Bulletin of the Psychonomic Society 1986, 24 (6), 423-426 ## Talkativeness and verbal aptitude: Perception and reality R. BARRY RUBACK and JAMES M. DABBS, JR. Georgia State University, Atlanta, Georgia Little attention has been given to the implicit theories linking or the actual relationship be tween talkativeness and aptitude. In this study, we hypothesized a positive relationship between verbal aptitude and amount of talking. A correlational analysis was conducted using subjects' scores on the verbal section ofthe Scholastic Aptitude Test and how much they talked while get ting acquainted or solving a group problem. Verbal aptitude proved to be unrelated to overall amount of talking but was positively related to pausing between the vocalizations within each speaker's turn. Folk wisdom is not very helpful in describing the rela tionship between talkativeness and aptitude. According to an Italian proverb, "Half a brain is enough for him who says little." Similarly, in Act 1 of "A Woman of No Importance," Oscar Wilde wrote that "the clever people never listen, and the stupid people never talk" (1894/1969, p. 36). However, even though we may assume that a posi tive relationship e