“Secular Declines in Cognitive Test Scores: A Reversal of the Flynn Effect”, 2008-03-01 (; backlinks; similar):
Scores on cognitive tests have been very widely reported to have increased through the decades of the last century, a generational phenomenon termed the ‘Flynn Effect’ since it was most comprehensively documented by James Flynn in the 1980s. There has, however, been very little evidence concerning any continuity of the effect specifically into the present century.
We here report data from a population, namely young adult males in Denmark, showing that whereas there were modest increases 1988–10199826ya in scores on a battery of 4 cognitive tests—these constituting a diminishing continuation of a trend documented back to the late 1950s—scores on all 4 tests declined 1998–2003–200420ya. For 2 of the tests, levels fell to below those of 1988. Across all tests, the decrease in the 5–6 year period corresponds to ~1.5 IQ points, very close to the net gain 1988–10199826ya. The declines 1998–5200321ya–4 appeared amongst both men pursuing higher academic education and those not doing so.
[Keywords: cognitive tests, secular trend, Flynn Effect]