It turns out that the early bird really does get the worm when it comes to snagging a more robust score on verbal intelligence. A new University of Ottawa study debunks the theory that highly intelligent people are most likely to be night owls.

“Once you account for key factors including bedtime and age, we found the opposite to be true, that morning types tend to have superior verbal ability,” said Stuart Fogel, Ph.D., a cognitive neuroscientist, and director of the University of Ottawa Sleep Research Laboratory in a news release. “This outcome was surprising to us and signals that it is much more complicated than anyone thought before.”

Fogel’s team monitored each study participant’s biological rhythms and daily preferences to identify if they were morning or evening types, based on their preferences to tackle challenges at that time of day.

According to Study Finds, the study used volunteers representing a wide range of age groups. They were screened to rule out any sleep disorders or other confounding factors. Subjects wore a monitoring device for 10 days to measure their activity levels, including bedtime, rise-time, total sleep time, and other factors, says Neuroscience News. The cognitive testing took place at the completion of the study and found that morning people had superior verbal abilities.

Fogel explained that the study shows that a person’s intelligence can be driven by biological rhythms.

In general, young individuals typically fell into the evening category chronotype, while older subjects were likely to favor the morning for intellectual pursuits and exercise.

The researchers said that their findings indicate that school aged children and adolescents may be short changed since their school schedules are governed by their morning-type parents and their routines.

“A lot of school start times are not determined by our chronotypes but by parents and work schedules, so school-aged kids pay the price of that because they are evening types forced to work on a morning type schedule,” said Fogel, adding that this puts school children at a biological disadvantage for learning new skills.

“Our brain craves regularity and for us to be optimal in our own rhythms is to stick to that schedule and not be constantly trying to catch up,” he concluded.