Intelligence and the Brain: Solving the Mystery of Why People Differ in IQ and How a Child Can Be a Genius - Hardcover

Dennis Garlick

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0615319211 ISBN 13: 9780615319216

Publisher: Aesop Press, 2010

Synopsis

Presenting a breakthrough new explanation of human intelligence-one rigorously based on the latest scientific discoveries-this book turns the corner and finally provides a resolution to the hot debate over intelligence. Intelligence and the Brain does this by rejecting some of the most common beliefs about intelligence, including that intelligence should be defined by behavior or that intelligence is just memory. Instead, it argues that intelligence reflects the ability to understand. It then uses recent scientific findings about the brain to show how changes in the brain lead to understanding. Readers will find that this book contains many revelations that will profoundly change their perception of how their own brain works.

This book will also explore the startling implication of a "sensitive period" for developing intelligence, arguing that children can learn differently to adults. It will also refute common misconceptions about the brain, including the idea that the first five years of life are the most critical and having more neurons and connections are better. It turns out that late childhood can be the most important for future success and having fewer neurons and connections can be better than more!
It's all here... for every caring parent, educator, and general reader interested in how the brain works, why people differ in intelligence, and how a child can be a genius.
Winner of the 2011 Benjamin Franklin Award for Best Psychology Book.

About this title

From the Publisher

A Q&A WITH THE AUTHOR

Question: Why did you write this book?

Dennis Garlick: I have been interested in psychology and how the brain works since early childhood. However, when I started my psychology degree, I found that psychology had reached an impasse when it came to explaining IQ and human intelligence. In the book, I challenge some of the most basic assumptions that psychologists make about intelligence. By rejecting these assumptions, I show how findings from psychology and recent brain science can be used to provide a new explanation of human intelligence. This explanation has important implications for childhood education as well as understanding just how our brains work.

Question: In the book, you talk a lot about IQ. How important do you think IQ is?

Dennis Garlick: Some advocate that we should completely ignore IQ and differences in human intelligence. However, not only do differences in intelligence inform us about the mechanisms that underlie human intelligence, but ignoring differences in intelligence stops us from understanding and then helping people who are lower in intelligence.

Others commentators will focus on either discounting or overemphasizing the importance of IQ. However, both of these positions are tenuous unless it is really understood what it is that IQ tests measure. Only once we understand this can we make a judgment about the relevance of IQ in different situations. My book is concerned with explaining why people differ in IQ, without placing a value judgment on its importance or unimportance.

Question: So why do people differ in IQ?

Dennis Garlick: One confusion people make is the belief that human intelligence is just memory. However, we know that intelligence is more than memory. Human intelligence is also about the ability to understand. You know that a person is very bright when they can understand any idea or concept you explain to them. On the other hand, a less intelligent person will have difficulty understanding the same explanation. So intelligence is also about the ability to understand. We also know that as something becomes more abstract, it becomes more difficult to understand. Indeed, IQ tests typically measure intelligence by assessing a person's ability to understand more and more difficult abstractions.

This tells us that abstraction is crucial to human intelligence. Books that talk about human intelligence but do not then explain abstraction are missing an essential component of human intelligence. A major focus of my book is explaining how the brain is able to understand abstractions.

Question: How does the brain understand abstractions?

Dennis Garlick: One idea you often hear is the belief that if you just join a lot of neurons together, this will lead to intelligence. However, we now know from brain science that this is not true. If you just have lots of neurons and connections all tied together, the brain won't produce any meaningful or intelligent response. Signals will just bounce around randomly in the brain. To understand how the brain is able to understand abstractions, we need to look at how the brain works.

Unfortunately, a lot of current books that claim to look at how the brain works focus on technologies such as functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) that allow scientists to see which parts of the brain are active when a person is solving a problem. However, because fMRI only provides information on where in the brain processing is occurring, researchers tend to gloss over the reality that showing where in the brain something is occurring does not actually explain how that part of the brain works. Imagine that you know that your car's engine is what generates the power that makes it go. Knowing this does not mean that you would know how to fix the engine if it stopped working. You would also not know how to improve the design of the engine so that it could produce more power. But it is issues like these that we need to address in the brain if we are to eliminate differences in intelligence.

My book differs from other books on intelligence in that it focuses on how experience is not just important for brain development, but how experience actually leads to the ability to understand abstractions.

About the Author

Dennis Garlick received his Ph.D. in psychology from the University of Sydney in 2003 and is currently a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Psychology at the University of California, Los Angeles. His dissertation focused on using the recent advances in the brain sciences to provide a new approach to explaining human intelligence. This approach was accepted for publication in The Psychological Review, often considered to be the most prestigious peer-reviewed psychology journal in the world. This publication led to the American Psychological Association and American Psychological Society both issuing press releases publicizing this work, indicating its importance to the general public. More recently, the famous scientific journal Nature published a report confirming the validity of this approach for explaining IQ and human intelligence.

Edition details

• Publisher: Aesop Press
• Publication date: 2010
• ISBN 10: 0615319211
• ISBN 13: 9780615319216
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 256