There are many words to keep track of when discussing logical ability and intelligence. The oldest term, intelligence, has been structurally measured in tests for more then 100 years. The initial tests were used to assess students’ intellectual development.

There are many theories of General Intelligence today, most of which stems from the work of the psychologist Charles Spearman. In his 1904 paper, he observed that performance on many cognitive tasks were correlated, and proposed that a general factor (the g factor) explained his observations. Later theories include a hierarchy of specific abilities below g, and some even challenge the assumption of one overarching factor.

The definition of intelligence we adopt at Alva is inspired by David Wechsler, Howard Gardner, Linda Gottfredson and Robert Sternberg to name a few:

Intelligence is the global ability to process information, think rationally, solve problems, deal with complexity and learn efficiently from experience.

While General Intelligence and IQ are commonly used terms in academia, clinical psychology and in day-to-day conversations, it is more common to talk about General Mental Ability (GMA) in organizational and industrial psychology.

While IQ tests aim to produce a score that describes individuals’ intelligence in relation to the general population, GMA tests are mainly used for ranking candidates in recruitment settings. The reference population is therefore more narrow, focusing only on the working population for example, and the position of individuals along the ability scale is shifted.

Alva’s logic test measures one central aspect of general mental ability (GMA), which is also referred to as abstract reasoning, figure reasoning, matrix reasoning and fluid intelligence in some contexts. It is inspired by an established test format first introduced by John Raven in 1938, which can be found in modern versions of Raven’s Standard Progressive Matrices (SPM) and Advanced Progressive Matrices (APM) among other contemporary logic ability tests.

In the Cattell-Horn theory of intelligence (Horn & Cattell, 1966), General Intelligence is divided into fluid and crystallized ability. Raven’s matrices and Alva’s logic test are designed to measure fluid ability (gf), which is the ability to reason and solve novel problems without relying on previously acquired knowledge and skills. It can be described as the source of intelligence that an individual uses when he or she doesn't already know what to do. In contrast, crystallised ability (gc) stems from learned experience and is reflected in tests of knowledge, general information, vocabulary and other acquired skills.

The figure below shows the Catell-Horn theory of intelligence, and where Alva’s logic test fits in.

While logic ability tests do not fully capture GMA or g, they have consistently been shown to have a high correlation with - or a high ‘loading’ on - general intelligence. This, together with the practical advantages of being independent of language and other crystallized abilities, makes them ideal for efficiently approximating GMA in many settings.

Horn, J. L., & Cattell, R. B. (1966). Refinement and test of the theory of fluid and crystallized general intelligences. Journal of Educational Psychology, 57, 253-270.

Spearman, C. (1904). “General Intelligence”, Objectively Determined and Measured. The American Journal of Psychology, 15:2, 201-292.