The correct meaning of intelligence

This article is the first part of a series of six texts whose purpose is to promote a complete and rigorous review of the understanding of “intelligence” and “intelligence measurement”. In this first stage, we will address the meaning, pointing out the weaknesses in previous attempts to understand what intelligence is and presenting a more appropriate approach to harmonize with the following stages, especially favoring the rigorous and accurate measurement of intelligence on a ratio scale. We show that intelligence is neither defined nor conceptualized. A tacit understanding of its meaning is acquired through finite induction, by analyzing exhaustive examples in which intelligence is applied in a wide variety of paradigmatic cases. This approach also contributes to formulating metrics suitable for its measurement. Throughout the article, we also distinguish between “intelligence”, “IQ”, and “IQ test scores”. We analyzed errors and limitations of subtests with low construct validity present in instruments classified as “gold standard”, showing that construct validity should not be seen as a single, homogeneous characteristic, but rather adapted to the skill level, so that a test may have good construct validity within a certain range of intellectual levels, but not be valid outside that range. In general, we introduced the topics that are explored in greater depth in subsequent articles, especially measurement using a new method that produces scores on a ratio scale, and we inaugurated the series of articles with an analysis of the meaning of our variable of interest. notReviewed other