An excellent question.

I would say that the effect is most likely very relevant for higher-level skills, for the following reasons:

• The effect has been shown for motor planning, for estimation of timing, and for several other plastic features. Thus, it isn't limited to sensory processing alone.

• If we assume a "worst case scenario" in which the higher-level networks are themselves exempt from this effect, we still have to expect an indirect improvement. The reason for this is relatively simple: higher-level mental behaviors are based on metanetworks that interconnect subnetworks which certainly are subject to attentional modulation.

I would say that transferability of the effect would depend on how transferable the trained skill is itself. If you train yourself to be really good at the go/no-go task where a red dot appears on the screen, you'll get good at it, and it won't make a difference anywhere else in your life - no matter how much attention you paid while training. If you train yourself to enunciate words better (which is predominantly motor training, and the attention effect has been shown to make a huge difference), this could transfer into many other higher-level behaviors which can be improved by speaking clearly.

Similar indirect improvements would also apply in case of music (tone discernment training is attention-dependent) and chess (spatial combinatorial thinking is dependent on attention-trainable circuitry).

So, in the worst case, this is still highly applicable, by choosing your training targets wisely.

• Finally, there is no reason to assume the above worst case scenario. I don't know of any studies that examined the effects of attention on higher-level skills - most likely because studies would be incredibly difficult to do (there is no possible control group, since you can't have someone learn chess while not paying attention to it). But the molecular systems involved here seem to be pretty universal. Specifically, the effect has been shown to be dependent on acetylcholine release, and on the detection of this neurotransmitter by muscarinic receptors - which are present in many neurons within the higher-order associative and planning areas of the brain.

For a molecular pathway overview, see, for instance, Conner et al. in Neuron, Vol. 38, 819–829, 2003.

Therefore, the null hypothesis based on the data we currently have is that we should see this effect in higher-level skills directly, as well as indirectly.

Somehow I couldn't quite figure out what Eliezer was advocating when I first read this article. Now I think that he wants to see more exchanges like the following:

Experimentalist: My experiment yielded results that contradict your theory at the p < 0.01 level!

Theorist: I remain unconvinced. I defy your data.

Experimentalist: What?! You can't just ignore empirical observations like that. So, which is it? Are you accusing me of negligence or fraud?

Theorist: I'm not accusing you of anything. But your experiment could have been one of the 1-in-100 that would get results at least that strong just by chance. As unlikely as it is that you were so unlucky, it is nonetheless more likely than that my theory is wrong. Your p-value just wasn't large enough to kill my theory in one fell swoop. However, several independent replications of your results would be enough to do it.

I suppose he will be thinking along the same lines as a wirehead.

My impression is that we aren't terribly good yet at understanding how traits which involve many genes play out, whether political correctness is involved or not.