The Human Intelligence Podcast

If you want to test your own ability profile, you can take a free sample of the RIOT IQ test at https://riotiq.com.In this episode, Russell talks with Dr. Thomas Coyle about a surprising finding in modern intelligence research. There is an ability that predicts STEM success better than IQ, and most people never hear about it.Dr. Coyle explains what this ability is, how it develops during adolescence, and why schools rarely teach or measure it. They also cover spatial and mechanical skills,

In this episode, Dr. Russell Warne talks with Yujing Lin from King’s College London about her new open-access study on polygenic scores and cognitive abilities. The conversation explains how polygenic scores work, why they predict IQ and education so well, and what changes when you compare unrelated individuals to siblings raised in the same family.We explore how genetics and environment interact, why socioeconomic status matters at the family level, and why between-family effects are real signals

What happens to intelligence when people face extreme environments like prisons? In this episode we talk with Dr. Michael Woodley of Menie about his recent paper, “The Reversal of Spearman’s Hypothesis in Incarcerated Populations and the Role of Non-Shared Environmentality.”We explore how one of the most established ideas in intelligence research completely reverses inside prison populations. Michael explains why harsh and unpredictable environments can trigger hidden talents and what that means for

What does "grade level" really mean, and does it still make sense in today's classrooms?Dr. Russell T. Warne sits down with Dr. Karen Rambo-Hernandez from Texas A&M University to discuss new research showing that millions of students perform above or below their assigned grade. They explore how COVID-19 changed achievement in math and reading, why classrooms can span five to seven grade levels of ability, and what teachers can do when the system itself is not designed for such diversity.Should

What does it really mean for an IQ test to be “biased”? In this episode of The Human Intelligence Podcast, Dr. Craig Frisby, author of Essentials of Assessing Bias in Intelligence Testing, explains why bias is not about score gaps but about measurement error.We explore how psychologists detect and remove biased items, why landmark cases like Larry P. and PASE v. Hannon changed the conversation, and why breaking standardization or using “dynamic” assessments and race-norming models like SOMPA failed

What does it really mean to be intelligent, and can we say the same for AI? In this episode of The Human Intelligence Podcast, Dr. Russell T. Warne speaks with Dr. Gilles Gignac from the University of Western Australia about two of his influential papers on defining and measuring intelligence.Together they explore why intelligence is about solving novel problems at our maximum capacity, how “achievement” differs from true intelligence, and whether artificial systems like large language models can

Are our tests of intelligence really measuring universal abilities, or are they shaped by schooling and culture? In this episode, we explore how environment influences executive function and why that matters for the science of intelligence.In the first episode of the RIOT IQ Podcast, host Dr. Russell Warne, Chief Scientist at Riot IQ, talks with Ivan Kroupin, a cross-cultural cognitive scientist at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology. Ivan is the lead author of The Cultural