astronomy

Ian Deary

Ian Deary is a astronomy topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Ian Deary rather than just read about it. In short: Ian John Deary (born 1954) is a Scottish psychologist (also dual trained as a medical doctor and psychiatrist) known for work in the fields of intelligence, cognitive ageing, cognitive epidemiology, and personality. Deary is professor of differential psychology at The University of Edinburgh.

Key takeaways

Ian Deary belongs to astronomy; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Ian Deary to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Ian Deary from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Ian John Deary (born 1954) is a Scottish psychologist (also dual trained as a medical doctor and psychiatrist) known for work in the fields of intelligence, cognitive ageing, cognitive epidemiology, and personality. Deary is professor of differential psychology at The University of Edinburgh. He is former director of the Centre for Cognitive Ageing and Cognitive Epidemiology and co-director of the Alzheimer Scotland Dementia Research Centre.

Research Ian Deary has contributed to numerous topics in intelligence research. For instance, he has conducted several studies into the relationship between intelligence and elementary cognitive tasks such as reaction time and inspection time, and has investigated the overlap between intelligence and educational achievement. In 1983 he obtained a PhD at the University of Edinburgh with the thesis "Social work and the elderly: a problem of definition" written for the Stuart Macgregor Memorial Prize. Deary was a founder of the field of cognitive epidemiology, which studies the relationship of intelligence to health outcomes. He described and discussed cognitive epidemiology in a 2010 article for the journal Psychological Science in the Public Interest. A 2010 review in Nature Reviews Neuroscience, co-authored by Deary, described research on the neuroscience of intelligence differences. In 2012, the journal Annual Review of Psychology published an overview of the field of intelligence research, authored by Deary.

Lothian Birth Cohort studies Deary was one of the co-founders of the Lothian Birth Cohort studies of 1921 and 1936. These studies collect data from older Scottish individuals who, aged 11, had their intelligence tested as part of the Scottish Mental Surveys of 1932 and 1947. From the year 2000 onward, Deary and colleagues contacted surviving members of these surveys living in the Edinburgh and Lothians areas and invited them to retake the same intelligence test, along with further batteries of cognitive tests. Members of the cohorts born in 1921 were followed up at age of 79, and those born in 1936 at age 70. Interview and biomedical data were also collected from the cohort members to allow wide-ranging investigation of the causes and consequences of differences in cognition across the lifespan. Using data from the Lothian Birth Cohort studies, Deary and colleagues have investigated the effects of ageing on cognition. For instance, studies have shown that intelligence between age 11 and age 79 is highly stable (correlation of around r = .66), and that childhood and old age intelligence have a genetic correlation of .62. A number of papers from the Lothian Birth Cohort studies, co-authored by Deary, have reported that higher childhood intelligence scores negatively predict earlier mortality; that is, more intelligent people live longer. Data from the Lothian Birth Cohort studies continue to be used for studies of the relationship of intelligence to a wide variety of health, educational and socioeconomic outcomes. In addition, genetic and brain imaging data from members of the Cohorts allow investigation of the biological causes of differences in intelligence and cognitive ageing.

Awards and recognition Ian Deary is a fellow of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh, the Royal Society of Edinburgh, the British Academy, the Academy of Medical Sciences, the Royal College of Psychiatrists, and the Association for Psychological Science. He is a past president of the International Society for the Study of Individual Differences, and has held a Royal Society-Wolfson Research Merit Award (2003–2007) for research into cognitive ageing. In 2003 he received the first of the Chancellor's Awards at the University of Edinburgh, and in 2010 was named as a Distinguished European Personality Psychologist by the European Association of Personality Psychology. In 2014, Deary received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the International Society for Intelligence Research, and received the James McKeen Cattell Fellow Award from the Association for Psychological Science in 2015. In the 2019 New Year Honours, Deary was awarded an OBE for services to the Social Sciences.

Books Deary, I. J. (2000). Looking Down on Human Intelligence: From Psychometrics to the Brain. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. Deary, I. J. (2001). Intelligence: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. Matthews, G., Deary, I. J., & Whiteman, M. C. (2009). Personality Traits (3rd Edition). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Deary, I. J., Whalley, L. J., & Starr, J. M. (2009). A Lifetime of Intelligence. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.

References

External links Ian Deary's profile page at the University of Edinburgh Centre for Cognitive Ageing and Cognitive Epidemiology Lothian Birth Cohorts Alzheimer Scotland Dementia Research Centre Entry on ORCID Ian Deary publications indexed by Google Scholar

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Ian Deary

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Ian Deary claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In astronomy, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Ian Deary before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Ian Deary ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Ian Deary

In research: Ian Deary appears in astronomy research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Ian Deary in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Ian Deary is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1954 births, 20th-century British psychologists, 21st-century British psychologists, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Ian Deary outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Ian Deary in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Ian Deary means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Ian Deary out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Ian Deary in simple terms?

Why does Ian Deary matter?

Because it connects several astronomy ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Ian Deary?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Ian Deary.