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intelligence and knowledge domains to create new representations of the world.

Biologia
Su "PLoS ONE": Dal sito: http://lescienze.espresso.repubblica.it/articolo/articolo/1338888
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Gli studiosi hanno utilizzato alcune batterie di test per determinare il parametro "g" elaborato in psicologia per valutare la correlazione tra i risultati ottenuti in diversi compiti cognitivi

Ricercatori della Harvard University hanno mostrato per la prima volta come l'intelligenza possa vary between different individuals in a population of monkeys, notably in the cotton canopy in tamarin (Saguinus oedipus).

In the new study were considered 22 tamarins subjected to 11 different tasks arranged in order to evaluate various cognitive functions including working memory, executive control, the speed of information processing and inhibitory control.

Through tests, the researchers were able to identify examples of high, medium and low capacity, according to a score of general intelligence. The latter, also referred to by the letter "g", is a parameter for human intelligence and thought is conceptually similar to the most famous quotient IQ intelligence. Just use a parameter "human" enables researchers to get more information on the evolution of intelligence in primates.

The parameter g refers to the positive correlation of proven performance in various tasks in an intelligence test: Konika Banerjee and colleagues found that g accounts for the 20 percent of the performance of the proposed tasks in monkeys during the study The remaining 80 percent of the variability appears to be due to contingent factors relating to the task itself or the environment.

Although we can not make a direct comparison, the value of "g" for the man realizes the 40-60 percent of the variability Individual results of different tasks of an IQ test: From this point of view, the increase could actually be connected to the evolution of the human brain.
"The general intelligence is an important component of human intelligence but can also be based on neural substrates that old," said Banerjee, a researcher in the department of psychology at Harvard and co-author of the article published in the latest edition of the journal open-access journal PLoS One. "If several primate taxa differ in the value of 'g' and if human beings are placed at a great distance from the rest of the species that can only mean that we are able to combine thoughts derived from different domain knowledge to create new representations of the world. "
According to the researchers the battery of tests they devised, in which many responsibilities included the acquisition of a portion of food, should be a first step in developing methods of standard assessment for all primates, to check with other species. (Fc)