Which term refers to the broad cognitive capacity that influences performance across a variety of cognitive tasks?

• A. General intelligence (g)
• B. Intelligence
• C. Factor analysis
• D. Savant syndrome

Answer: (B)

General intelligence, or g, is the broad cognitive capacity that influences performance across a wide range of cognitive tasks. Psychologists found that people’s abilities tend to rise and fall together across verbal, spatial, memory, and processing-speed tasks—a pattern called positive manifold. This led to the idea of a single underlying factor that accounts for shared variance among different abilities. That underlying factor is g, the general intelligence factor. The broader label intelligence refers to the overall capacity, but the specific concept described in the prompt is g. The other terms are unrelated to this underlying factor: factor analysis is the method used to uncover g, and savant syndrome is a distinct condition.