Shankar Vedantam

That email address again, feedback at hiddenbrain.org.

Early in his career, intelligence researcher Scott Barry Kaufman set out to tear down the edifice of IQ testing.

He felt it had greatly limited his own prospects as a young person.

But then he found himself convinced by much of the science behind IQ.

It left him with a quandary.

Should he trust his own experience with IQ tests, or should he trust the data?

As he finished his undergraduate studies and went on to get a PhD in cognitive psychology, Scott came to feel that the real question was not whether the science of IQ was wrong, but whether it was incomplete.

One thing that IQ tests hadn't looked at was how much a person cared about what they were doing.

Teachers, managers, and coaches can testify to Scott's insight.

Talent matters, but sometimes passion and drive matter more.

Along with deep engagement, creativity is another driver of performance that is overlooked by IQ tests.

In fact, researchers have found that there can be an inverse relationship between intelligence and creativity.

And why do you think it is that in artistic fields you're not seeing a connection between IQ and outcomes?

What do you think is happening there if you're a painter or a poet or a musician?

You've also said that IQ tests fail to capture the full range of human potential in that they focus on the explicit, the conscious, the controlled forms of thinking.

What does this leave out, Scott?

Solving puzzles involves logic and analysis, but logic cannot help you read someone's expression in a crowded room.

That requires cognitive skills that are often learned unconsciously.

Scott is not merely saying that the cognitive ability that IQ tests measure is different than the abilities that allow us to apprehend unwritten patterns and relationships in the real world.

He's saying that sometimes these different cognitive abilities might come at the expense of each other.