Intelligence found?

A violin, a piano, a guitar and a set of drums — if your brain were made up of the most exquisite forms of these musical instruments, would it mean that you will always play beautiful music?  

Think of these instruments as your verbal comprehension, your perceptual organization, your working memory and your processing index. These aspects are the major categories that you get tested for when you go for an IQ test. Your verbal comprehension index (VCI) represents the ability to understand and speak, as well as your use of language; the perceptual organization (POI) index concerns your ability for visual and spatial processing; the working memory index (WMI) represents your ability to retain information that you can easily retrieve; and the processing speed index (PSI) stands for how long it takes for you to do any of these tasks. These are the four areas which together make for your IQ score. Since the 80s, the most widely used IQ scoring test has been the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS).

Using the WAIS and brain scans of 241 subjects, scientists at Caltech recently finished documenting and publishing work that warranted science headlines: “Scientists Map Out Intelligence in the Brain.” Science just claimed that it has found the brain parts that correspond to human intelligence. With this discovery, shall we now run and sound the trumpets and blow our horns and put a great big “period” to our quest to find out where “intelligence” lies?

The study that is now in the spotlight was led by Caltech neuroscientist Ralph Adolphs. It is entitled “Lesion Mapping of Cognitive Abilities Linked to Intelligence” in the March 16 of the journal Neuron. It involved having 241 subjects with neurological conditions (stroke, traumatic brain injury or tumor resectioning) take WAIS (the IQ measuring test) as well as MRI and CT scans of their brains. Using a technique pioneered by Dr. Hanna Damasio that could measure the volume of brain activity in 3-D, the scientists compared the scans with the IQ test results of the subjects.

The results were amazing. They found that: brains with lesions in the left inferior frontal cortex scored low for verbal comprehension; those with lesions in the left frontal and parietal cortex scored low in working memory and those with lesions in the right parietal cortex scored low for perceptual organization. However, unlike with the three aspects of intelligence tests, they could not find a specific brain region that could account for the processing speed. They also found that there were many shared brain regions when the brain is involved in verbal comprehension and working memory. This means that indeed, they found that there was a direct correspondence between brain parts and each of the three key aspects of intelligence as reflected in IQ tests like the WAIS. But is the music of our intelligence only about the individual strength of its musical instruments, of its scored categories? Is intelligence really just about IQ scores?

When science tries to measure “intelligence,” it is not claiming an absolute grasp of it but some form of understanding in ways that could be measured and tested. That is why IQ tests are very useful. Scoring well in these individual categories may tell you that you have an excellent command of language, an impeccable ability to rotate complex figures in your head or remember details as if you had well-oiled filing shelves in your head but it does not predict your success in life, or more importantly, if you will be happy. In high school, my guidance counselor told me that according to my IQ test, I would fare best in either music or law. I tried both for a while and I “sucked” at both for reasons best left to history.

There is a more reliable predictor of success in life and it is not an IQ test. It is called the Marshmallow test. It was first conducted in the 60s on a group of four-year-olds who were promised another one if they waited for 20 minutes before they eat the first one. They followed these kids way into their teens and found that those who waited were more “dependable” and scored much higher in academic tests.

Your intelligence is a product of what you received from your parents as well as what you did to cultivate it, and all the other factors that could not be scored in terms of IQ. Having a high IQ means nothing if you do not do anything about it. It is like having an oversized diploma in Latin which as humorist Dave Barry says just certifies that you own a really big piece of paper that you can hang on your wall. In other words, your brain is what you have but your mind is what you do with it.

We should also remember that IQ tests were formulated by experts who were also very aware that there are other factors in one’s “larger intelligence” that is not captured by these tests. These factors have to do with creativity in work and play, an emotional deep well for taking in all of life’s inebriating messes, the sensory abilities and capacities that are heightened in some of us, courage and that rare jewel of them all — wisdom. All these make up the music of who you are. It is the running musical score, played generation after generation, of what it means to be “Sapiens.” And no one has to reach a Sapiens Quotient to qualify to play this music. 

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