Looking Down on Human Intelligence

Winner of the British Psychological Society Book Award 2002

What is it about human brains that make some people more intelligent than others? In an authoritative and critical account, Professor Ian Deary reviews historical, cognitive, and biological research on the foundations of human mental ability. Authoritative, thought provoking, and controversial, the book attempts to answer the age old question of why some people seem more clever than othersWhy are some people more mentally able than others ? In an authoritative, critical and intergrated series of review essays Professor Ian Deary inquires after the cognitive and biological foundations of human mental ability differences. Many accounts of intelligence have examined the structure and number of human mental ability differences and whether they can predict sucess in education,work and social life. Few books have taken psychometric intelligence differences as a starting point and brought together the reductionistic attempts to explain them.New to the highly acclaimed Oxford Psychology Series, Looking Down on Human Intelligence appraises the search for the origins of psychometric intelligence differences in terms of brain function parameters. The book provides an original and thought provoking guide to ancient and modern research on one of the most compelling questions in human psychology.