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As a child, I sat intelligence tests with everyone else in my class: all at our desks, with our workbooks, while the teacher looked on. Some time later little pencilled numbers appeared next to our names on the attendance book she kept on her desk. Much later, as a neuropsychologist, I administered thousands of intelligence tests, each resulting in numbers on a piece of paper.
None of us actually knew what was being measured, but the little number in pencil mattered.
This is the strange thing about IQ tests. There is no real clarity about intelligence. Somehow, we have devised tests to measure something that still eludes definition. Researchers know there is a statistical parameter identified on tests that is associated with academic success. Since they do not actually know what is being measured, it goes by the designation g. It is a circular definition: intelligence is what the IQ test is measuring.
Just like the unconscious, intelligence is an important mental activity that is hard to pin down, yet it does measurable things.
The term ‘IQ’ is used generically to mean intelligence. It stands for Intelligence Quotient, a score from one of the most commonly used intelligence tests. Like any other measure of intelligence, an IQ test will set you some problems to solve. It is not like in algebra class, where you already have a method to solve an equation for x. In this type of test, you do not have an equation, or any given method, to find a solution. Your task is to come up with a way to solve the problem. It may be picking out some details to put storyboards in order, or identifying something missing in a picture, or coming up with a fact from your own general knowledge. It might require that you show how fast you can compute a mental arithmetic test, because mental speed and sustained attention are facets of intelligence. It might measure how much you have already learned about the world, because learning and teaching yourself things on your own is also a feature of intelligence.
To get the right answers on this kind of test you need to bring a few cognitive functions online. The first is enough sustained attention to stick it out to the end of the test. The second may be some basic math skills, or general knowledge, the sorts of things you learn in school or teach yourself. The third is the ability to think about a problem, a general term for pulling up from memory what you know about the topic, identifying what you don’t know, and asking yourself a series of questions to rule an answer in or out. There are often bonus points for time, so the faster you can pull these rabbits out of a hat, the higher the score.
An intelligence test reveals your ability to attend, what you have been able to learn in the past, your abilities to identify different elements in a problem, and to pull it all together to answer the question. You are asked to summon what you already know and reorganize it on the spot to answer a question. Intelligence testing is a measure of putting known pieces together in a new way.
There is a fun test of creativity that illustrates this. Take a common object and come up with as many different ways to use it as you can. It is not touted as a measure of intelligence per se, but it illustrates the point. So, using brick as the common object, here are some of the different ways to use brick:
1. as a building unit: build a wall or a book case.
2. as a paperweight
3. as a metaphor, “Cynthia, you’ve been a brick about this”.
The last item still makes me laugh. It takes a brick out of its usual identity as a solid block of clay. The answer takes the object up a level of abstraction, and uses it appropriately in a new category altogether: a figure of speech.
This is what intelligence does that is so useful.
Intelligence can identify connections and patterns because of some unique qualities of unconscious information processing. When information is stored in memory, it acquires associations that link bits and pieces together across modalities. Data in memory is successfully stored by virtue of the links that are formed during consolidation. Intelligence navigates those links like skating on ice, roaming and jumping across swathes of data to carve out new patterns.
There are a number of measures that try to capture this quality. Consider a type of test called analogies. It takes the form of “apple is to fruit as chair is to _______.” The answer is found by understanding the concept of example and category. Apple is the example, fruit is the category. Chair is the example, furniture is the category. There is a type of test that calls for identifying the one different item in an array. Another test presents a sequence of numbers, dots, or whatever, and asks for the next item in the sequence. This test looks for the idea that links the items in order to figure out what will complete the sequence.
Intelligence is about marshalling resources to find answers. One way of efficiently collecting pieces of information together is to categorize them by concept, idea or similarity. The capacity to work in the abstract opens up a range of ways of gathering information and finding patterns. Identifying overarching concepts adds a layer understanding to data and provides additional connections between previously separate elements. Intelligence moves information up a level from data points to organizing principle. Because it can travel levels of abstraction, from concrete example to category to superordinate category, intelligence forms new connections between what is already in evidence or memory. These new connections allow for new ways of thinking and hence, new solutions to problems.
Intelligence is quick. I think this is because this activity does not follow the usual linear, sequential lines of if-then logic. Intelligence reveals a facility to jump around, finding new connections and reaching a new place. Intelligence is adaptive: it finds solutions.
The brain analyzes the raw data of the real world in basic terms: what is seen, heard and felt. It then adds in additional attributes such as name, spatial context, movement and time frame. Intelligence works at the level of conceptual attributes. It identifies categories, uses, similarities and differences. Intelligence works with the conceptual aspects to re sort information. It is in that changing frame of reference that new patterns can be discerned. Some may only be interesting, because of novelty. Some patterns will reveal a solution.
The cognitive tool of intelligence is the realm of abstraction: ideas, concepts and categories, similarities and differences. Intelligence operates by connecting abstractions and forming patterns. It is intentionally and consciously employed to understand how something works, but it will operate quite spontaneously when a problem needs solving. You see it in operation when someone asks, what happens if I do this, or change that? or, how does that work? It is also working when one person looks at what everyone else thinks is a chaotic mess and sees something meaningful. You see it in a child that takes things apart to see how they work.
This particular cognitive function is largely unconscious. It is activated when confronted with a question, a problem, or just a novelty. It takes analysis and identification, the tasks of other cognitive functions such as language and spatial awareness, to another level, one of abstract qualities. It takes intelligence to understand Cynthia has some of the qualities of a brick: those stolid, reliable, perhaps slightly dull qualities. Intelligence sees through one layer of data and onto the pattern within.
For the most part it is not clear what it is or even how it can exist strongly in one and weakly in another. It varies to a predictable degree in populations, but the emergence of strong intelligence is not predictable in individual cases. Intelligence is a fixed asset. An individual’s level of intelligence is inborn. Intelligence can be lost by way of injury or illness, but not gained through effort or training. It is, in that respect, like temperament: some personality elements appear to be inborn. You can, by virtue of life experience, education and effort, learn to use these basics more efficiently. That is about it.
What is perhaps so interesting about intelligence is the level of complexity it can handle. Eyes can absorb only so much information, within a range of wavelengths and within a visual field. Ears have similar restrictions. Attention also has span and depth limits. Words are supple tools but they have their limits too. But intelligence has a number of attributes that vastly expand its information processing capability.
Intelligence works with information in the abstract, which allows additional levels of processing beyond the primary sensory levels. It looks for the patterns in how things work, how people behave, and organizational principles in the real world. It formulates ideas to organize information. Working at these levels of abstraction means intelligence can take unexpected leaps, arriving with breathtaking speed somewhere new. Every once in a while, the jump lands on a path forward.
re: "Intelligence is a fixed asset. An individual’s level of intelligence is inborn. Intelligence can be lost by way of injury or illness, but not gained through effort or training. " Not sure you have made the case for these assertions. Especially not sure of "... not gained through effort or training. " Given the plastic nature of the brain, it seems that these assertions need more investigation, and perhaps another Substack article.