IQ, Adaptive Intelligence, and Unconscious Processes

Abstract

AbstractThis chapter distinguishes between intelligence as assessed by traditional IQ tests and intelligence as defined as successful adaptation. A. S. Reber’s evolutionary argument predicts that unconscious cognitive processes should be more closely linked to general adaptation than to IQ scores, since the latter reflect primarily more recently evolved explicit cognitive functions. The evidence supporting this assertion is examined by reviewing empirical research in the domains of perception, memory, learning of associations and transitional probabilities, application of previous learning, and decision-making. Some everyday examples of unconscious adaptive functioning are used to fill in gaps left by research. The chapter concludes with the contention that data largely support Reber’s argument, but that much work still needs to be done in this relatively unexplored topic.