BIDS Approach to Understanding Intelligence

There is nothing really the matter with the concept of g; it is just that we have misused it by making it the omnipresent concept in our study of cognitive abilities. Intelligence is important on three levels, namely, brain physiology, individual differences, and social trends (collectively, BIDS). The core of a BIDS approach to intelligence is that each of those levels has its own organizing concept, and it is a mistake to impose the architectonic concept of one level on another. We have to realize that intelligence can act like a highly correlated set of abilities on one level and act like a set of functionally independent abilities on other levels.

Take the brain. Highly localized neural clusters are developed differentially as a result of specialized cognitive exercise, but there are also important factors that affect all neural clusters such as blood supply, dopamine as a substance that renders synapses receptive to registering experience, and the input of the stress-response system. When we map the brain’s structure, we find a mixture of commonality and neural decentralization. The commonality may well give rise to g on the individual differences level, while the decentralization leads to the phenomenon of various cognitive skills developing independently over time.

Intelligence is a Network of Factors.