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2.8 Fluid and Crystallized Intelligence

The Cattell-Horn theory of fluid and crystallized intelligence suggests that intelligence is composed of a number of different abilities that interact and work together to produce overall individual intelligence.



Crystallized intelligence refers to the learning, knowledge and skills that are accumulated over a lifetime

Crystallized intelligence refers to the learning, knowledge and skills that are accumulated over a lifetime. This type of intelligence tends to increase with age.

Fluid intelligence or fluid reasoning is the capacity to think logically and solve problems in novel situations, independent of acquired knowledge. This ability is considered independent of learning, experience, and education. Examples of the use of fluid intelligence include solving puzzles and coming up with problem-solving strategies. Many researches suggest that fluid intelligence begins to decrease after adolescence.



Fluid intelligence is the capacity to think logically and solve problems in novel situations, independent of acquired knowledge.

Fluid and crystallized intelligences are complementary in that some learning tasks can be mastered mainly by exercising either fluid or crystallized intelligence.

2.9 Where in Human Brain Intelligence Reside?

Intelligence resides in several places, but not just one place, and not in the entire brain. Intelligence is comprised of a network of processing centers spread throughout very distinct parts of the brain. The left hemisphere of the brain appears to be more related to intelligence than the right one. But the function of intelligence resides in particular regions in the front, the back and both sides. We have been able to pinpoint through very advanced neuroimaging technology and discreet areas within each of the lobes where information comes together, and is processed intensively.

The brain can be divided into three major parts. The brain stem, shaped like a widening stalk, connects the spinal cord to the upper brain. It controls reflexes and involuntary processes like breathing and heart rates. Behind the brain stem and below the upper brain is the cerebellum, which is involved in balance and coordination. Of course, you need some parts of your brain to function in a very predictable way or you will die. Scientists are interested in identifying regions in the brain where there is greater variability in brain activity, size, blood flow and the like, in order to locate where individual differences are most pronounced.



Most of the researches to date have been looking at gray matter - the processing centers - of the brain. But they also have been investigating white matter, which provides the "wiring" that links these processing centers, particularly between the front and the back of the brain. It is the combination of gray and white matters, and how well they work in concert that is significant to the understanding of intelligence.

Although our advanced cognitive abilities are dependent on the cerebral cortex, it is not the only part of the brain relevant to child development. The limbic system, located in the inner brain beneath the cortex, is a collection of small structures involved in more instinctive behaviors like emotional reactions, stress responses, and reward-seeking behaviors. The hippocampus is involved in memory formation and spatial learning. The hypothalamus is the control center for one of the body’s key stress systems, regulating the release of cortisol and other stress hormones. The amygdala evaluates threats and triggers the body’s stress response.

2.10 Factors Affecting Intelligence

Various studies and investigations have identified certain circumstances and attributes that influence a greater or lesser (but still significant) in people’s IQ (Bouchard and Segal, 1985; Liungman, 1975).

The development of intelligence varies positively with the following factors:

- Birth weight
- Height
- Number of years in school
- Social Group parental home
- Occupation of father (having a well-educated father is very valuable for babies)
- Economic situation of father
- Ambition of parents
- Education of mother
- Average reading books
- Confidence in accordance with scale of measurement of attitude
- Emotional adjustment
- Age of mother (a mother over 25 years of age is associated with higher IQ records)
- Gestational age at birth


The development of intelligence may vary negatively with the following factors:

- Age (negative relationship, applied only in adulthood)
- Degree of authority in his parents' house (-ve)
- Crime (-ve)
- Alcoholism (-ve)
- Mental Illness (-ve)
- Degree of rigidity of parents (-ve)
- Child malnutrition (-ve)
- Average TV Viewing (-ve)
-- Number of siblings (-ve)

It is also necessary to note that the level of intelligence that will meet an individual in adulthood depends largely on the choices and decisions he/she makes during his/her childhood and adolescence.

On the other hand, it is important to consider the environmental causes that influence positively or negatively the development of intelligence. Freyer and Levitt (2006), when testing children from eight to twelve months old, only found small differences (SD 0.06) in IQ between black children and white children. Flynn has argued that in the United States, the differences between the IQ of black and white children gradually appear, suggesting environmental causes. "In just 10 months, the average score is only one point behind. By the age of four years, it is 4.6 points behind, and by the age of 24 years, the gap becomes 16,6 points. This could be attributed to the genetic initially, but the steadiness after age 4 suggests something else, which indicates about 0.6 IQ points lost every year. Similarly, genetically driven differences, such as height differences between men and women, tend to work within a certain age".

2.11 Children Are Smarter Every Day - Flynn Effect

In the 1980s, a scientist James Flynn, realized that IQ is increasing in all countries most of the time, at an average rate of about 3 IQ points per decade. That is because the average IQ worldwide has increased by 1 standard deviation (ie, 15 points) since 1945, largely due to environmental effects. As a result, they have had to adjust the scale of intelligence tests to keep the focus on '100'.

Could it be due to the diet? Possibly, but IQ scores are increasing so rapidly in western countries where people are fed well. Could it be the school? The education interruptions have only temporary effects on IQ. Importantly, the best results achieved in the tests are related to abstract reasoning.

A researcher, Ulric Neisser, suggests that the Flynn effect is due to the way that we are being saturated with sophisticated visual images: ads, posters, video games and television graphics, etc. - rather than written messages. He suggests that children today live in an environment with continuous visual stimulation richer than in the past, and this greatly helps with visual puzzle IQ tests.

2.12 The Intelligent Living Longer

Several recent studies have confirmed what has been suspected for years: intelligent people live longer. Research conducted by Pamela Herd in 2010, University of Wisconsin, United States, with 10,000 people who graduated high school in 1957, found that students who finished in the top 25 of the class were healthier 50 years later when compared to their peers with lower academic performance. This type of work has been replicated in Australia, Denmark, England, Wales and Sweden, and the result is the same. "The association has been found in all populations where it has been studied," Deary wrote in the study.

Scottish researcher Ian Deary, director of the Center for Cognitive Ageing at the University of Edinburgh, has studied extensively the fact that intelligent people live longer that supports the theory that intelligence could predict mortality better than other indicators such as the rate of body mass, cholesterol and blood pressure. In a study published in 2011 in the journal Psychological Science in the Public Interest, the researcher summarizes dozens of studies that concluded also the same: intelligent people live longer.



One such work was done between 3654 Scottish war veterans, and the conclusion was that those with low IQ, or normal IQ, suffered from many more diseases, from hernias to cataract, when compared with those who showed greater alertness who were more healthy.

2.12 Are You Smart or Just “Clever” (ready)?

For many people, a clever person is somebody who knows how to take advantage of situations.

 

The word intelligence comes from the Latin verb "intellegere" that means "understanding." However, the ability to understand could be considered as "smart" - the ability to adapt and "be ready" or "clever" which refers to the ability to adapt creatively. In the educational context, the intelligence of a person is often equated with their academic performance, but this is not necessarily correct.

Certainly, a person's ability to think critically, and to use the knowledge and experience is often more important than the ability to control a large number of facts.

2.13 Fourteen Interesting Facts about Intelligence

1. IQ is associated with some simple abilities. No one with measurable IQ has difficulty on deciding which of the two lines is longer, or whether two pairs of letters are identical. However, in order to perform these simple tasks, a person with an IQ below 70 may need up to five times longer than a person with a higher IQ. The nervous systems of those with lower IQs are simply less efficient.

2. School attendance correlates with IQ. Staying in school can elevate IQ or, more accurately, keep it from slipping. Evidence for this dates back to the turn of the twentieth century when the London Board of Education found that the IQs of children in the same family decreased from the youngest to the oldest. The older children progressively missed more school. Towards the end of the Vietnam War, a lottery determined draft priority. Those men born on July 9, 1951 were picked first so they tended to stay in school longer in order to avoid the draft. Those men born on July 7 were the last in the lottery and thus had no incentive to stay in school. Those men born on July 9 had higher IQs and also earned 7 percent more money. Summer vacations also seem to affect IQ, because with each passing month, children’s endof- year scores decline.

3. IQ is not influenced by birth order. The idea that birth order influences personality and intelligence has not stood up under scrutiny. Moreover, the claim that large families make low-IQ children may be unfounded because researchers have found that low-IQ parents make larger families. Smart people tend to have smaller families, but it is not smaller families per se that make people smart.

4. IQ is related to breast-feeding. Even when researchers control factors such as the sense of closeness of mother and child experiences through nursing, breast-fed children appear to have an IQ of 3 to 8 points higher by age 3.

5. IQ varies by birth date. State policies mandate the age of students entering school as well as the age they leaving, typically 16 or 17. Those born in the final three months of the year are more likely to enter school a year later; thus, when they leave school, they have been attending one year less. For each year of school completed, there is an IQ gain of approximately 3.5 points. Unsurprisingly, as a group, those born later in the year show a lower IQ score.

6. IQ evens out with age. Imagining, suggests Ceci, two biological siblings adopted by two different middle class families, at age 5, and again in early adulthood. Are their IQs more alike when younger and living in the homes of their adoptive parents, or when they are older and living on their own? Contrary to expectation, as the siblings go out on their own, their IQ scores become more similar. The probable reason is that once they are away from the dictates of their adoptive parents, they are free to let their genotypes express themselves. Because they share about 50 percent of their genes, they will become more alike because they are likely to seek similar sorts of environments.

7. Intelligence is plural, not singular. Regardless of their views of so-called general intelligence, researchers agree that there are statistically independent mental abilities such as spatial, verbal, analytical, and practical intelligence. Howard Gardner, of course, is a primary proponent of multiple intelligences theory.

8. IQ is correlated with head size. Modern neuroimaging techniques demonstrate that cranial volume is correlated with IQ. Evidence also comes from studies of the helmet sizes of members of the Armed Forces whose IQs were measured during basic training. Correlations are quite small.

9. Intelligence scores are predictive of real-world outcomes. Even among those with comparable levels of schooling, the greater a person’s intellectual ability, the higher the person’s weekly earnings. Those workers with the lowest levels of intellectual ability earn only two-thirds the amount of those with the highest level.

10. Intelligence depends on context. In visiting racetracks, researchers found that some men were excellent handicappers while others were not. A complex mental algorithm that was used to convert racing data from the racing programs sold at the track distinguished experts from nonexperts. However, the use of the algorithm was unrelated to the men’s IQ scores. Some experts were dockworkers with IQs in the 80s, but they reasoned far more complexly at the track than all other nonexperts, even those with IQs above 120. But, these experts performed very poorly at reasoning outside of the track.

11. IQ is going up. IQ has risen about 2 points with every generation, an increase called the Flynn effect. The rise in IQ has been attributed to better nutrition, more schooling, and better-educated parents.

12. IQ may be influenced by the school cafeteria menu. In one large study, one million students enrolled in the New York City school system were examined before and after preservatives, dyes, colorings, and artificial flavors were removed from lunch offerings. The investigators found a 14% improvement in IQ after the removal. Improvement was greatest for the weakest students.

13. SMART WOMEN ARE THE MOST WHO HAVE DECIDED NOT TO HAVE CHILDREN. A study made in 2013 by the London School of Economics, concluded that the higher female intelligence, the lower the maternal desire. According to the psychologist Satoshi Kanazawa at the School of Economics and Political Science, London, who led the study said that “this act goes against the human evolutionary sense. They are avoiding their biological destiny and thus the least intelligent mothers will have less intelligent children, and this can have drastic implications for the CI of the population," he warns.

14. The IQ varies with the age. The maximum IQ of a person is reached approximately between 20 and 30 years of age. Fluid intelligence peaks in adolescence and begins to decline progressively beginning around age 30 or 40. It is unclear whether any lifestyle intervention can preserve fluid intelligence into older Page 36 ages. Cross-sectional studies usually show that especially fluid intelligence peaks at a relatively young age (often in the early adulthood), while longitudinal data mostly show that intelligence is stable until the mid-adulthood or later. Subsequently, intelligence seems to decline slowly.

Real People & IQ There's tremendous variability in human intelligence, ranging from profound mental retardation to genius. In humans, the average IQ is between 90 and 109, which accounts for about half of the population. Only 25 percent of the population has IQs at 110 or above, and this number goes down rapidly as IQ increases: 10 percent have IQs 120 or above, 2 percent are 130 or above, and less than half of 1 percent are at an IQ of 140 or above. To see this fact in a real perspective, people in the average range with an IQ score of about 100, are capable of earning a college degree. People in the 110-119 or "high average" IQ range are more capable of succeeding in professional activities that are more intellectually demanding - managers, lawyers and so forth. People in this range might have better memories, faster processing speeds and higher decision-making skills. When we go up to the "superior" range, an IQ score of 120 and above, that's when you get into medical doctors, scientists, academics, engineers and the like. That isn't to say that you can't be a professor with an IQ of 100. In fact, you could very well be a great professor. It just means that it may be somewhat harder to attain this level of education than it is for someone with an IQ of 120. Other factors besides IQ play significant roles in each of these careers, including interpersonal skill, creativity, opportunity, and so on.

2.14 Famous People and their IQ Scores.

The following is a list of former U.S. presidents and famous people, and it is a list of IQ scores

Source: Some of these estimated IQ scores are taken from "The Calculated IQ Estimates for 301 Historic Geniuses" published by Catherine Cox Miles, American Psychologist- See more at: http://www.kids-iq-tests.com/famous-people.htmlf

Summary ● In the popular sense, intelligence is the general mental ability of the people to relate what they know in order to act and solve a particular problem or situation. ● The general intelligence or “g factor” can be measured and expressed by a single number, such as an IQ score. ● Emotional intelligence (EI) is the ability to identify, assess, and control the emotions of oneself, of others, and of groups. ● The social intelligence can be described as “a model of personality and individual behavior in which people are presumed to be knowledgeable about themselves and the social world in which they live.” ● IQ is associated with some simple abilities. The nervous systems of those with lower IQs are simply less efficient. ● Howard Gardner was the proponent of multiple intelligences theory that is today widely accepted. These multiple intelligences are: Logicalmathematical, linguistic-verbal intelligence, visual-spatial intelligence, kinesthetic intelligence, musical intelligence, intrapersonal intelligence, intrapersonal intelligence and naturalist intelligence. ● School attendance correlates with IQ. Staying in school can elevate IQ or, more accurately, keep it from slipping. ● IQ is not influenced by birth order. Smart people tend to have smaller families, but it is not smaller families per se that make people smart. ● IQ is related to breast-feeding. Breast-fed children appear to have an IQ of 3 to 10 points higher by age 3. ● IQ is going up. IQ has risen about 20 points with every generation, an increase called the Flynn effect. ● Both types of intelligence, Crystallized and Fluid, increase throughout childhood and adolescence. ● Fluid intelligence peaks in adolescence and begins to decline progressively beginning around age 30 or 40. ● Crystallized intelligence continues to grow throughout adulthood.