Timothy C. Bates (born 1963) is a professor of

differential psychology Differential psychology studies the ways in which individuals differ in their behavior and the processes that underlie it. This is a discipline that develops classifications (taxonomies) of psychological individual differences. This is distingui ...

at the

University of Edinburgh The University of Edinburgh ( sco, University o Edinburgh, gd, Oilthigh Dhùn Èideann; abbreviated as ''Edin.'' in post-nominals) is a public research university based in Edinburgh, Scotland. Granted a royal charter by King James VI in 15 ...

. His research interests include the

genetics Genetics is the study of genes, genetic variation, and heredity in organisms.Hartl D, Jones E (2005) It is an important branch in biology because heredity is vital to organisms' evolution. Gregor Mendel, a Moravian Augustinian friar wor ...

of reading and spelling,

intelligence Intelligence has been defined in many ways: the capacity for abstraction, logic, understanding, self-awareness, learning, emotional knowledge, reasoning, planning, creativity, critical thinking, and problem-solving. More generally, it can be des ...

, and

personality Personality is the characteristic sets of behaviors, cognitions, and emotional patterns that are formed from biological and environmental factors, and which change over time. While there is no generally agreed-upon definition of personality, m ...

Biography

He is a member of the

editorial board The editorial board is a group of experts, usually at a publication, who dictate the tone and direction the publication's editorial policy will take. Mass media At a newspaper, the editorial board usually consists of the editorial page editor, ...

of the journal ''

Intelligence Intelligence has been defined in many ways: the capacity for abstraction, logic, understanding, self-awareness, learning, emotional knowledge, reasoning, planning, creativity, critical thinking, and problem-solving. More generally, it can be des ...

''. His PhD was completed in 1994 at the

University of Auckland , mottoeng = By natural ability and hard work , established = 1883; years ago , endowment = NZD $293 million (31 December 2021) , budget = NZD $1.281 billion (31 December 2021) , chancellor = Cecilia Tarrant , vice_chancellor = Dawn F ...

(New Zealand) and integrated the Eysenckian dimensional model of

psychosis Psychosis is a condition of the mind that results in difficulties determining what is real and what is not real. Symptoms may include delusions and hallucinations, among other features. Additional symptoms are incoherent speech and behavior ...

with the categorical model of

schizotypy In psychology, schizotypy is a theoretical concept that posits a continuum of personality characteristics and experiences, ranging from normal dissociative, imaginative states to extreme states of mind related to psychosis, especially schizophreni ...

proposed by Paul E. Meehl, using measures of personality, creativity,

evoked potential An evoked potential or evoked response is an electrical potential in a specific pattern recorded from a specific part of the nervous system, especially the brain, of a human or other animals following presentation of a stimulus such as a light f ...

s, and smooth pursuit eye movement dysfunction. The title of his doctoral thesis was ''Psychometric & psychophysiological measures for schizotypy, creativity & psychoticism''. Subsequent academic publications include demonstrating the existence of two separate forms of dyslexia, underpinned by distinct

gene In biology, the word gene (from , ; "... Wilhelm Johannsen coined the word gene to describe the Mendelian units of heredity..." meaning ''generation'' or ''birth'' or ''gender'') can have several different meanings. The Mendelian gene is a b ...

s, and, subsequently, demonstrating that the genes associated with dyslexia are also linked to normal variation in reading ability. This work lead to searches for specific genes involved in

reading Reading is the process of taking in the sense or meaning of letters, symbols, etc., especially by sight or touch. For educators and researchers, reading is a multifaceted process involving such areas as word recognition, orthography (spelling ...

and

language Language is a structured system of communication. The structure of a language is its grammar and the free components are its vocabulary. Languages are the primary means by which humans communicate, and may be conveyed through a variety of ...

. In positive psychology, he showed (along with Alexander Weiss and Michelle Luciano) that the genes for happiness are genes for

, suggesting that a general factor of genetic well-being and specific genetic influences from the

five factor model The Big Five personality traits is a suggested taxonomy, or grouping, for personality traits, developed from the 1980s onward in psychological trait theory. Starting in the 1990s, the theory identified five factors by labels, for the US English ...

traits of Extraversion, Neuroticism/Stability, and

Conscientiousness Conscientiousness is the personality trait of being careful, or diligent. Conscientiousness implies a desire to do a task well, and to take obligations to others seriously. Conscientious people tend to be efficient and organized as opposed to ...

completely explain the

heritable Heredity, also called inheritance or biological inheritance, is the passing on of traits from parents to their offspring; either through asexual reproduction or sexual reproduction, the offspring cells or organisms acquire the genetic informa ...

component of differences in happiness. With Caroline Rae, Bates showed that

creatine Creatine ( or ) is an organic compound with the nominal formula (H2N)(HN)CN(CH3)CH2CO2H. It exists in various modifications (tautomers) in solution. Creatine is found in vertebrates where it facilitates recycling of adenosine triphosphate ( ...

supports cognitive function – finding that creatine supplements in

vegan Veganism is the practice of abstaining from the use of animal product—particularly in diet—and an associated philosophy that rejects the commodity status of animals. An individual who follows the diet or philosophy is known as a vegan. ...

s substantially increased their cognitive ability and working memory by comparison with placebo. This supported a literal 'mental energy' model of intelligence, first postulated by

Charles Spearman Charles Edward Spearman, FRS (10 September 1863 – 17 September 1945) was an English psychologist known for work in statistics, as a pioneer of factor analysis, and for Spearman's rank correlation coefficient. He also did seminal work on mod ...

. In his work with the late Hans Eysenck and subsequently with Con Stough on the role of basic information processing speed in human intelligence, he used ERP complexity measures to argue for a modification to the Hendrickson and Hendrickson error or "string theory" (so named as pins and string were used to make the measurements of

EEG Electroencephalography (EEG) is a method to record an electrogram of the spontaneous electrical activity of the brain. The biosignals detected by EEG have been shown to represent the postsynaptic potentials of pyramidal neurons in the neocortex ...

output) model of ability, to include a controlling role of attention. In related work on reaction time, he introduced a novel modification to the

Jensen box The Jensen box was developed by University of California, Berkeley psychologist Arthur Jensen as an experimental apparatus for measuring choice reaction time (RT) and individual differences in intelligence. Design and measurement The standard J ...

, again controlling the role of attention in this task, and suggesting that under these conditions, intelligence is, as

Arthur Jensen Arthur Robert Jensen (August 24, 1923 – October 22, 2012) was an American psychologist and writer. He was a professor of educational psychology at the University of California, Berkeley. Jensen was known for his work in psychometrics an ...

proposed, related to the rate of information processing defined in

Fitts Law Fitts's law (often cited as Fitts' law) is a predictive model of human movement primarily used in human–computer interaction and ergonomics. The law predicts that the time required to rapidly move to a target area is a function of the ratio betw ...

and using

Claude Shannon Claude Elwood Shannon (April 30, 1916 – February 24, 2001) was an American mathematician, electrical engineer, and cryptographer known as a "father of information theory". As a 21-year-old master's degree student at the Massachusetts Inst ...

's information metrics. At the University of Edinburgh he has investigated individual differences in intelligence, memory, and the genetic and environmental influences on social behaviours, such as coalition affiliation, politics, and altruism. Working with

Ian Deary Ian John Deary OBE, FBA, FRSE, FMedSci (born 1954) is a Scottish psychiatrist known for work in the fields of intelligence, cognitive ageing, cognitive epidemiology, and personality. Deary is Professor of Differential Psychology at The Uni ...

, Paul Irwing, and Geoff Derr, he reported evidence for substantial

gender differences Sex differences in humans have been studied in a variety of fields. Sex determination occurs by the presence or absence of a Y in the 23rd pair of chromosomes in the human genome. Phenotypic sex refers to an individual's sex as determined by the ...

in intelligence in the form of much larger

variance In probability theory and statistics, variance is the expectation of the squared deviation of a random variable from its population mean or sample mean. Variance is a measure of dispersion, meaning it is a measure of how far a set of numbe ...

amongst males than amongst females, with more boys and men scoring in both the extreme high range, and in the extreme low range.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Bates, Timothy C. 1963 births Academics of the University of Edinburgh British psychologists Intelligence researchers Behavior geneticists Living people Dyslexia researchers University of Auckland alumni People from Auckland