Understanding Intelligence.
Empowering People.
Our ability to use our intelligence when we need it is critical.
We’ve started an independent research initiative to study how human intelligence operates across different cognitive profiles and states, real-world contexts, tasks and situations.
Why This Matters
Intelligence is expressed through what we are able to do.
How we are able to use our intelligence can change with our current state, the task in front of us and the conditions around us.
Explore our mission →Where Intelligence Shapes Life
Intelligence is used across almost every part of life. But what we need from our intelligence — and what helps or hinders us in using it — changes with the situation.
AI Changes the Conditions
Artificial intelligence is changing the conditions under which human intelligence is used.
It can change the task itself, reduce or increase cognitive demands, provide new forms of support, extend what someone can do, or perform cognitive work that previously belonged to the person.
Explore AI →The important question is not simply whether AI improves performance. It is how it changes the relationship between the person, their abilities, the task they are trying to perform and the conditions in which they are performing it.
What We Study
How we perform is shaped by an interaction between the person, their relatively stable cognitive profile, their current cognitive state, the task and the conditions in which it takes place.
Explore Research →What We’re Building
HIW is building the research infrastructure to study these interactions systematically and in real life.
Explore Consortium →A structured map of things people need to do and the cognitive demands involved.
Environmental RegistryUnderstand the conditions.A framework for environmental, social, technological and institutional conditions affecting cognitive ability use.
Intelligence ObservatoryUnderstand people and cognitive profiles over time.Research infrastructure connecting cognitive ability with health, state, context, support and real-world functioning.
Performance LabUnderstand the interaction.Study what happens when tasks are performed under different conditions and when task, environment, tools or support change.
Help build How Intelligence Works
This cannot be built by one person, one discipline or one kind of evidence.
Scientific progress depends on many forms of contribution. Whether you have time, data, knowledge or financial resources, there is a way to help advance the research.
Explore ways to contribute →Participate in studies, test research tools, review materials or volunteer your expertise.
→ DataExpand the evidenceShare datasets, observations or opportunities for collaboration and help build stronger evidence.
→ KnowledgeImprove the scienceBring a hypothesis, criticism, paper, method, research lead or something we may have missed.
→ FundingMake it possibleHelp support the infrastructure, collaborations and research needed to build How Intelligence Works.
→Latest from How Intelligence Works
Research, ideas and evidence from across the project.
Intelligence vs Knowledge: What Is the Difference?
Intelligence helps us acquire and use knowledge. Knowledge is what experience and learning have already put at our disposal.
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What Is Short-Term Memory?
Short-term memory is temporary retention: keeping
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Ability vs. Performance: Why What You Can Do Is Not Always What You Do
How psychologists infer ability from observable performance, why the same person can perform differently across occasions, and where context belongs without turning every score into…
Read articleBe part of How Intelligence Works.
Follow the research, contribute what you know, or help make the work possible.