On the Collective Nature of Human Intelligence

Abstract

A fundamental assumption of cognitive science is that the individual is the correct unit of analysis for understanding human intelligence. I present evidence that this assumption may have limited utility, that the social networks containing the individuals are an important additional unit of analysis, and that this “network intelligence” is significantly mediated by non-linguistic processes. Across a broad range of situations these network effects typically predict 40% or more of the variation in human behavior.