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Comment by j2kun | Hacker News Reader

I'm going to read the rest of this paper, but it looks like the title here is misleading. The last sentence of the abstract:

> These results identify empathy, and social skills more generally, as previously unknown predictors of mathematical achievement.

Edit: added:

> Contrary to our hypothesis, we found no relationship between systemizing and math achievement after controlling for domain general abilities and no relationship between the systemizing brain type (greater discrepancy between systemizing and empathizing) and math achievement.

More edits:

The "negative correlation" turns out to be only for "calculation" and the values are r=-0.22, p=0.02, with a sample size of around a hundred individuals. This is a negligible effect by any stretch of the imagination. Sounds like the authors did their diligence in writing this up, and it's the submitter's fault for the linkbait headline.

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The title is correct. That sentence just means that they're predictors, not necessarily that they're positive predictors. As in, if you know one you can predict the other.

In the results section:

> There was a negative correlation between EQ-C and the Calculation Skills composite score with greater empathizing predicting lower math achievement (r(110) = −0.22, p = 0.02).

A correlation of 0.2 is negligible. Especially with a sample size on the order of 100. I'm glad you pointed this out.

Yeah, it seems weak. In figure 1 it is obvious that a spike of 7 students carry the negative correlation. Without them it would disappear.

Considering that the sample questionnaires have to be administered by hand to each child, how would you scale the sample size for a study in this space?

It looks like the study that introduced the EQ-C and SQ-C in 2009 was only run on 1256 "parents of typically developing children" and 265 "children with Autism".[0]

[0] http://docs.autismresearchcentre.com/papers/2009_Auyeung_eta...

[0 (alternate)] http://rd.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs10803-009-0772-x

Correlation of 0.2 is negligible with any sample size. The potential for invalid inferences is only pronounced by a small sample size. A samples size of a thousand is much better. But with n=100, r=0.2 there is a bigger chance that local factors influence the result than that the observed association says anything about human nature.

Later in the results section you have:

>There was a negative correlation between EQ-C and the Calculation Skills composite score with greater empathizing predicting lower math achievement

Edit: A "previously unknown predictor" can both be a positive or negative predictor.

Submitted title was "Empathy and social skills found to be negative predictors of mathematical ability". We've changed that to a quote from the abstract. I'm not sure the two are different enough to justify calling the first one linkbait, but it's better to stick to language from the article.

From the conclusion section:

"We found no evidence for a relationship between systemizing and math achievement after accounting for general cognitive and reading abilities. There was, however, a negative association between empathizing and calculation ability that was more pronounced in girls."

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