20 curiosities about intelligence

Intelligence is a great gift for human beings, and not all of us know how to use it as it should.

Everyone is more or less intelligent, unless they suffer from some type of disorder that implies a significant decrease in it.

Either way, here we will see several curiosities about intelligence, in addition to explaining some interesting theories and characters related to it.

• Related article: "Theories of human intelligence"

20 curiosities about human intelligence

Next we will see 20 curiosities about this construct, in addition to some interesting facts about people who, in one way or another, have been known to have great abilities cognitive.

1. The tests do not measure intelligence in absolute terms

Unlike what many people believe, intelligence questionnaires are not an unequivocal indication of a person's intelligence. They measure intelligence in relative terms.

At the time of answering them there may be influences of factors such as mood, what has been eaten that day or the fatigue that can affect performance when answering the items that make up.

• You may be interested: "What is the Intelligence Quotient (IQ)?"

2. Intelligence may not be one-dimensional

According to Howard Gardner's proposal, it would not be one but several the intelligences that the human being possesses.

This conception, called Multiple Intelligences Theory, defends that there are several intelligences depending on different types of problems that one has to face.

Thus we would speak of up to eight intelligences: linguistic-verbal, logical-mathematical, spatial, musical, corporal, intrapersonal, interpersonal and naturalistic.

Since its formulation, this theory has been highly questioned, but there are other explanatory models of intelligence that distinguish between various groups of cognitive abilities, while not denying the existence of a basic form of intelligence unitary.

3. Intelligence is usually somewhat stable over time

Practicing always helps to improve and master a certain skill, such as playing chess, or knowing a lot about a subject as complex as quantum physics. However, this does not mean that the person sees her IQ increased.

We can develop skills and acquire new knowledge throughout our lives, but what we will not be able to do is to modify our intelligence much and quickly, which tends to remain stable.

4. There is no single gene behind intelligence

The belief that intelligence is something that is due to one or more genes is not uncommon. This corresponds to a very unitary vision of intelligence. But intelligence, itself, is nothing more than a social construct and, therefore, it is not possible to find a single biological factor behind it.

Rather, it would be the result of a set of processes, related to the development of the different areas brain, their effectiveness when working, having been exposed to environmental elements that influence the CI ...

5. The smartest person alive

The smartest person alive on record is Terrence Tao, with an IQ 230.

He is a mathematician, and he is working at UCLA, having the honor of being the professor who started working at the institution with the youngest age of all, at 24 years old.

6. The smartest person ever

Till the date, the person who has been awarded the highest IQ score in history is William Sidis (1898-1944), who would be the most intelligent person of all time.

In 1933 he was administered an intelligence test and, based on later estimates, he has been assigned an IQ of between 250 and 300 points.

7. White people aren't smarter

From very racist perspectives, the science of yesteryear tried to show that white people were significantly smarter than those of African, Asian, or Native American races. These statements were made based on the anatomy of the skull according to race, cultural differences and, Of course, the fact that the whites were the masters and the blacks the slaves in countries like States United.

Over the past century, intelligence questionnaires were found to indicate that black people they had, on average, between 10 and 15 points less IQ than white women, giving strength to the affirmations previous.

However, subsequent reviews of the questionnaires used showed that they had a marked cultural bias, making it invalid to apply them to people raised in environments significantly different from those of white people.

After correcting these errors and reapplying these same questionnaires, no differences were found between races in relation to intelligence.

8. Lefties are not smarter than righties

Given that great characters in history, such as Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Isaac Newton, Benjamin Franklin and others were left-handed, it has always been believed that having the left hand as the preferred hand could be related to the genius.

However, it has been seen that this is not the case, and it has been scientifically addressed. A study carried out at the University of Adelaide, with a sample of 5,000 people, analyzed the academic development of school students to see if there were differences between left-handed and right-handed.

No significant differences were found to show that left-handers were smarter. Furthermore, it was observed that left-handers were believed to be less successful in studies, although this was not true either.

9. Women are no less intelligent than men

In the last 100 years, the IQ of women has increased significantly when answering intelligence questionnaires.

This is not because there has been a real increase in their cognitive ability, but rather, similar to the case of differences of race, the questionnaires were made by men who elaborated them having a marked bias of gender.

Women did not receive the same type of education as menAnd if we take into account that the questionnaires incorporated aspects traditionally taught to men, such as mathematics, it is logical to understand this.

As tests less biased by these types of aspects have been developed, the performance in this type of tests between men and women seems to have progressively equalized.

10. Mind games do not increase intelligence

There is a general idea that entertainments that use ingenuity, such as sudoku puzzles, crosswords or similar games, increase intelligence.

This is not really so. Not by doing 20 sudokus in a row one will magically see their IQ increased by 10 points.

However, these types of games they are quite useful for people who want to pass the time testing their intelligenceIn addition, it is especially recommended for those who suffer from some type of dementia or brain damage.

11. Breastfeeding slightly improves intelligence

Differences in IQ have been found between people who were breastfed as babies, that is, fed with breast milk from their own mother, compared to those who were given the feeding bottle.

According to various research, in some cases breastfeeding and not breastfeeding would result in differences of about 4 IQ points.

12. Processed food diets

Diet, as an environmental factor, seems to influence IQ.

It has been seen that diets that include foods that have been processed and include flavors artificial make them have a worse performance when answering questionnaires of intelligence.

13. Albert Einstein's brain

Although it is not a curious fact of intelligence in itself, it does have to do with one of the most intelligent history, in addition to having a great influence during the first half of the century past.

When Einstein's brain died was kept in a jar by a pathologist to see anatomical characteristics of this organ and relate them to genius of the scientist in life.

Albert Einstein's brain weighed 1,230 grams, weighing about 10% less than normal for a human brain, about 1,400 grams. However, the neural density of the scientist's organ was higher than average.

14. Savant syndrome

The Savant syndrome, also called the sage syndrome, is a condition in which the person, according to Darold Treffert who coined it, has remarkable intellectual talent, but sometimes it doesn't have to have real practical application.

Among these skills you can find photographic memory, learn languages ​​very easily or remember all the tiles that make up a street.

15. Are the savant by birth?

Many savants are from the moment they were born, however, others may be due to having suffered some kind of head trauma, which fortunately gave them outstanding intellectual ability rather than having a clinical symptom serious.

16. Brain plasticity and intelligence

Although it is true that intelligence is a construct that remains more or less stable throughout life, this does not it means that the brain cannot modify its structure throughout development or that new ones cannot be generated neurons.

This clashes with what was believed until relatively recently, since It was argued that neurons could no longer reproduce beyond a certain point.

The human brain has plasticity, which allows it to acquire new learning throughout the life of the subject, through changes at the neuronal (neurogenesis) and structural level, although slight.

17. The myth of the Mozart effect

If you do a quick search on platforms such as YouTube and find classical music, such as Mozart, in the search engine, Beethoven or Vivaldi, it will be seen that many videos will appear in which it is ensured that, listening to them, the intelligence.

This is because, according to the Mozart effect, listening to classical music, especially that of this Viennese artist from the 18th century, memory and concentration are improved, and if it is listened to while pregnant it increases the IQ of the future baby.

All of this is terribly false. Mozart, without taking away from him what a great musician he was, did not create symphonies that had the magical power to change aspects on a cognitive level, although it is advisable to listen to it.

• You may be interested: "What is the Mozart Effect? Does it make us smarter?"

18. We don't use 10% of our brain

In films like ‘Lucy’ by Luc Besson (2014) it is even said that, normally, human beings only use 10% of the brain and that, if it increased this percentage, it would achieve a very higher.

This is not like this. If brain scans are analyzed, using neuroimaging techniques, it is possible to see that brain activity is clearly above a mere 10%, even while asleep.

19. Flynn effect

The Flynn effect is the rise in IQ, continuously and year by year, seen in most countries of the world, especially those who have jumped on the bandwagon of socioeconomic development.

Since the 1930s, in the United Kingdom there has been an increase in the population's IQ of between 2 to 3 points every ten years.

This is associated with better nutrition, accompanied by smaller families and being able to take a better control of the children, in addition to having improvements in the educational systems and living in more healthy.

20. Dehydration affects intelligence

Not that being dehydrated lowers intelligence in a strict sense of the word, but it does make us perform less efficiently when it comes to solving problems of any kind. nature.

It is enough to dehydrate 2% for them to appear Difficulty accomplishing tasks that require attention, psychomotor skills, and working memory.

It never hurts to carry a bottle or canteen full of water with you. It's not going to be that we become less intelligent for a while ...

Bibliographic references:

• Laskowski, K. and Henneberg, M. (2013). Writing with non-dominant hand: left-handers perform better with the right hand than right handers with the left. Anthropological Review, 75 (2): 129-136.
• Gardner, H. (1998). "A Reply to Perry D. Klein's 'Multiplying the problems of intelligence by eight' ". Canadian Journal of Education 23 (1): 96–102. doi: 10.2307 / 1585968. JSTOR 1585790.
• Horta, B. L., Loret de Mola, C. & Victora, C. G. (2015). Breastfeeding and intelligence: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Acta Paediatrica, 104: 14–19.