What is human intelligence and how is it measured?

Human intelligence encompasses cognitive feats like learning, reasoning, pattern recognition, and problem-solving, marked by motivation and self-awareness. In psychometrics, this intellectual capacity is assessed using intelligence quotient tests. Ongoing debates surround how intelligence should be conceptualized, whether subcategories like emotional intelligence are distinct, and if intelligence is fixed at birth or malleable.

What we know

• Human intelligence is marked by complex cognitive feats, high motivation, and self-awareness, allowing humans to learn, apply logic, plan, and solve problems. [2]
• In psychometrics, human intelligence is assessed using intelligence quotient tests. [2]
• Psychometrics is concerned with the objective measurement of unobservable latent constructs, including intelligence, through mathematical modeling of test responses. [4]
• Raymond Cattell introduced the concepts of fluid and crystallized intelligence in 1943 as subdivisions of general intelligence. [5]

Still open

• There is significant debate regarding whether subcategories like emotional intelligence and social intelligence represent distinct forms of intelligence.
• There is ongoing debate on whether an individual's level of intelligence is fixed at birth or malleable through mindset and effort.

Where to go next

• compared withWhat are fluid and crystallized intelligence?
• how it workedHow do psychometricians measure unobservable traits?
• how we knowWhat can we learn about intelligence by studying primates?
• the bigger pictureHow does human cognition enable language and planning?
• an unexpected connectionWhat is artificial general intelligence?

Sources

• [1]human intelligence (Wikidata Q5937824) · CC0 1.0
• [2]Human intelligence · CC BY-SA 4.0
• [3]Artificial general intelligence · CC BY-SA 4.0
• [4]Psychometrics · CC BY-SA 4.0
• [5]Fluid and crystallized intelligence · CC BY-SA 4.0