What about the fluctuation of our individual intellectual abilities over the course of a lifetime? Do they vary? If so, with age, do we lean more towards Einstein or do we tumble towards Dope? And do we have any control over the musculature or the erosion of our IQ?
Posted yesterday at 12:30 p.m.
“Yes, it is changing to a certain extent,” replies Nathalie Parent, psychologist and professor at the Faculty of Educational Sciences at Laval University, specializing in psychometrics. “During childhood and into adulthood, knowledge and intellectual abilities develop. In your early twenties, it stabilizes, then a slow decline begins quietly until around the age of 60, where this decline is a little more marked, ”she summarizes.
Nuance: the different intellectual abilities do not fade at the same rate. Acquired knowledge and elements stored in long-term memory (for example, the definition of a word), as well as learning abilities, remain very stable until the age of sixty, before subtly withering away. On the other hand, skills related to short-term memory and information processing speed will slowly decline throughout adulthood, with an acceleration after age 60. “It is of course linked to aging, but also to the fact that, after this age, we are less active in terms of work,” explains Ms.me parent.
Are men and women in the same boat? Affirmative, she says: we are not currently observing a significant difference in terms of intelligence quotient. On the other hand, there are very slight advantages according to certain abilities – girls having better verbal skills and boys having better numeracy skills. “It’s documented, but very little marked”, underlines the psychologist, specifying that these differences were more salient at times when jobs, tasks and entertainment were more stereotyped.
The weight of context
Serge Larivée, professor at the School of Psychoeducation at the University of Montreal and specialist in human intelligence, warns that he will serve up an unpleasant speech to our ears: no, we are not born equal in terms of intellectual capacities. . “It’s the truth, and it’s unpleasant. And one thing that people forget is that intelligence is relatively stable from the age of 7,” he says, emphasizing relatively and providing two illustrations.
On the one hand, at the end of cognitive capacity development programs to support American children under the age of 7 with an IQ below the average, the latter actually improved their score… but it gradually returned to its initial level, year after year. “In the long term, it doesn’t work, if we talk about the intelligence quotient. Fortunately, other approaches can help improve the way we solve problems,” says Larivée.
On the other hand, a New Zealand study following the evolution of 800 children, without intervention, concluded that their IQ remained globally and relatively stable. For a hundred of them, we certainly observed variations, but without a common denominator; each seemed linked to personal and particular events (a bereavement, for example, or a radical change in the social environment).
Which leads us straight to the famous innate/acquired polarity. The two academics are unanimous on this subject: the socio-economic context weighs heavily in the balance.
It is interdependent. We all have some genetic potential for intelligence, but depending on our environment, this will develop or not.
Nathalie Parent, psychologist and professor at the Faculty of Education at Laval University
Mme Parent stresses in this regard the influence of “non-intellective factors”, which can be positive (good self-esteem, motivation, perseverance) or negative (anxiety, lack of encouragement, etc.).
Mr. Larivée insists on heritability, that is to say the proportion, in an IQ score, attributable to genetics. At a young age, this is less represented, but increases with age. It appears that the share of heritability is relatively low in underprivileged areas. ” Why ? Because the environment crushes the genetic potential. In rich backgrounds, heritability takes over. Why ? Because what the environment had to give, it gave. »
brain dumbbells
There is no secret: to keep the neural machine well oiled, it must be maintained. “The more we practice, the more it will reduce the decline that we can see on the cognitive level”, indicates Mme parent. And it can be so much more fun than chowing down on a slice of an encyclopedia every day for lunch. Many small games are cited by the psychologist, such as crosswords or block challenges, with time and speed constraints, such as the classic Tetriswhich allow us to maintain our speed of information processing.
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Chess is, among dozens of others, an example of a game that helps to maintain one’s cognitive abilities.
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PHOTO ARCHIVES PRESS
The game Tetrisa great classic, is a good example of an exercise for the brain, in particular because of the time and speed constraints it imposes, indicates Nathalie Parent.
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Mme Parent also cites the series of games and workshops active brains, as well as board or card games requiring the application of rules. Reading allows us to maintain our verbal comprehension, however stable, but above all to satisfy an appetite for knowledge. “Our thirst for knowledge also maintains our brain. This can be learning a new language, taking a trip and reading about the country visited. »
Serge Larivée also has his pawns to place: he cites chess, among other things, as well as reading, but does not mince his words about certain television programs such as reality TV or soap novels, to be avoided, according to him.
The cellular? Double-edged ; a case of abuse could be, for example, when it is used to systematically spare oneself mental calculations or numerical conversions. “It would be the equivalent of no longer being able to read a word”, illustrates Nathalie Parent, who also considers the Internet as a great tool for deepening knowledge, provided that you maintain your critical sense of sources of information.