The measure and definition of intelligence is, however, something that no two people fully agree on. Intelligence remains at its core a metaphysical phenomena. We can't, so to speak, "take it out and play with it," or hold it in our hands and examine it, or take it apart to see what the pieces are and how they fit together. At a very abstract level general agreement starts to come in the definition as far as intelligence having multiple components; of the necessity of regarding intelligence as both a system and an active process.
These system components seem to boil down to slightly less abstract systems, with the main three being to perceive, comprehend, and reason. This triad was given by the neurologist Richard Restak in the context of intellectual giftedness attributes, but these three seem to comprise the core of what IQ tests purport to measure. The following expansions on these terms can be blamed on no one but myself though. To perceive is our ability, through all of our senses, to be aware of the interactions between, and the actions of, both the environment and ourselves. To comprehend is to make sense of or understand a situation, object, or idea. To reason is the ability to solve problems in a logical, rational, or emotional manner.(1) Memory is closely intertwined with all members of the triad, both in individual facts and in categorization. The linear time frame, or speed of response in the members of this triad is also often looked into, with higher intelligence equated with faster response times, but there is less agreement on the weight of this variable.
Before we get to much further on the definition and measurement of intelligence, let's take a look at what we do presently know about the brain, the neurophysiological basis for mind and intelligence. When UCLA researchers decided to use PET scanning to test the hypothesis that more intelligent people exhibited higher metabolic rates in the brain, showing they used more energy, the opposite results were obtained. People who scored at the upper end on IQ tests showed cooler blue and green subdued patterns, while those with lower IQ scores showed hotter red and orange spots. As Restak said, "The brain of the less intelligent person seemed to have to work harder to achieve less." Restak, however, considers this a biological constraint, and I'll return to this point in a moment.
Other experimental evidence points to neuronal growth across the mammalian phylogenetic scale due to enriched environments, with corresponding decreases in neuronal mass in impoverished environments. Based on the pioneering work of Marian Diamond, U. C. Berkeley neuroanatomist, these physiological differences appear in the number and size of the dendritic branches, the number of synaptic sites, and the number of glial cells. The main distinguishing factor in the enriched environments is change. In humans, in addition to environmental enrichment, we also have personal enrichment with the cultivation of new interests and the development of talents. A quote from William James seems apropos here. "Genius, in truth, is little more than the faculty of perceiving in an unhabitual way."
With the work of evolutionary biologists such as Nobel laureate Gerald M. Edelman, change through learning, as modeled by computer neural net simulations, point toward our ability to actively and willfully (as per William James) work towards increasing the complexity, richness, and interconnection of our neuronal groups. In a mutually recursive manner, our personalities and our neuroanatomy change and shape each other.
These findings from the lab, when applied to the real world, are optimistic about the control and responsibility we have over who we are and what we become. As Restak says, "But we can no longer blame anyone or anything other than ourselves if, because of laziness or disinterest, our brain never develops its full potential. . . . [W]hen it comes to our mind and its development, we retain a gratifying measure of control after all."
This point of personal control and autonomy brings me back to Restak's view of biological constraints. While everyone has their own normal curve of potentialities, the energy efficient coolness of the UCLA PET scan intellectually gifted subjects seems to be a goal that can be worked towards by anyone. Disallowing for neurological damage or arrested development, I don't think the brain has to be a mass of disconnected hot spots. Both biofeedback research and other PET scan studies support this supposition. While biological constraints do need to be taken into account, including heredity and the pragmatism of being natural creatures of this physical universe, we do have the capability of increasing our measurable intelligence and other individual potentialities, as long as we are also aware, in a manner that does not become unrealistic, of our individual limitations. Now that measurement has come up again, let's examine some of those measurements of intelligence, hopefully without falling into Edwin G. Boring's cynical trap of thinking that "Intelligence is what the tests test," while keeping firmly in our minds Binet's injunction that "we do not measure, we classify."
Some of these components, or factors--which are all taken as being at least qualitatively differentiable, if hopelessly underdetermined on their own if looked at entirely out of the system as the complete measure of intelligence themselves--include: Piaget's stages and schemata; Cattel's fluid and crystallized intelligence; Louis L. Thurston's primary mental abilities; Howard Gardner's seven frames of intelligence, which I'll include here as they seem to best exemplify the domain of the triad: "object-free" linguistic and musical, "object- related" logical-mathematical, spatial, and bodily-kinaesthetic, "person-related" interpersonal and intrapersonal; and right on down to the reductionist's greatest fantasy of J. P. Guilford's 120 separate ability factors.
These factors are generally measured by performance on tests and tasks that deal with memory of general information, language, vocabulary, social judgment, numerical concepts, attention, visual and auditory memory, verbal and abstract reasoning, creativity, goal awareness, and geometric design, among others. These measures all deal with cognitive functions themselves or with aspects of mind-body interactions. What they don't seem to be paying enough (if any) attention to are the individual personality, interpersonal, and intrapersonal components of intelligence.
A broad descriptive definition of the amount of intelligence one has would be how functionally adapted to the world and the social milieu one is. We would, however, need to come up with a new test for this. IQ tests which traditionally test linguistic and logico-mathematical skills do have predictive value, at least in limited domains. The high correlation between one's grades in school and one's IQ shouldn't be too surprising, for as Howard Gardner points out, "schools also reward quick responses to short answer questions." The predictive value decreases, though, when we move beyond school. IQ tests may show high reliability values, but the validity can easily be called into question when we start extrapolating outside of the intended domain.
As can be seen from the above, intellectual activities and intelligence in general taps a very wide repertoire. While not allowing a precise and concise definition, the amount of intelligence we individually display is tightly coupled with our personalities and helps, to a large extent, determine who we are. It seems clear to me that intelligence, as an active system process, does indeed exist, can at least be classified if not quantitatively measured, and is receptive to improvement. This bodes well for our own self-actualization process, and by extension for the well being of society as long as personal responsibility is also extended to social responsibility in an intelligent manner.
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Questions or comments about these Web pages? Send e-mail to
dave@reststop.net