A research team led by University College London neuroscientist Inga Usher has published a study in the BMJ where they try to clarify what kind of scientists are smarter.
The researchers conducted online intelligence tests involving 329 aerospace engineers and 72 neurosurgeons. They compared and analyzed the respondents’ problem-solving skills, including planning and reasoning, working memory, attention, and emotion-processing skills.
They differ in two areas
The team of researchers found that neurosurgeons and rocket scientists were about the same. But nevertheless, they differed in two areas.
Aerospace engineers showed better attention and mental manipulation skills, such as rotating images of objects in the head, while neurosurgeons were better at solving semantic problems, such as defining rare words.
But still the scientists weren’t that smart. Results from 18,257 members of the general public revealed little difference when comparing aerospace engineers and neurosurgeons to this group.
Thus, compared to the general population, aerospace engineers did not show significant differences in any domain. Neurosurgeons were able to solve problems faster than the general population, but showed a slower speed of memory retrieval.