I’ve been thinking about that in the context of hiring. Some companies require a cognitive test, which is often some kind of Raven’s Advanced Progressive Matrices. Unfortunately, most companies giving these tests do it with a time limit, thus measuring a speed function, and neglecting other dimensions. Some people think fast, others think deep. We need both.

In college I interviewed at a commodity trader and they made us play a group trading game, I bombed because I wanted to make sure every trade I made was profitable/certain, people who made it to the next round moved quick even if they made somewhat questionable trades. That's when I realised I was not meant to be a commodity trader where decisions need to be made in matter of minutes. It was just so different from the business case interviews I was also doing at the same time where you build a thesis and stress test it and look for areas you missed

I'm also a slow thinker, but I'm doing well on these types of tests, because they are very contained and small, plus I have partly learned to sort of relax my brain and let it work more intuitively.

For me at least, the slow thinking comes in part from being overly reflected. Thought can pull me into a seemingly phased out state where I drill down into it or try to find related connections. I also have trouble to go from thought and abstraction to language, because it's always hard to find the right expression that _really_ fits.

So the larger and more disconnected the possible space is that one could explore, the slower I naturally get before expressing myself.

But these matrices and puzzles are very contained and observable in their entirety. Even though solving these isn't my main forte, they also don't necessarily trigger my slowness to the same degree as other tasks.

If someone uses them in a job interview, they would likely make me a bit nervous, because it feels bad to be stuck or unsure when you're solving a puzzle and that can be draining and distracting for long enough to matter if the test is timed.

But I think if they are used with care, the minimum required score is considerate and they are not the only test, then they might be fine or even useful.