The Network Approach to General Intelligence

Human intelligence is a puzzling concept. There is no consensus on the definition of intelligence, not even within specific fields that study intelligence, such as psychometrics. Within the latter, there are, for instance, major disputes over whether intelligence is one thing (a general ability) or multiple things. In our view, it is important to have a clear conception of what intelligence is. In this chapter we adhere to such a conception and present a formal model of psychometric intelligence. This model illuminates mechanisms that can explain some important and well replicated phenomena in the study of intelligence.