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Fluid intelligence is the ability to


Fluid vs. Crystallized Intelligence: Examples and More

General intelligence consists of two types: fluid and crystallized.

You use both types of intelligences. If you’ve ever encountered a new problem and solved it by recalling a previous experience, your fluid and crystallized intelligences have teamed up to your advantage.

Fluid intelligence is your ability to learn, assess, and navigate new situations. Crystallized intelligence is accumulated knowledge you can recall as needed. Problem-solving uses both intelligences.

Although they’re different, fluid and crystallized intelligence are both equally important — and in some ways connected.

Fluid intelligence, or general fluid intelligence (Gf), is your ability to:

  • reason
  • recognize patterns
  • solve problems
  • adapt to your environment and the world

You use Gf when you encounter new information and learn.

Gf can sometimes predict a person’s academic and job success. When educators or employers conduct aptitude testing, they’re measuring fluid intelligence.

It’s Gf that allows young people to learn faster and more easily than adults. An analysis from 2018 that included 680 studies found a connection between fluid intelligence and reading and math development.

There was a stronger relation to math and complex skills over reading and foundation skills. Yet, math uses both fluid and crystallized intelligence.

What is an example of fluid intelligence?

When you think of a strategy to solve a complicated math problem, you’re using fluid intelligence.

At what age does fluid intelligence peak?

Fluid intelligence increases until adolescence, then gradually declines.

General crystallized intelligence (Gc), or crystallized intelligence, is information you’ve learned in the past and stored. Gc results from experience, education, and cultural background.

School testing of learned facts and job candidate testing of software knowledge are examples of crystallized knowledge assessments.

What is an example of crystallized intelligence?

When you solve a math problem, your existing knowledge of formulas and symbols is an example of crystallized intelligence.

At what age does crystallized intelligence peak?

Crystallized intelligence increases as you age and gain more life experience. It slows in adulthood but can either stabilize or continue to increase throughout most of your life.

Fluid intelligenceCrystallized intelligence
new informationstored information
short-term memorylong-term memory
increases through childhood, peaks at adolescence, then declinesincreases through childhood, and slows with aging, then stabilizes or continues to increase throughout life
functions include working memory, processing speed, reasoning, cognitive control, inhibition, complex skills, attention tasks, creativityfunctions include procedural (practical), declarative (factual), general and specialized knowledge, wisdom

Although fluid and crystallized intelligences are different, they complement each other.

For example, an emergency room doctor uses both. When a patient arrives, the doctor’s fluid intelligence assesses the situation. Much like when solving a puzzle, the doctor’s fluid intelligence uses clues to arrive at an answer — in this case, a diagnosis.

Then, the doctor’s crystallized intelligence provides the previously acquired procedural knowledge needed for care and treatment.

Fluid and crystallized intelligences are also connected in some ways.

For example, high fluid intelligence allows you to learn faster, which results in more accumulated knowledge and in turn higher crystallized intelligence, as one 2019 study explores.

Changes in fluid intelligence can affect the expression of crystallized intelligence.

If you’re an older adult who has experienced a decline in fluid intelligence, you may not be as skilled at applying crystallized intelligence from your long-term memory to some current or new situations.

Crystallized intelligence testing measures general knowledge. Test types include vocabulary, verbal, and language use assessments. Research from 2015 points to text completion examinations as one measure of crystallized intelligence.

Fluid intelligence includes multiple cognitive qualities, so it requires a more varied testing approach. Assessment options include:

  • Progressive matrices: to test for pattern recognition, as stated in research from 2013
  • Digital span sequencing: to assess working memory, as explained in a 2019 study
  • Trail making test: to measure cognitive flexibility, as described in 2008 research
  • Digital fluency test: to assess creativity, problem solving, and inhibition, as noted in a 2016 study
  • Tower test: to measure planning ability, as explained in another 2016 study
  • Cognitive failures questionnaire: to assess attention, memory, distractibility, and executive function, as suggested in a 2017 study

You can increase both types of intelligences.

To increase your crystallized intelligence, you simply need to acquire new knowledge. Education and experience can help it take root in your long-term memory.

According to 2016 research, improving fluid intelligence requires a more comprehensive approach. It helps to think of fluid intelligence as a reflection of the health and fitness of your brain. So to increase this type of intelligence, you’ll need to nourish it well and exercise it often.

Brain health strategies include:

  • improved diet
  • regular exercise
  • adequate sleep
  • mindfulness training
  • stress reduction

Brain fitness activities include:

  • learning a new language
  • playing strategy games like chess
  • trying cognitive training
  • changing your routine
  • learning new skills and hobbies
  • socializing more
  • learning a musical instrument
  • challenging yourself mentally
  • using your mind to remember things rather than apps and smart devices

General intelligence has two main categories: fluid and crystallized.

Fluid intelligence is your ability to process new information, learn, and solve problems. Crystallized intelligence is your stored knowledge, accumulated over the years.

The two types work together and are equally important. They both increase through childhood. Fluid intelligence decreases with age and crystallized intelligence remains stable or continues to increase with age.

You can increase both types of intelligence. You could improve your fluid intelligence by keeping your brain healthy and fit. Adopting a lifelong learning habit can help you build up more crystallized intelligence.

Fluid intelligence is related to capacity in memory as well as attention: Evidence from middle childhood and adulthood

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Mobile and crystallized intellect | it's... What is Fluctuating and crystallized intellect?

According to the theory of intelligence of psychologist Raymond Cattell [1] intelligence can be conditionally divided into fluid intelligence (eng. fluid intelligence , Gf) - the ability to think logically, analyze and solve problems regardless of previous experience; and crystallized intelligence (eng. crystallized intelligence , Gc) - accumulated experience and the ability to use acquired knowledge and skills.

Contents

  • 1 Mobile intelligence
  • 2 Crystallized Intelligence
  • 3 Notes
  • 4 See also

Fluid intelligence

Fluid intelligence, according to theory, applies to all areas of life, but most of all applies to science and technology, mathematics, programming. It includes the ability to learn, inductive and deductive thinking, abstract thinking, recognizing connections and patterns. Fluid intelligence uses working memory, and often its level in humans is generally closely related to the size of working memory. In this regard, a theory arose about the possibility of developing fluid intelligence through the development of working memory, using techniques like n-backward. [2] A person's mobile intelligence increases until about 30-40 years of age, after which it begins to decline. [3] Fluid intelligence predominates, for example, in patients with autism. [4]

Crystallized intellect

Crystallized intellect is responsible for retrieving knowledge and skills from long-term memory and applying them in habitual conditions where the inclusion of mobile intellect is not required. Crystallized intelligence is determined by the volume and depth of accumulated knowledge, vocabulary, it includes verbal abilities and is often measured precisely by the level of verbal abilities. Usually the level of a person's crystallized intellect is different in different areas of life. The crystallized intelligence of a person increases until old age, after which it usually begins to decline.

Crystallized intelligence is not a “crystallized” form of fluid intelligence — these are functionally different processes, although the level of crystallized intelligence depends on the level of fluid intelligence, because people with high fluid intelligence, learning faster, accumulate crystallized intelligence faster, which is confirmed by IQ tests .

Notes

  1. ↑ Cattell, R. B. (1971). Abilities: Their structure, growth, and action . New York: Houghton Mifflin. ISBN 0395042755.
  2. ↑ Kirchner, W. K. (1958), Age differences in short-term retention of rapidly changing information. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 55(4), 352-358
  3. ↑ Fluid Intelligence vs. Crystallized Intelligence
  4. ↑ Hayashi, Mika; Kato, Motoichiro; Igarashi, Kazue & Kashima, Haruo (2007), ""Superior fluid intelligence in children with Asperger's disorder"", Brain and Cognition (Elsevier) . — T. 66 (3): 306–310, doi:10.1016/j.bandc.2007.09.008,

See also

  • n-back task

Movable Intelligence - Mind Generator | by Sergey Karelov

Credit: CC0 Public Domain

Intelligence depends both on HW ( structure of the brain — the size of its regions and their connectivity) and on SW ( "firmware" of the brain - switching of the neural network that changes in the process of learning and experience).

According to the dominant theory of cognitive abilities (Cattell-Horn-Carroll), the SW of intelligence includes:

1) fluid intelligence — the ability to think logically, perceive and memorize new things, solve new unusual problems;

2) and crystallized intelligence accumulated experience and the ability to use acquired knowledge and skills.

1st is a kind of framework for developing applications, and 2nd is the applications themselves that can do various useful things.

But these applications are just the result of using (it is not clear yet by whom) the framework. And for different people, the complexity and perfection of this framework is very different.

And so much so that the same training:

• allows one person to equip themselves with a chic set of new applications;

• others - get a simpler set of applications;

• the third is just to increase the number of bugs in the applications they already have.

All of the above for a long time (at least since 1971, when the theory of fluid and crystallized intelligence was developed) remained a theory. But with the development of all kinds of brain scanning and mapping techniques, breakthroughs began.

Earlier this year, using data from hundreds of participants in the Human Connectome project, several of the world's leading laboratories simultaneously demonstrated that brain connectivity patterns create "individual fingerprints" that distinguish each person. People with strong functional ties between certain regions have an extensive vocabulary and exhibit higher fluid intelligence. They tend to have better education and life satisfaction, as well as better memory and attention.

People with weaker functional connections among the same areas of the brain have lower fluid intelligence, which reduces the ability to concentrate and, in general, to learn.

The 2nd wave of breakthroughs followed.

A new study on 424 volunteers answered the question

Is it possible, by analyzing the size of individual areas of the brain, to assess the level of human fluid intelligence (ie the complexity and sophistication of its application development framework)?

The researchers unequivocally answered yes.

At the same time, to identify significant differences in the level of mobile intelligence, it is sufficient to analyze only two structures in the brain - the parahippocampal cortex and the caudate body.

In other words,

can be determined in advance,

• who should be taught complex skills,

• and who should only be wasted time.

Excuse me, this is almost neuro-eugenics HW (which does not negate the significance of SW's socio-cultural firmware).

The authors of the study have already set the next goal - to find a way to enhance mobile intelligence on the existing HW. All sorts of neuro-implants, etc.

- Popular

- Paywall scientific

- Plaintext

P.S. This news has an important implication. If our intelligence still depends so much on the inherited HW, then Harari's fears about the imminent appearance of super-humans due to flashing their algorithms (SW) turn out to be somewhat premature.

P.P.S. Information about the study was sent by a channel reader who plans to use the research method in a very promising new project. If it takes off, I'll write.

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