Fluid intelligence psychology

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 intelligence	Crystallized intelligence
new information	stored information
short-term memory	long-term memory
increases through childhood, peaks at adolescence, then declines	increases 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, creativity	functions 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 vs. Crystallized Intelligence: Examples and More

General intelligence consists of two types: fluid and crystallized.

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.

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 intelligence	Crystallized intelligence
new information	stored information
short-term memory	long-term memory
increases through childhood, peaks at adolescence, then declines	increases 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, creativity	functions include procedural (practical), declarative (factual), general and specialized knowledge, wisdom

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

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.

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.

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.

Brain exercises help develop good habits and be more attractive

June 23, 2016 Health

It would seem, how can exercise, reminiscent of ordinary computer games, help you get up early and like the opposite sex more? It turns out that they still can, and this is confirmed by research, the results of which were shared with us by the developers of the Neuronation “brain training” service.

Developing willpower

If you periodically feel that you do not have enough willpower to, say, start getting up early or eat right, then you should not blame genes and other circumstances beyond your control.

Willpower can also be trained, and this will eventually help you resist temptations and establish good habits. And you will have more strength to solve complex problems.

Psychologist Roy Baumeister has done a lot of research on willpower. In one of them, he asked participants to first describe a typical day for an overweight person without using formulaic expressions. After that, the participants' willpower was tested by solving anagrams. Participants performed poorly, which was attributed to ego depletion.

Then the participants were divided into two groups, one of which trained willpower for two weeks: the subjects tried not to use parasitic words like “uh” and “shorter” in speech and did everyday tasks with their left hand.

After two weeks, the anagram experiment was repeated, and those participants who exercised the will showed better results than those who did not do any exercises. That is, after two weeks of self-control training, participants were easier to accept the task of abandoning templates in the description and to a lesser extent experienced ego depletion.

To train your willpower, use the exercise "Color mat", in which you need to name the color in which the word is written. However, the difficulty is that the names of the colors are written in letters painted in colors that do not correspond to the transmitted meaning.

Smart people are more attractive to the opposite sex

When choosing a partner, we are guided by appearance and social status. The concept of social status includes general education, career success and intelligence. People who give the impression of an intelligent person seem more attractive. Pay attention to the words - impressing .

If you have incredible acting skills, you can make others believe in your high intelligence. The other option is to actually develop it through exercise. Watch the video in which I talk about all kinds of brain training options.

Do you want to know the strengths of your brain? Take a free test on the NeuroNation brain training site.

+40% Intelligence

Scientists divide intelligence into two components.

Crystallized intellect - baggage of experience and knowledge: vocabulary, general education. It grows and develops throughout life.
Mobile intelligence is a tool with which we find solutions to problems and tasks, draw logical conclusions, and store information for a short time. This part of the intellect is the basis for learning and is responsible for maintaining mental abilities. And it is the mobile intellect that exercises for the brain develop.

During a study conducted in 2008 at the University of Michigan, the fluid intelligence of the participants in the experiment increased by 40% due to training. Based on the data from this study, NeuroNation workouts have been developed.

The development of fluid intelligence mainly consists in the training of working memory, which stores information in the short term and quickly provides it to us. Working memory develops very easily, for example, by memorizing poetry. But it is more interesting to perform exercises that are more like games, like "Route", where you need to connect the dots from memory.

Mental activity peaks at age 25 and then gradually declines. So if you are over 30, I have bad news for you. You will not notice the aging of your brain immediately, the intellect is weakening slowly and smoothly. Only after many years you will suspect something is wrong, realizing that you have to write down the names of new acquaintances, that you cannot concentrate, thoughts have become viscous, and there are fewer and fewer fresh ideas ... And blame it all on age. But first of all, it’s worth blaming laziness, which prevented you from doing brain exercises in time.

Set aside at least 15 minutes a day for a NeuroNation workout to keep your mind sharp into old age. And be sure to share this article with your friends, because working out together, supporting and motivating each other, is much more fun.

Start training

Not only IQ - News - IQ Research and Education Portal - National Research University Higher School of Economics

Intelligence is a commonly used concept, but it is not so easy to define it from a scientific point of view. There are also contradictions in approaches to measuring intelligence. How scientists now understand and study human intelligence was discussed at the HSE Cognitive Seminar “Studying Intelligence: A Modern Perspective”. It was attended as experts by Nikita Loginov, a researcher at the Laboratory of Cognitive Research of the Institute of Economics, Russian Academy of National Economy and Public Administration, and Ilya Zakharov, a senior researcher at the Laboratory of Age-Related Psychogenetics of the PI RAO.

Definition exists, questions remain

For the first time, the workshop took the form of an academic debate, to which two experts were invited. The first question to scientists concerned the definition of intelligence. The simplest, "more or less broad definition", as Nikita Loginov noted, is that intelligence is some general ability, which is marked by the level of success in solving typical problems that have only one correct answer. Experimental cognitive psychology, in his opinion, practically does not use this concept, largely because it is not the most convenient springboard for explaining how people actually solve these problems.

The expert recalled that psychologist William James, when trying to describe how a person thinks and how people solve problems, paid attention to two main features that make it possible to explain thinking. This is a person's stock of knowledge and insight - the ability to select the necessary information from all possible. But today this approach is, of course, outdated. Insight, as a characteristic, has no explanatory potential, in fact, just like the concept of intelligence.

Ilya Zakharov focused on the fact that the modern psychometric scientific approach to intelligence allows it to be considered, among other things, as something that is determined by tests.

"Intelligence is what is measured by intelligence tests." This definition, which later became a commonplace meme, was given by the American psychologist Edwin Boring.

Zakharov noted that Boring's famous phrase has a continuation - the scientist wrote that this is a narrow definition, which is necessary in order to start discussing the concept further. At the same time, in fact, there is a definition that today is considered, perhaps, the main and key one. Formulated it at 1997 52 eminent researchers of intelligence.

It sounds like this - intelligence can be considered as some general ability, which includes, among other things, the ability to think, plan, solve problems, think abstractly, understand complex ideas, learn quickly and learn from experience.

Nevertheless, the question - what is intelligence - remains open to scientists. Even under the definition adopted in 1997, by no means all the researchers to whom the corresponding proposal was sent signed.

Today, as Ilya Zakharov said, there are theories that are based on the fact that intelligence is a kind of statistical entity that is distinguished with the help of tests. And there are some researchers who believe that intelligence is not necessarily a physiological, but nevertheless an emergent property that occurs when different abilities are combined.

The concept of emergence consists in the appearance of properties in a system that are not inherent in its elements separately. “Accordingly, these abilities, due to their frequent use, begin to be closer to each other, some abilities develop others, and so on. As a result, adults get a fairly general ability, which can be called intelligence, ”explained Ilya Zakharov.

The characteristics that form the distinctive features of the human intellectual system include: the amount of working memory, the ability to predict, tool activity, logic, a multi-level hierarchy of systemic selection of valuable information, etc.

How to measure intelligence?

One of the important problems in intelligence research is how to measure and study it. This was the second question to the experts, who disagreed about modern tests to measure intelligence.

Reliable psychometric tools make it possible to measure intelligence, Ilya Zakharov believes. The modern Cattell-Horn-Carroll three-level theory of intelligence suggests that a person has the most general abilities, average-level abilities and particular abilities. “Accordingly, if we take a certain number of methods that measure specific abilities - for example, memorize certain types of tasks, or a visual ability that allows you to recognize unusual features of images - then you can, having received a large number of measurements, add everything up to some general intelligence, - the expert explained, noting that in any case, the measurement is built from particulars to the selection of some common factor.

In the framework of the theory of psychologist Raymond Cattell, intelligence can be conditionally divided into mobile and crystallized. The first includes the ability to think logically, analyze and solve problems that go beyond experience. And the second is the accumulated experience and the ability to use the acquired knowledge and skills.

Nikita Loginov believes that tests can be used for a large number of applied tasks. “But, from a scientific point of view, in my opinion, they are of limited value. Even if this is a very cool and super-reliable line of tests that measures some stable characteristic and value, it’s completely unclear what exactly it studies and measures so steadily,” the expert shared his opinion, adding that nevertheless there are several possible approaches.

The most common one assumes that the task is some interconnected set of sources of difficulties that a person must cope with, overcome them in order to solve it. “You can isolate these sources of complexity, reconstruct the psychological mechanisms that a person needs in order to cope with them. And, accordingly, theoretically describe how it works, ”the scientist explained.

The question of how it works, in his opinion, is fundamentally important. “Analysis of tasks in terms of difficulties and mechanisms for overcoming them is, in my opinion, the main approach that is the most productive in order to show exactly how intellectual behavior works and what underlies it,” he said.

How an IQ test relates to intelligence

IQ (intelligence quotient), often associated with intelligence. However, how much tests that measure IQ characterize a person’s intelligence as a whole is a big question.

Depending on which IQ tests are used, they can measure different things - not only logical ability, as Ilya Zakharov explained, but also, for example, vocabulary or working memory.

This indicator can be quite convenient, according to Nikita Loginov, for example, in the case of an intergroup experimental design. “For example, it is necessary to check whether the groups - experimental and control - do not really differ in some key characteristics. And we do not understand at the beginning what these characteristics should be. There is only a certain conditional set of characteristics that could be tested. Therefore, the use of the IQ indicator is quite possible to use as a methodological safety net in conducting fundamental scientific research, ”the scientist believes.

Nevertheless, in his opinion, from the point of view of theory, it is not very clear what is hidden behind this indicator, except for the general level of achievements, when a person simply copes with a certain class of tasks in a certain amount of time. Loginov also noted that there are alternatives to the IQ test that do not replace, but rather complement it. “In the framework of modern research on cognitive biases and in general the decision-making process, the followers of the Nobel Prize winner in economics Daniel Kahneman show that it is possible, using a certain battery of tasks, to calculate a slightly different indicator, which is called the coefficient of rationality,” he said.

The idea and logic of this coefficient is based on the theory of two systems. In his book Think Slowly. Decide quickly” Kahneman identifies two systems in the human psyche. System 1 works automatically and very quickly, with almost no effort and no sense of intentional control. System 2 highlights the attention needed for conscious mental effort, including complex calculations.

Difference between thinking and intelligence

Another question for the experts during the workshop was about the conceptual difference between thinking and intelligence. The simplest approach, as Nikita Loginov explained, is that thinking is a process, a dynamic entity. And intelligence is some stable characteristic, not dynamic, and in this sense it is directly opposite to thinking.

Ilya Zakharov noted that in the case of studying thinking, the characteristics of a specific task are studied - that is, the task and the psyche are studied. And in the case of studying intelligence, we are talking more about the stability of a particular person in different tasks.

During the workshop, the researchers also asked each other questions. One of them - from Ilya Zakharov - touched upon the topic of thinking as a process - can it have stable characteristics for a particular person?

One of these characteristics may be the amount of working memory, says Nikita Loginov. Although it is difficult to say how much these characteristics relate to thinking, nevertheless, as the expert explained, they are taken into account when it comes to solving a problem. “There are a huge number of studies that show that the amount of working memory is a good and reliable predictor of the success of problem solving,” the scientist said. Also, as he noted, the planning horizon can be attributed here.

Another interesting topic was on a more practical plane, namely, what knowledge from the study of thinking could be used to predict something about a person?

Nikita Loginov said that in the field of studying the process of solving problems, there are studies of the phenomenon of expertise. Their goal is to distinguish between experts who have been involved in some activity for a long time and beginners. “Understanding something about representation — the idea of the problem being solved, and how it works for experts and beginners, you can literally predict what the mistakes will be, and how they will fundamentally differ,” the scientist explained.

The difference is primarily in the decision strategies and metacognitive regulation.

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