t think you’re average at all. The mere fact that you can handle a PhD program in a field as g loaded as cognitive neuroscience strongly suggests you’re at least IQ 115. Although your reading habits might have artificially increased your verbal IQ, you mentioned in another email that English is your second language which might have artificially decreased it.
On the other hand your score on Information and Vocabulary are both one standard deviation higher than your score on Similarities suggesting you are better at verbal knowledge than verbal thinking. Assuming this is signal not noise, it might be be because your reading habits give you an unfair advantage, or it simply might mean you have a really good long-term memory. I’m inclined to think it’s the latter for the reason explained above.
As for interpretations, I agree that you likely have ADD given your relatively low Working Memory index. Your relatively high processing speed suggests you’re not autistic.
As for your Matrix reasoning score being inflated by exposure to the children’s version of the test, perhaps subtract 0.5 from the scaled score, as that seems to be the practice effect:
In another email, the reader asked:
I also have another question. Why do you subtract points from scores due to the Flynn effect? Does it mean the obtained score is inaccurate? Or is it to present complete info?
Because your IQ is supposed to reflect where you stand compared to U.S./U.K. people of your age and birth year and when norms become old, they typically give inflated results because newer cohorts had better nutrition and schooling. I would not necessarily correct your scores for the Flynn effect because we don’t know if scores are still increasing since the WAIS-IV’s norming and with the cultural and biological damage of covid, we may even see a small reverse Flynn effect
Pumpkin Person 
Thank your for the interpretation Mr. Pumpkin. I will add that almost 3 years later, around the Spring of 2019, I took the matrix test from the WAIS IV again and got a scaled score of 15. I also took the symbol search and information tests and got the same scores. The long term memory stuff is consistent with what others say of me, so spot on!
“As for interpretations, I agree that you likely have ADD given your relatively low Working Memory index. Your relatively high processing speed suggests you’re not autistic.”
You are a little coy with it “Making out not to diagnose people”, but by all these measurements used, what you say on this person lead to Animekitty being both ADD and Autistic.
Being able to function with processing speed linked to autism is curious as speed fluctuates with animekitty. From a total clear state to sluggish. I would say the ADD affects animekitty in a more profound way when slow than clear-minded. He takes meds for bipolar.
Why is Animekitty referring to himself in the third person?
seems more formal
Referring to yourself in the third person is usually intended for comedic effect, since it implies that animekitty is a being so great that he can’t possibly contextually confine his decrees to that of a mere opinion given by an individual, rather, animekitty is THE individual that is speaking.
In Japan referring to yourself in the third person is childish and normally only girls or young women would do it, but I’m not sure if it goes beyond just referring to oneself by name without the use of any pronouns. A girl wouldn’t refer to herself with 彼女 (her) but instead just as her name. Parents may refer to themselves as mom or dad when speaking to their very young children. It’s also informal, since appearing cute and childish isn’t the point of formal speech.
Referring to yourself in the third person is usually intended for comedic effect,
I know but I don’t think he was trying to be funny.
I wanted to explain it to animekitty, but I can see how my comment could be interpreted as a reply to you. Sorry.
All good
Hello Pumpkin Person
Thanks for an interesting blog. I wonder, is there a new norming of the KAMIKAZE on the horizon.?
Greetings from Mike
I’ll try. Now that about 16 of the test takers have reported WAIS scores, a score pairing might be interesting.
Awesome. Looking forward to it.
It’s been quite a few years since I stopped by here. Just a quick question, not related to this post. Have you ever discussed anti-natalism here? I don’t mean the childfree movement, I mean the ethical anti-natalist philosophy developed by Professor David Benatar. I’ve been serving as a liaison between anti-natalism and the Dissident Right for some time now.
I haven’t
Oh, well I think it’s definitely something you’d want to look into. I’m apparently a very rare example of a Far-Right anti-natalist. I refer to myself as a non-spiteful mutant, which is something Edward Dutton finds quite amusing. I wrote An Indictment of Life: My Journey from White Nationalism to Anti-Natalism with my old comrades in mind. I had finished it about a year ago, but I’m currently updating it. Turns out I had quite a bit more to say. I began my main project, The Historical Absence of Feminine Facial Morphology in European Art and Culture, in 2017. It’s getting close to 30,000 words now. That might not seem like much in the space of five years, but I’m a fairly slow writer, and I have other projects I work on simultaneously. I had a three month email correspondence last year with Andrew Joyce, from the Occidental Observer, but unfortunately his attitude turned on a dime over a trivial misunderstanding and I haven’t heard back from him since December. It’s a real shame, as we had been getting on so frightfully well. What can I say, some people’s egos are just whacked out.
Mug of pee,
I thought you might be interested in this
https://edition.cnn.com/2022/07/26/us/13-year-old-medical-school-alena-analeigh-wicker-reaj/index.html?utm_medium=social&utm_term=image&utm_source=twCNN&utm_content=2022-07-27T11%3A53%3A35
Is it more often than not the case that GAI and CPI discrepancy leads to some form of disadvantaging neuro-imbalance?