Understanding Intelligence

About the lecture

In this lecture, we think about what intelligence is, focusing in particular on: (i) the nature of intelligence being very difficult to define; (ii) the disagreement within the scientific community around exactly what intelligence is; (iii) theories which divide intelligence into different types; (iv) Binet’s early intelligence test, requested by the French government to measure the achievement of school children; (v) the evolution of this test at Stanford University; (vi) a review of intelligence testing in the statistical context of a normal distribution; (vii) the lack of cross cultural applicability of many intelligence tests, which has led to an interest in creating a cross culturally representative test of intelligence.

About the lecturer

Dr Ashok Jansari is a senior lecturer in the Department of Psychology at Goldsmiths, University of London. Dr Jansari’s research interests include memory disorders, prosopagnosia, executive functions, and synaesthesia. Dr Jansari is most famous for his research into prosopagnosia, having made numerous TV appearances, including on BBC1’s The One Show, as well as hosting his own ‘Neuro Talk’ YouTube channel:

https://www.youtube.com/c/DrAshokJansariNeuroTalk/featured

Some of Dr Jansari's recent publications include 'Acquired synaesthesia following 2C-B use' (2019), 'Using virtual reality to investigate multitasking ability in individuals with frontal lobe lesions' (2019), and 'Identification from CCTV: Assessing police super-recogniser ability to spot faces in a crown and susceptibility to change blindness' (2018).