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This reminds me of abstract reasoning questions from IQ tests. You know the kind of thing: you're often given the first three diagrams in a sequence, and you have to infer the logic behind the sequence and choose the correct fourth diagram from a multiple choice; or perhaps you need to find the odd one out.

But such questions are usually not really abstract at all; rather, they rely on learned cultural ontologies for classifying shapes and transformations, a language for describing circles, ovals, squares, rectangles, rotations through right angles, mirroring and symmetry. To my mind, these tests largely measure conformance to a cultural perspective on the world.



Phrased another way: IQ tests are for testing how well you do at IQ tests :)




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