Category: Intelligence

IQ is about more than just solving puzzles or making good decisions.

Flexibility is at the heart of intelligence.

How the brain is wired along with how this wiring reacts to shifts in intellectual demands is what makes someone intelligent, argues Professor Aron Barbey, author of a recent study.

Intelligence is all about being able to ‘flexibly transition’ between different ‘network states’.

He said:

“When we say that someone is smart, we understand intuitively what that means.

Usually, we’re referring to how good they are at making decisions and solving particular types of problems.

But recently in neuroscience, there’s been a focus on understanding in biological terms how general intelligence arises.”

The brain has a variety of different modules — crudely put, memory, vision, language and so on — and each has a specific function.

Professor Barbey said:

“For example, brain regions within the occipital lobe at the back of the brain are known to processes visual information.

To identify an object, we also must classify it.

That doesn’t depend only on vision.

It also requires conceptual knowledge and other aspects of information processing, which are supported by other brain regions.

And as the number of modules increases, the type of information represented in the brain becomes increasingly abstract and general.”

But it is how all these modules work together that really creates human intelligence, Professor Barbey said:

“The prefrontal cortex, a structure at the front of the brain, for example, has expanded dramatically over the course of human evolution.

But really, the entire brain – its global architecture and the interactions among lower- and higher-level mechanisms – is required for general intelligence.”

Professor Barbey said:

“General intelligence requires both the ability to flexibly reach nearby, easy-to-access states – to support crystallized intelligence – but also the ability to adapt and reach difficult-to-access states – to support fluid intelligence.

What my colleagues and I have come to realize is that general intelligence does not originate from a single brain region or network.

Emerging neuroscience evidence instead suggests that intelligence reflects the ability to flexibly transition between network states.”

The study was published in the journal Trends in Cognitive Sciences (Barbey, 2017).

People with more of this in their blood did better on intelligence tests.

Eating leafy greens helps preserve intelligence over the lifetime, research finds.

Leafy greens and other foods contain lutein, a plant pigment that protects the brain from aging.

People with more lutein in their blood did better on intelligence tests, the study found.

Lutein collects in the cell membranes of the brain, playing a ‘neuroprotective’ role.

Foods that contain high levels of lutein include leafy green vegetables like kale and spinach as well as broccoli, cauliflower and cabbage.

Dr Marta Zamroziewicz, the study’s first author, said:

“Previous studies have found that a person’s lutein status is linked to cognitive performance across the lifespan.

Research also shows that lutein accumulates in the gray matter of brain regions known to underlie the preservation of cognitive function in healthy brain aging.”

For the study, 122 people aged 65 to 75 took tests of crystallised intelligence.

Crystallised intelligence is akin to general knowledge.

Blood tests revealed that people with higher levels of lutein did better on these tests.

Scans also revealed that lutein helped preserve critical areas of the brain.

Professor Aron Barbey, study co-author, said:

“Our analyses revealed that gray-matter volume of the parahippocampal cortex on the right side of the brain accounts for the relationship between lutein and crystallized intelligence.

This offers the first clue as to which brain regions specifically play a role in the preservation of crystallized intelligence, and how factors such as diet may contribute to that relationship.”

Dr Zamroziewicz said:

“Our findings do not demonstrate causality.

We did find that lutein is linked to crystallized intelligence through the parahippocampal cortex.”

Professor Barbey said:

“We can only hypothesize at this point how lutein in the diet affects brain structure.

It may be that it plays an anti-inflammatory role or aids in cell-to-cell signaling.

But our finding adds to the evidence suggesting that particular nutrients slow age-related declines in cognition by influencing specific features of brain aging.”

The study was published in the journal Frontiers in Aging Neuroscience (Zamroziewicz et al., 2016).

People wearing these clothes thought in broader, more holistic ways.

Wearing formal clothes can make you think abstractly, psychologists have found.

Dressing up makes people feel powerful and encourages the brain to focus on ‘big picture’ thinking.

People feel more competent and rational when they are wearing formal clothing.

Thinking in a more abstract way helps people stick to long-term goals and avoid short-term temptations, research has found.

Abstract thinking also increases certain types of creativity, allowing people to make connections between disparate things.

The study’s authors write:

“Formal clothing (like formal language) signals situations that are not casual and familiar (i.e., situations of increased social distance; Easterling et al.,1992).

Indeed, we found that over and above any sociometric status felt when wearing formal clothing, this enhanced social distance (feelings of power) predicts abstract processing.”

For the study, hundreds of people brought two sets of clothes to the lab, one formal, as though they were going to a job interview, and the other casual.

All were given various cognitive tasks to do while wearing the formal and then the casual clothes.

The authors explain the results:

“…clothing formality is associated with abstract processing, with greater formality associated with enhanced abstract processing.”

People felt more competent and rational when wearing the formal clothes, the authors explain:

“Wearing formal clothing is thus related to psychological formality and social distance, whereas casual clothing is related to intimacy and familiarity.

For example, people who wear formal clothes describe themselves as more competent and rational, whereas people who wear casual clothes describe themselves as more friendly and laid-back.”

The study was published in the journal Social Psychological and Personality Science (Slepian et al., 2015).