FORUM ON INTELLIGENCE
THE IMPORTANCE OF CONVERGING OPERATIONS IN THE STUDY
OF HUMAN INTELLIGENCE
Robert J. Sternberg
(Department of Psychology, Yale University, USA)
The goal of this article is to consider the kinds
of questions about intelligence biological
approaches to intelligence, taken together, can and
cannot answer, and to suggest that intelligence is
best understood through converging operations,
which include biological as well as other
approaches to intelligence.
Biological approaches have been enormously
productive in advancing our understanding of
human intelligence. These approaches have
included: global studies of brain structure and
function; hemispheric; molecular genetics,
electroencephalograms and event-related potentials;
speed of neural transmission; brain size or
encephalization; and cortical activation as studied
by PET or fMRI. Some questions have not, at least
so far, been adequately answered by any or all of
these approaches.
1. What is intelligence? So far, no biological
approach has proven useful in answering the
question of what intelligence is. Approaches that
have sought in some way to measure intelligence,
such as by patterns of EEGs, speed of neural
transmission, or patterns of activation, have ended
up correlating psychophysiological data with scores
on conventional intelligence tests. But who is to
say that these tests truly measure intelligence?
Many scholars are convinced they do (e.g., Carroll,
1993; Jensen, 1998; see essays in Sternberg, 1982,
2000), and use tests as a basis for deriving theories
of intelligence. But other scholars believe that the
tests provide, at best, a partial measure of
intelligence (e.g., Gardner, 1983, 1999; Laboratory
of Comparative Human Cognition, 1982; Serpell,
2000; Sternberg, 1997, 1999). There are a variety
of ways scholars have proposed for defining what
truly is intelligence. But no biological index or set
of indices seems to provide a conclusive answer to
this question, at least, at the present time and in the
foreseeable future.
2. What does it mean to act intelligently? In no
society is the primary means for assessing
intelligence a score or set of scores on intelligence
tests. Rather, the main means of assessing
intelligence societally is through observations of
everyday behavior (Rogoff and Lave, 1984;
Sternberg, 1985, 1997). The same actions that in
one society may be considered intelligent, in
another society may be considered not very
important or even unintelligent. For example, the
extent to which grades in school are viewed as
Cortex, (2005) 41, 243-244
indexing a person’s intelligence vary widely across
societies (Grigorenko et al., 2001; Sternberg et al.,
2001). The intelligence of actions must be judged
in a cultural context, and cannot be judged by
biological measures alone.
3. How best can we measure intelligence? The
day may come when some biological measure
proves to be a definitive measure of intelligence.
That day simply has not come, nor is there any
indication it is imminent. Meanwhile, psychologists
and others need to measure intelligence for various
purposes, so they must rely on other measures.
4. How best can we develop intelligence?
Again, the day may come when there is a pill that
raises people’s intelligence. Right now, there is not.
Unknown environmental factors seem to have a
large effect on intelligence as measured by
standard tests, as shown by the increases in IQ of
roughly 9 points per generation (30 years)
throughout the latter parts of the twentieth century
for which records have been kept (Flynn, 1987).
Training programs also can have modest effects in
increasing intelligence (Grotzer and Perkins, 2000).
5. What is the cause of intelligence? Biological
approaches seem to have a certain attraction for
suggesting a causal mechanism for intelligence
(Duncan et al., 2000). But they really are not
attractive, because the existing data are all
correlational.
Experience can affect levels of intelligence, just
as levels of intelligence may affect the kinds of
experiences one has plays some role. Work by
Greenough (e.g., Jones and Greenough, 1996) and
by Diamond (e.g., Diamond et al., 1976) shows
that experience can alter the structure and therefore
the function of the brain. In particular, these
investigators have shown that experience can result
in increases in brain weight, cortical thickness, and
number of synapses. But genetics no doubt plays a
role in brain size, as well.
6. How do people use their intelligence in
solving problems? Cognitive approaches have been
useful in suggesting how people solve problems,
ranging from simple to complex (see, e.g., Deary,
2000; Lohman, 2000). These approaches help us
characterize what people actually do at the level of
mental operations. Biological approaches have not,
so far, specified the steps people use in solving
problems.
My point in considering these six questions is
that biological approaches to understanding
244 Robert J. Sternberg
intelligence are extremely useful, but so are other
approaches, such as psychometric, cognitive,
cultural, and instructional ones, to name a few. The
best way to understand intelligence is through
converging operations (Garner et al., 1956;
Sternberg and Grigorenko, 2001). One uses a
variety of empirical techniques that, hopefully,
converge on a unified set of results, showing that
the results transcend the methods used to elicit
them. The promise of biological approaches to
intelligence is not in replacing other approaches,
but in complementing them.
Author Notes. Preparation of this article was supported
by Grant REC-9979843 from the National Science
Foundation and by a grant under the Javits Act
Program (Grant No. R206R000001) as administered by
the Office of Educational Research and Improvement,
U.S. Department of Education. Grantees undertaking
such projects are encouraged to express freely their
professional judgment. This article, therefore, does
not necessarily represent the position or policies of
the National Science Foundation, Office of
Educational Research and Improvement or the U.S.
Department of Education, and no official endorsement
should be inferred.
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Robert J. Sternberg, Department of Psychology, Yale University, P.O. Box 208205,
New Haven, CT 06520-8205.
e-mail: robert.sternberg@yale.edu