No one knows exactly what we mean by intelligence, but as Justice Potter Stewart of the US Supreme Court said in 1964, “Intelligence is like porn, difficult to define, but you know it when you see it.” When we observe members of our species we see some who learn quickly, can solve problems easily, and …
What Scientific Evidence validates IQ tests as a measure of intelligence? Read More »
The graph below shows the distribution of IQ across the human population. The shaded region shows that 84% of humans have an IQ less than 115, while 2.4% of people are above 130 and separated in IQ from half the population by more than two standard deviations. This very significant difference in IQ means that …
How Does a High iQ affect a person’s social skills? Read More »
A right-hand glove is turned inside out and then put on the left hand. Where will the fabric of the glove which normally touches the palm of the right hand be found? Will it be touching the palm, touching the back of the hand, on the palm side facing out, or on the back of …
A pawn shop owner offers a gold coin of diameter 3 cm for the same price as two gold coins (of the same thickness) of diameter 2 cm. Which has more gold, the single coin or the two coins together? Answer: Assuming that all the coins are circular and have the same thickness, the volume …
There are eight teams in a junior hockey league and during hockey season, every team plays each of the other teams exactly once. How many games do the teams play during the season? Answer: The grid below shows 8 rows of 8 columns. The cell in row 3 column 2 represents a game between team …
The post below was written in response to a question from Leslie. Leslie, a person of average student can raise their performance in school or college by immersing themselves in their studies and developing a deep interest in the content. When you are excited by the content of a subject, you can invest long hours …
High intelligence is probably a prerequisite for genius, especially the kind of genius that is expressed in abstract fields like mathematics, physics and the other sciences, because measures of intelligence are highly correlated with performance in these fields. In the arts, high intelligence may be less important than a special creativity, skill or knowledge. Shakespeare’s …
What is the difference between High intelligence and genius? Read More »
The graph below from Intelligence, IQ and Perception, shows the various cognitive skills that are tested on the WAIS III IQ subtests. You can see that vocabulary is a component of the verbal comprehension index, so a large vocabulary would certainly enhance an IQ score. However, there are many other important cognitive skills under the …
Between birth and early adulthood, the brain passes through significant periods of neural growth and pruning in which new neuronal connections are produced and those not used are pruned. Throughout this development, you might expect that your IQ would remain relatively stable, because IQ is a measure of intelligence relative to others of the same age. …
Pattern recognition is definitely an important component of fluid intelligence, but there are several others. Fluid intelligence varies depending on the neural structure of the brain. The brains of highly intelligent people are typically found to have a lower neurite density allowing for a faster and more efficient transmission of information. Such brains also show …
Is fluid intelligence nothing more than Pattern recognition? Read More »
