A new test of "intelligence" has been developed by psychologists – Quartz

Go over the IQ, there is a new intelligence test on the premises. Psychologists have come up with a free 10-minute test which they say is an excellent assessment of "fluid intelligence".

The test, developed by UC Riverside psychologists and UC Irvine, is called the Matrix Reasoning Task of the University of California (UCMRT) and measures the ability to abstract problem solving. According to a study published in the journal Behavioral research methods, The 23 test questions were tested on 713 students and the results correlate with math test scores, grade point average, and student intake tests. Psychologists make the test available to other academics for research purposes, but have not yet published it online.

Before anyone begins to look forward to the public version of this test, it should be remembered that "fluid intelligence" means something quite different in psychological jargon than in layman's conversation. For psychologists, this means the ability to think logically and solve problems in new situations, without the influence of pre-existing knowledge. "Crystalline intelligence" refers to a person's ability to use the knowledge and experience gained. (Of course, there is no perfect fracture, very few problems can be solved without prior knowledge, so 20-year-olds tend to be better at controlling fluid intelligence than 5-year-olds But, by and large, crystallized intelligence improves as people learn more, whereas fluid intelligence is considered innate and can not be influenced by learning or learning. l & # 39; drive).

Fluid and crystalline intelligence is evaluated in the most well-known intelligence test, IQ, but this method of cutting intelligence and claiming to give it a definitive score has been sharply criticized by psychologists. Indeed, many have argued that assessing something as complex as intelligence using just one measure is necessarily wrong. A 2012 study, published in the journal Neuron, found that 44,600 participants performed 12 challenging tasks, testing a range of cognitive skills, and found that the results could not be explained by any intelligence test. . Instead, three separate components were needed to predict outcomes: short-term memory, reasoning, and verbal skills.

This finding corresponds to the lay perceptions of the intellect. Some people are brilliant in mathematics, others are beautiful sculptors and others can win every debate. These are the sign of very different forms of intelligence and do not necessarily coincide with the same person.

So go ahead and do a test that measures your ability to solve problems in situations where pre-existing knowledge does not help. Do not expect the results to reflect your intelligence.