Reading Room

The science behind the tests.

Long-form articles on intelligence, cognition, and how psychometric measurement actually works. No jargon, no overclaiming, no oversimplification.

Intelligence Theory · Featured

What is the g factor?

In 1904, a British army officer turned psychologist noticed something strange in a set of schoolboys' grades. That observation became the single most replicated finding in the study of human intelligence — and the foundation of modern IQ testing.

9 min read
Cognitive Psychology

How working memory works

Hold a phone number in your head while you reach for a pen. The small, fragile, astonishingly important mental workspace where thinking actually happens.

8 min read
History

A short history of IQ testing

From Alfred Binet's humane 1905 test for struggling schoolchildren, through Wechsler's modern scales, to the Flynn effect. The story is more interesting — and more complicated — than the popular image.

10 min read

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