Sunday, October 24, 2010

IQ and the frontal and parietal areas of the brain

Apparently, people who score high on IQ tests use the frontal and parietal areas of their brains differently from people who score lower. This should not be too surprising since the frontal lobes constitute nearly 40% of the cerebral cortex. Researchers have found that patients with frontal-lobe damage were impaired on tests of fluid intelligence. These tests measure the ability to solve abstract nonverbal problems in which prior knowledge of language or facts is of no help. In studying the brain activity of people without brain damage, researchers found that as tests got harder, subjects made more use of areas in their frontal and parietal lobes.

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