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Speaker 1: to brain Stuff from how stuff works dot com where
Speaker 1: smart happens. Hi, I'm Marshall Brain with today's question. What
Speaker 1: constitutes a person's i Q? The term i Q or
Speaker 1: intelligent quotient generally describes a score on a test that
Speaker 1: rates the subject's cognitive ability as compared to the general population.
Speaker 1: I Q tests use a standardized scale with one hundred
Speaker 1: as the median score on most tests. A score between
Speaker 1: ninety and a hundred ten or the media and plus
Speaker 1: or minus ten indicates average intelligence. A score above one
Speaker 1: thirty indicates exceptional intelligence, and a score below seventy may
Speaker 1: indicate mental retardation. Like their predecessors, modern tests do take
Speaker 1: into account the age of the child when determining an
Speaker 1: IQ score. Children are graded relative to the population at
Speaker 1: their developmental level. What is this cognitive ability being measured?
Speaker 1: Simply put, i Q tests are designed to measure your
Speaker 1: general ability to solve problems and understand concepts. This includes
Speaker 1: reasoning ability, problem solving ability, ability to perceive relationships between things,
Speaker 1: and the ability to store and retrieve information. I Q
Speaker 1: tests measure this general intellectual ability in a number of
Speaker 1: different ways. They may test, for example, spatial ability the
Speaker 1: ability to visualize manipulations of shapes, mathematical ability, the ability
Speaker 1: to solve problems and use logic. Language ability. This could
Speaker 1: include the ability to complete sentences or recognize words when
Speaker 1: letters have been rearranged or removed, and memory ability, the
Speaker 1: ability to recall things presented either visually or orally. Questions
Speaker 1: in each of these categories test for a specific cognitive ability,
Speaker 1: but many psychologists hold that they also indicate general intellectual ability.
Speaker 1: Most people perform better on one type of question than
Speaker 1: on others, but experts have determined that for the most part,
Speaker 1: people who excel in one category do similarly well in
Speaker 1: the other categories, and if someone does poorly in any
Speaker 1: one category, he also does poorly in the others. Based
Speaker 1: on this, these experts theorized there is one general element
Speaker 1: of intellectual ability that determines other specific cognitive abilities. Ideally,
Speaker 1: and i Q test measures this general factor of intelligence
Speaker 1: abbreviated as G. The best tests therefore feature questions from
Speaker 1: many different categories of intellectual ability, so that the test
Speaker 1: isn't weighted toward one specific skill. Because i Q tests
Speaker 1: measure your ability to understand ideas and not the quantity
Speaker 1: of your knowledge, learning new information does not automatically increase
Speaker 1: your i Q. Learning may exercise your mind, however, which
Speaker 1: could help to develop greater cognitive skills, but scientists do
Speaker 1: not fully understand this relationship yet. The connection between learning
Speaker 1: and mental ability is still largely unknown, as are the
Speaker 1: workings of the brain and the nature of intellectual ability.
Speaker 1: In general, intellectual ability does seem to depend more on
Speaker 1: genetic factors than on environmental factors, but most experts agree
Speaker 1: that environment plays some significant role in its development. Still,
Speaker 1: everyone wants to know can you increase your i Q score?
Speaker 1: There is some evidence that children develop higher intellectual ability
Speaker 1: if they receive better nurturing and diet as babies, and
Speaker 1: a higher degree of intellectual stimulation in preschool tends to
Speaker 1: boost children's IQ scores for a few years of elementary school,
Speaker 1: but it doesn't permanently increase i Q scores for the
Speaker 1: most part, adult i Q scores don't significantly increase over time.
Speaker 1: There's evidence that maintaining an intellectually stimulating atmosphere, for example,
Speaker 1: by learning new skills or solving puzzles, boost some cognitive ability,
Speaker 1: similar to the way maintaining an exercise regimen boost physical ability.
Speaker 1: But these changes aren't permanent and do not have much
Speaker 1: effect on i Q scores, So your i Q score
Speaker 1: is relatively stable no matter what education you acquire. This
Speaker 1: does not mean that you can increase your intelligence. I
Speaker 1: Q tests are only one imperfect method of measuring certain
Speaker 1: aspects of intellectual ability. A lot of critics point out
Speaker 1: that i Q tests don't measure creativity, social skills, wisdom,
Speaker 1: acquired abilities, or a host of other things we consider
Speaker 1: to be aspects of intelligence. The value of i Q
Speaker 1: tests is that they measure general cognitive ability, which has
Speaker 1: been proven to be fairly accurate as an indicator of
Speaker 1: intellectual potential. There is a high positive correlation between i
Speaker 1: Q and success in school and the workplace, but there
Speaker 1: are many many cases where i Q and success do
Speaker 1: not coincide. Be sure to check out our new video podcast,
Speaker 1: Stuff from the Future. Join How Stuff Work staff as
Speaker 1: we explore the most promising and perplexing possibilities of tomorrow.
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