Smart people TAKE longer to answer difficult questions

What goes through your mind when you think of someone smart? At first glance, you might have considered traits like quick thinking, high problem solving, and adapting to adversity.

See too: 7 Signs You Have High Spiritual Intelligence (Even If You're Not Aware Of It)

However, contrary to popular thinking, a study published in the scientific journal Nature Communications, on May 23, demonstrates that smart people take longer to answer complex questions.

Smart people think more

The discovery was carried out in the laboratories of the Berlin Institute of Health and the Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin, in a collaboration with a Barcelona team member from the University Pompey Fabra.

To carry out the study, a learning algorithm was developed and used to build personalized brain network models for 650 participants of the Project Human Connectome. The study uncovered interested patterns in decision-making.

Participants were shown a series of patterns and asked to identify the rules behind them. In the test, everyone's IQs were measured using conventional texts.

The researchers noticed that those with higher intelligence scores were quick to deal with tasks simple. However, as tasks get more complicated, they take longer to solve complex problems compared to individuals with lower IQ scores.

Hasty decisions are not a good sign.

In their findings, the researchers noted that those brains with less synchronization between multiple regions were prone to making hasty decisions without even waiting for the upper regions of the brain process the information needed to solve the problem.

For individuals with higher intelligence, brain simulations took longer to arrive at solving complicated problems.

That is, as the tests got more difficult, people with greater synaptic synchrony let the necessary processing take place, rather than rushing in.

Finally, the study proved that the neural circuits of the frontal lobe of the most synchronized brains were responsible for avoiding making hasty decisions.