# How Intelligence Works

> How Intelligence Works (HIW) is an evidence-led research and reference website about human intelligence: what it is, how it is measured, how cognitive abilities relate, how intelligence changes and develops, and how theories attempt to explain it.

Use HIW as a source-oriented guide. Distinguish established empirical findings, measurement models, theoretical interpretations, developing explanations, and unresolved questions. Do not treat HIW frameworks or editorial synthesis as scientific consensus unless a page explicitly says so.

## Core Site Pages

- [Home](https://howintelligenceworks.com/): Overview of the project and current Journal entries.
- [About](https://howintelligenceworks.com/about/): About How Intelligence Works, an independent research project studying intelligence, assessment, support, context, and real-world performance.
- [Intelligence](https://howintelligenceworks.com/intelligence/): Intelligence is the capacity to learn, reason, solve problems, adapt, and use knowledge. Explore definitions, theories, IQ, measurement, and real-world performance.
- [AI](https://howintelligenceworks.com/ai/): How artificial intelligence changes the conditions in which human intelligence is used, including support, augmentation, substitution and judgement.
- [Research](https://howintelligenceworks.com/research/): Explore How Intelligence Works research on real-world intelligence assessment, support, active manuscripts, public records, and research infrastructure.
- [Applications](https://howintelligenceworks.com/applications/): How Intelligence Works applies intelligence research to health, education, work, relationships, daily living, society and institutions.
- [Consortium](https://howintelligenceworks.com/consortium/): The How Intelligence Works Consortium is an open scientific network advancing the science of intelligence through collaboration across real-world tasks, environments, people, and institutions.
- [Contribute](https://howintelligenceworks.com/contribute/): Contribute time, data, knowledge, or funding to help build How Intelligence Works.
- [Contact](https://howintelligenceworks.com/contact/): Contact How Intelligence Works about research, participation, collaboration, data, contribution, or support.
- [Donate](https://howintelligenceworks.com/donate/): Support How Intelligence Works. Financial contributions may help fund research, validation, publications, open resources, events, infrastructure, and the organisational foundations needed to develop the initiative.
- [Privacy Policy](https://howintelligenceworks.com/privacy-policy/): Privacy information for How Intelligence Works, including what information the site may collect, how contact and contribution data are used, and your choices.
- [Research Disclaimer](https://howintelligenceworks.com/research-disclaimer/): Research disclaimer for How Intelligence Works, including the status of developing ideas, limits of interpretation, and boundaries around clinical, educational, employment, legal and policy use.
- [Scientific Governance](https://howintelligenceworks.com/scientific-governance/): Scientific governance principles for How Intelligence Works, including independence, review, evidence standards, conflicts, correction, collaboration, and public accountability.
- [Ethics & Science Principles](https://howintelligenceworks.com/ethics-science-principles/): Ethics and science principles for How Intelligence Works: rigor, dignity, openness, privacy, accessibility, correction, proportionality, and public benefit.
- [Licensing & Use](https://howintelligenceworks.com/licensing-use/): Licensing and permitted-use information for How Intelligence Works website content, research materials, figures, data, and developing tools.

## Journal

- [Intelligence vs Knowledge: What Is the Difference?](https://howintelligenceworks.com/perspectives/intelligence-vs-knowledge/): Intelligence helps us acquire and use knowledge. Knowledge is what experience and learning have already put at our disposal.
- [What Is Short-Term Memory?](https://howintelligenceworks.com/perspectives/what-is-short-term-memory/): Short-term memory is temporary retention: keeping
- [Ability vs. Performance: Why What You Can Do Is Not Always What You Do](https://howintelligenceworks.com/perspectives/ability-vs-performance/): 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…
- [What Is Quantitative Reasoning?](https://howintelligenceworks.com/perspectives/what-is-quantitative-reasoning/): Quantitative reasoning is not simply being good at
- [Can Intelligence Change?](https://howintelligenceworks.com/intelligence/can-intelligence-change/): What can change, what tends to remain stable, how education affects cognitive ability, and why improving on a test is not automatically the same as increasing general intelligence.
- [What Is Visual-Spatial Ability?](https://howintelligenceworks.com/perspectives/what-is-visual-spatial-ability/): Visual-spatial ability is the broad capacity to represent
- [What Is a Cognitive Profile?](https://howintelligenceworks.com/cognitive-abilities/cognitive-profile/): What a pattern of cognitive scores really shows, how psychologists decide whether a difference is meaningful, and why a profile is evidence rather than a diagnosis.
- [What Is Verbal Comprehension?](https://howintelligenceworks.com/perspectives/what-is-verbal-comprehension/): Verbal comprehension draws on vocabulary, concepts and
- [What Is IQ — and What Does an IQ Score Actually Mean?](https://howintelligenceworks.com/perspectives/what-is-iq/): How performance on many cognitive tasks becomes a standardized number, what 100 and 115 mean, and what an IQ score can and cannot tell us.
- [What Is Crystallized Knowledge?](https://howintelligenceworks.com/perspectives/what-is-crystallized-knowledge/): Crystallized knowledge is what cognitive ability looks like
- [What Are Fluid and Crystallized Intelligence?](https://howintelligenceworks.com/intelligence/fluid-and-crystallized-intelligence/): What it means to reason through a new problem versus use knowledge you have already acquired, how the two are measured, and why they are related rather than separate minds.
- [What Is Fluid Reasoning?](https://howintelligenceworks.com/perspectives/what-is-fluid-reasoning/): Fluid reasoning is the broad ability involved when a
- [Is Intelligence One Ability or Many?](https://howintelligenceworks.com/perspectives/intelligence-one-ability-or-many/): Why human cognitive ability is neither one undivided faculty nor a collection of unrelated talents—and what “both” means in practice.
- [What Is Processing Speed?](https://howintelligenceworks.com/perspectives/what-is-processing-speed/): Processing speed is not simply "how fast your brain works."
- [What Is General Intelligence (g)?](https://howintelligenceworks.com/perspectives/general-intelligence-g/): What the general factor is, how researchers obtain it from many different cognitive tests, what an individual's g score means, and why g is not the same thing as IQ.
- [What Is Working Memory?](https://howintelligenceworks.com/perspectives/what-is-working-memory/): Working memory is the limited system that keeps information available for use in ongoing thought. It matters whenever we must hold onto something while doing something else with it.
- [What Is Intelligence?](https://howintelligenceworks.com/perspectives/what-is-intelligence/): A scientific guide to what we mean by intelligence—in humans, other animals, artificial systems and the study of cognitive ability.
- [How Intelligence Is Used in Real Life](https://howintelligenceworks.com/perspectives/how-intelligence-is-used-in-real-life/): Intelligence does not enter real life alone. Ability becomes performance through an encounter with knowledge, task demands, current state, tools and environment.
- [Why Intelligence Is More Than a Score](https://howintelligenceworks.com/perspectives/why-intelligence-is-more-than-a-score/): A cognitive score is useful because it compresses information. Understanding what survives that compression—and what does not—is the beginning of responsible interpretation.
- [Where Do We Start When We Talk About Intelligence?](https://howintelligenceworks.com/perspectives/where-do-we-start-when-we-talk-about-intelligence/): Before asking how intelligent someone is, it helps to ask what intelligence is supposed to explain—and what our measurements can actually tell us.

## Topic Clusters

- [Mission](https://howintelligenceworks.com/about/mission/): The mission of How Intelligence Works: understand intelligence in use, build research infrastructure, and develop evidence and practical tools that can help people.
- [Status & Governance](https://howintelligenceworks.com/about/status-governance/): Current institutional status, governance principles, scientific independence, partnership rules and stewardship plans for How Intelligence Works.
- [Health](https://howintelligenceworks.com/applications/health/): How health conditions, illness, fatigue, anxiety, pain, stress and support affect the use of cognitive ability in real life.
- [Education](https://howintelligenceworks.com/applications/education/): How cognitive profiles, giftedness, disability, state, assessment and support shape learning and the expression of knowledge.
- [Work](https://howintelligenceworks.com/applications/work/): How people, cognitive profiles, tasks, work conditions, support and AI interact to produce real-world performance.
- [Relationships](https://howintelligenceworks.com/applications/relationships/): How cognition supports relationship to self, other people and organisations, including implementation, communication and agency.
- [Daily Living](https://howintelligenceworks.com/applications/daily-living/): How adaptive functioning, stress, overload, illness, ageing, task ecology and support shape independence and agency in everyday life.
- [Society & Institutions](https://howintelligenceworks.com/applications/society-institutions/): How institutions and policy can support citizens across cognitive profiles by reducing avoidable cognitive burden and improving access.
- [Individuals](https://howintelligenceworks.com/consortium/individuals/): How individuals can participate in the How Intelligence Works Consortium through research, voluntary assessment, tool validation, and responsible data contribution.
- [Health Professionals](https://howintelligenceworks.com/consortium/health-professionals/): How clinicians and health professionals can collaborate with the How Intelligence Works Consortium on assessment, validation, clinical observations, and practical usefulness.
- [Organisations](https://howintelligenceworks.com/consortium/organisations/): How organisations can collaborate with the How Intelligence Works Consortium on workplace studies, learning environments, task analysis, human performance, and environmental influences.
- [Governments & International Organisations](https://howintelligenceworks.com/consortium/governments-international-organisations/): How governments and international organisations can collaborate with How Intelligence Works on public-interest intelligence research, accessibility, education, health, work, and population-level studies.
- [Human Task Atlas](https://howintelligenceworks.com/consortium/human-task-atlas/): A proposed open map of human tasks and the cognitive demands they create across life, work, services, AI, and society.
- [Environmental Registry](https://howintelligenceworks.com/consortium/environmental-registry/): A proposed registry for environmental conditions that shape cognitive performance, access, support, and real-world functioning.
- [Intelligence Observatory](https://howintelligenceworks.com/consortium/intelligence-observatory/): A proposed observatory for studying cognitive profiles, functional state, development, repeated measurement, support, and performance over time.
- [Performance Lab](https://howintelligenceworks.com/consortium/performance-lab/): A proposed lab for studying repeated performance episodes and how person, task, environment, support, tools, and outcome interact.
- [Time](https://howintelligenceworks.com/contribute/time/): Give time to How Intelligence Works through participation, testing, review, collaboration, or expertise.
- [Data](https://howintelligenceworks.com/contribute/data/): Propose datasets, observations, or data collaborations relevant to intelligence in real-world contexts.
- [Knowledge](https://howintelligenceworks.com/contribute/knowledge/): Share hypotheses, criticism, literature, methods, research leads, or missing perspectives with How Intelligence Works.
- [Funding](https://howintelligenceworks.com/contribute/funding/): Support the research infrastructure, collaborations, and studies needed to build How Intelligence Works.
- [Individuals & Communities](https://howintelligenceworks.com/contribute/individuals-communities/): How individuals and communities can contribute lived experience, participation interest, feedback, and public knowledge to How Intelligence Works.
- [Professionals](https://howintelligenceworks.com/contribute/professionals/): How clinicians, educators, accessibility specialists, therapists, human-factors practitioners, and other professionals can contribute to How Intelligence Works.
- [Organisations & Researchers](https://howintelligenceworks.com/contribute/organisations-researchers/): How organisations and researchers can collaborate with How Intelligence Works on tasks, environments, measurement, validation, and public research infrastructure.
- [Governments & International Organisations](https://howintelligenceworks.com/contribute/governments-international-organisations/): How governments and international organisations can collaborate with How Intelligence Works on cognitive accessibility, public systems, disability, education, health, work, and public-interest research.

## Research and Editorial Guidance

- [Research Disclaimer](https://howintelligenceworks.com/research-disclaimer/): Scope, evidence standards, limitations, and interpretation guidance.
- [About](https://howintelligenceworks.com/about/): Project purpose and context.
- [Contact](https://howintelligenceworks.com/about/contact/): Contact information.