Have you ever wondered how intelligent you are
compared to your friends, your colleagues
and the rest of the nation?
Are you worried that your smartphone is making you stupid
and can the latest science make you cleverer?
We're measuring the brainpower of the British public
in the largest intelligence test of its kind ever undertaken.
All across the country,
more than a quarter of a million of you
have taken part in our ground-breaking test
that's been analysed by leading experts
to help transform our understanding of intelligence.
Now we can even reveal how factors such as your lifestyle
and social media use can affect your brain power -
and what we can all do to be a little bit smarter.
Tonight, we're in Glasgow, at BBC Scotland, to unveil...
When grown adults can be outsmarted by ten-year-olds...
Which are the brainiest parts of the country...
..and whether your gender really can affect your intelligence.
So, if you want to play along, learn how to boost your brainpower,
and find out just how intelligent Britain is,
we have the answers.
So far, a whopping 250,000 of you have done our intelligence test
and, tonight, some of you will be battling it out here, in the studio.
Our online quiz was designed
by scientists at Imperial College London
to measure our ability to solve problems.
Our attention span, verbal abilities, emotional intelligence,
spatial awareness and memory.
Analysed alongside a detailed lifestyle questionnaire,
the results can help us identify our strengths
and improve our weaknesses.
And, by drilling down into this unique dataset,
we can understand the nation's intelligence like never before.
Here in the studio,
we've got teams who volunteered to help us show
how different factors - such as age, gender and hobbies -
could impact our intelligence
and what we can do about it.
We've got a team of youngsters here and a team who are,
shall we say, a bit more experienced?
There are men versus women.
And we've got some avid gamers...
Playing against voracious readers.
How are you all feeling, everyone? Ready for battle?
Oh, yes. Yes.
And you can play along at home.
Go online, to The Great British Intelligence Test website,
at the address on-screen now, to play the games yourself.
First, we're going to look at one of THE most important elements
of intelligence - our ability to solve problems.
We asked you if you think this critical skill
is affected by age.
The sort of people who'd be best at problem solving...
..I don't even know. Sorry.
People who've studied a lot of physics and maths.
The likes of my dad, that was a chemistry teacher.
I probably would say people...probably in primary school.
18 to 22, maybe.
Somebody in their 40s.
Probably around your 50s.
So you've got good knowledge behind you.
To find out how age affects our ability
to solve some tricky problems,
we're going to be pitting a team of youngsters,
all in their 20s, against a team who've clocked up a few more miles -
they're between their 40s and their late 60s.
Nigel, you're a lecturer in genetics, right?
I am, yes. So, do you consider yourself a good problem solver?
I'd like to think so. Yes.
How about you, Tushin? You do lots of puzzles with your son, right?
I do. He's just done his 11+.
With your help?
I'd say that I did some with him.
THEY LAUGH
OK. This is our older team.
Over here, we have our younger team.
Joshua, what do you think?
Is youth going to win out?
I hope so. I'm not too optimistic.
You know what, though?
I noticed you staring down the other team earlier on,
so I get the sense you're quite a competitive person.
Absolutely.
Lucie, who do you think would be better at this kind of task -
parents or kids?
I would say parents, I think they've got a bit more experience.
OK. She's rooting for you guys.
We're going to see how this plays out. OK.
Like all problem-solving,
what you need to do is identify the issue,
analyse it and decide what to do next.
Here's how this game works.
What you'll see is two grids, like this,
and your job is to create a shape
from all of these coloured blocks here
to match the silhouettes on the right-hand side.
Tap on these blocks to destroy them, like this.
But you need to be careful because, if there is nothing below,
then these blocks are going to fall, like that.
So, what you need do is, you need to imagine the shape
that's going to be created before pressing.
Now, first up, we're going to have our older,
and some would say wiser, team.
You're going to take it in turns between you.
Everyone happy? Yes. All right, take it away.
It's surprisingly tough, this game.
Harder than it looks.
Oh, bad luck. Bad luck.
You have to have a picture in your mind what's going to happen.
Well done, Tushin. Very nice.
Unlucky, Margaret.
Fantastic. Very good, very good.
OK, see if you can get this one.
Well done. OK.
Ah, you were just about getting on a roll then.
OK. Between you, you got three points.
OK. Younger team, think you can beat that?
Yeah. Why not?
Confidence, I like it. OK.
Everyone happy to give it a go?
Yeah. Right. Take it away.
Oh, straight in. Amazing.
Ah, unlucky.
Oh, my goodness me.
I didn't even look at the screen before you'd pressed that one.
It's not looking good for you guys.
It's not looking good.
Very good.
So, here we have the scores.
The younger... Older, three points.
Younger, the winners there, with five points.
I think that's what counts as a decisive victory.
Well done, younger team.
Older team, don't worry, though, you're not alone
because, thanks to all of you at home
who have already taken his test online,
we also have a national picture
of this exact same puzzle.
It turns out that the best problem solvers in the country
actually came from Bristol.
So, something good in the water going on down there.
We also saw a connection with the amount of
fruit and vegetables that you eat.
So, the more you eat, the better the result.
Though, of course, we don't know whether
the greens could be making us clever
or whether clever people simply make healthier food choices.
But the biggest factor, by far, in this was age.
You can see how problem-solving ability is highest
when we're in our 20s and then slowly declines
as we as we get a little bit older.
So, there you go, younger team.
You're in your prime! Enjoy it while it lasts.
And, older team, here's an intriguing fact for you.
If you have a look at this graph here, OK?
The average performance of someone aged 40
is about the same as a 12-year-old.
So, Tushin, you and your son,
turns out you're quite well matched. Yep.
But it's really important, in all of this, to say that
there are other aspects of intelligence.
It's not just all down to problem-solving.
We all have different strengths and weaknesses,
and those can change
across our lives.
How do we know this?
Well, Michael, over to you.
Thank you, Hannah.
Right, it's time to meet the person
who devised our test and analysed the results -
Dr Adam Hampshire from Imperial College, London.
Welcome, Adam.
Now, I was blown away by the number of people who applied.
I mean, 250,000 people doing that online test
is pretty awesome, isn't it?
It's a phenomenal number of people.
It's the equivalent of about 125,000 hours of testing
or, end-on-end, more than 14 years.
With these sorts of numbers,
we can ask very interesting questions
that pertain to how different types of human intelligence
relate to things like social demographic variables,
lifestyle variables, personality
and perhaps, particularly uniquely in this study,
we also look at technology use.
Absolutely. So, as well as asking people to do
the sort of intelligence tests,
we got them to fill in lots of other details about themselves.
Yes, exactly.
Some people would say that all IQ tests really measure
is people's ability to do IQ tests
and it's nothing more than that.
What would you say?
I would say that those tests have been very useful
from a research perspective.
They're predictive of how people do in education or in their jobs.
But groups like mine, what we're focused on trying to do
is use that information to develop tests that measure
the types of intelligence that have their basis
in different systems in the brain.
This gives us a much finer grain
on a person's intelligence profile.
And perhaps just to give you an example of that,
if we use the classic intelligence test,
obviously 50% of people would do worse than average.
Now, on our test, round about 90% of people do better than average
on at least one test.
And so what you're able to do is identify
where your personal strengths are.
You can play to your strengths.
Perhaps you can also try and improve where your weaknesses are.
Thank you very much, Adam.
Now, Hannah, you very kindly pointed out that people my age
have much worse problem-solving abilities.
Do you have any other bad news for me?
Oh, yes. There's plenty more bad news for you, I'm afraid, Michael,
because it's not just problem-solving ability, I'm afraid.
Now, it won't be any surprise to learn that our memory
also gets worse as we get older,
as does our spatial intelligence -
which is what we use to help us park a car -
and our ability to focus without getting distracted.
These are all results from our intelligence tests
and they show that, by our 40s,
when we feel like we're at the prime in our work and in our life,
we are, in fact, in cognitive decline
and, by our 50s and 60s...
Well, Michael, sorry.
Fortunately, I have had plenty of time to come to terms with that.
Now, if you want to find out how good your brain is for your age,
go online to the Great British Intelligence Test website,
at the address on-screen now,
and test your problem-solving
and reveal your brain age.
But the big question in all of this is obviously - why?
Why is it, when we should be older and wiser,
do we get worse at problem solving?
Well, here's a clue.
It's a ruler, and we're going to be doing a reaction time test.
So, up you get! What I want you to do is stick out your hand.
This one here, please.
And fingers like that.
And I'm going to drop this ruler in a moment,
and you're going to catch it.
I want to catch it as low down the ruler as I can.
You're going to try and grab it as quickly as it can.
Ready, steady, go! OK. So, that's pretty good.
You're about halfway down. 180 millimetres.
180 millimetres, indeed.
Now, the point of this test is to measure your reaction time.
It's quite a crude test, obviously,
but your reaction times are, in turn,
a measure of your cognitive processing speed -
so the speed at which your brain is working.
So what happens if we get you to do it?
Let's have a go. OK.
Do you want a longer ruler? MICHAEL LAUGHS
All right! Has anyone got a metre stick...
..that we can borrow? I'm super-confident.
You're quite competitive, aren't you? I am, yes, exactly.
OK. All right. OK. When am I going to drop it?
Oh! Pretty similar, OK.
So, maybe, I think that's probably unlikely, frankly,
because the honest truth is
that Hannah's brain is almost certainly processing information
faster than mine.
And she has nothing to be smug about
because, in fact, research has shown
that processing speed peaks in our early 20s,
some time ago,
and decreases steadily after that,
and this could be part of the reason why some of our mental abilities
decline with age.
Cheeky. All right.
But what is it is that makes one brain
cleverer than another in the first place?
Well, to find out if there is something in the way their brain
is structured that sets them apart,
I enlisted the help of a famously clever chap.
Bobby Seagull is someone who has
proved his intelligence beyond doubt.
He's a mathematician, author, teacher
and University Challenge semifinalist.
Emmanuel, Seagull.
GDP. Correct.
Emmanuel, Seagull.
A dome. A dome is correct, yes.
APPLAUSE
You're a pretty smart guy, Bobby. Reasonably. Reasonably.
I'm kind of curious. I wonder whether it's something
about your brain that makes you different.
I've always thought it's about my character, my spirit,
it's my determination that's got me places.
Maybe you're wired differently.
Maybe, we'll see.
To find out whether clever brains are different,
Bobby is going to have his brain scanned.
This will take about 25 minutes.
Experts at the University of Edinburgh
have been studying thousands of brains,
searching for anything that might make some cleverer
or faster than others.
OK, we're just going to start scanning
and it's going to get very noisy.
Are clever brains bigger?
Are they wired differently?
Are you all right there?
Revealing the secrets of Bobby's intelligence is Dr Simon Cox.
Your brain volume is extremely average... Oh.
..if not a little bit lower than average.
Shall I just go home now? "Lower than average"?
A little bit, a little bit. Smaller brain?
That's correct, yes.
Oh, Bobby!
Clearly, when it comes to intelligence,
brain size isn't everything.
But is there something in Bobby's scans that could help
to explain why his brain works so well?
This is a really nice example of the grey matter,
these grey areas around the outside of the brain here,
which is where the majority of our brain cells sit.
Bobby's got a very healthy brain,
nicely filled out into the...into the skull.
Small brain, but densely packed.
It's a way of keeping all of his quiz knowledge in there. Strongly.
Yeah. And where all the kind of computation happens as well.
It seems that individuals that have more grey matter
have slightly higher cognitive ability.
But Simon's research has shown that
it's not just having more grey matter that's important.
Crucial to the speed of thinking
is another part of the brain,
the white matter.
The white matter of the brain, so you can see it here...
The actual white stuff? Exactly right.
The actual white stuff houses all of the diverse connections
across all of these different areas of the brain.
A more detailed scan of Bobby's white matter
shows that it's made up of a complex network of connections
or neural pathways.
These are routes between different areas of the brain
and how the information is being transmitted along them,
from one area to the next.
So, to give you an idea of the scale here,
each one of these little lines,
there are about 50,000 or so in this scan
that we've identified, but there are hundreds of billions
of actual connections in your brain.
They would stretch four times around the Earth.
It's not just the volume of connections that matters,
what's crucial is how well signals travel along these routes.
And there's a substance that plays a critical role in this.
They are insulated by a white, fatty substance called myelin -
what that allows for is efficient communication of these signals.
You're literally thinking slower
if your white matter isn't well-insulated?
That's absolutely right.
Simon's research suggests that these well-insulated pathways
and fast communications are something that clever brains,
like Bobby's, have in common.
Perhaps this can help explain why Bobby is so quick on the buzzer.
Emmanuel, Seagull.
Albert Einstein.
Correct.
So if one of the things that characterises intelligent brains
is better connections, what's happening in brains like mine
that are slowing with age?
Joining us is Professor Alan Gow.
Welcome, Alan.
So what is actually going on in our brains as we get older?
So, as our thinking skills slow down as we age,
there's a number of factors that might explain that.
One of them is the amount of myelin we produce
and, although we believe we continue to produce myelin
through the lifespan, that slows down.
As we get older, there is damage that accrues to the myelin.
The signals might not transmit as smoothly, as fast.
And also there may be some interference
between neighbouring connections.
Right. So, quite a few frayed connections up there.
What other changes do you see in the brain?
You see these two images here.
These are images from people of the same age...
Yeah. ..but this one here, on the left-hand side,
can you see we have these quite obvious areas... That's not good.
..of white, really bright white?
That is showing us the areas of the brain
where there's been damage to the white matter.
One of the things underlying that may be the damage to myelin.
Another process that we see is this a process called atrophy -
that's a general shrinking of brain volumes as we age.
And if we look at the next image of people of the same age,
the brain on the left-hand side,
there are some extra gaps between the brain tissue and the skull.
That suggests that person has probably experienced
a bit more shrinkage.
Of course, to test that properly,
we really want to scan the same people multiple times.
Right. OK. That's very striking.
And all these changes are inevitable?
Well, no. Two images.
People of roughly the same age,
but different experiences.
The amount of shrinkage, atrophy, we might experience,
the amount of damage to white matter varies from person to person.
And what we're really interested in understanding then
is what are the lifestyle or behavioural factors
that might predict how well we maintain
our brain health as we age.
And these are the big questions
we'll be exploring throughout the show.
Thank you very much, Alan.
Now, how our lifestyle affects our brain health
and intelligence is one of the hottest areas of research.
There is evidence that,
as our lifestyle has changed down the years,
so has our intelligence.
Hannah, what's the news?
Well, one of the brilliant things about intelligence tests
is that they have been around for a very long time
and that means that we can see how our intelligence
has been changing over time.
And, in fact, it has increased.
Between 1938 and 1979,
British children's IQ scores
increased by nearly ten points
and another four points then from 1979 to 2008.
In fact, the increase has been so much
that they've had to recalibrate these tests a number of times
so that 100 points on an IQ test
is still the average.
So, what's the explanation for this dramatic increase?
Well, a lot's changed in that time, right?
We're eating much better than we were,
our education is better.
but that could be one explanation.
Now, the thing which is striking to me
is there is a bit of a drop-off.
So has it plateaued?
Well, no.
So, this is something that's very intriguing indeed
because, in the 20th century, IQ increased, increased, increased.
But as you hit the 21st century,
it's flattening off and, in some cases, actually declining.
There's one particular study in Norway
that showed that they've lost seven IQ points per generation
for those born after 1975.
Wow, that is scary.
So, what is driving the decline?
Well that, Michael, is the million-dollar question.
And here, on The Great British Intelligence Test,
we wanted to investigate one of the biggest changes in our lifestyles
over the past couple of decades -
the rise of digital technology -
because we have no idea
what it's doing to our brains
or to our intelligence.
Yeah, it definitely has an effect on our brains, surely.
It can kill your attention span.
Computer games could improve your memory.
They are just like time pass and a way to escape from the real world.
I think they could help it in a good way, I would think.
Well, I disagree!
First up, gaming -
a pursuit my kids have dedicated endless hours
of their precious time to.
Could gaming be affecting us?
How about our ability to concentrate,
to hold things in our mind,
our working memory?
Because that is a critical skill
which underpins almost all areas of intelligence.
In the game we're about to play, we're going to be looking
specifically at one aspect of working memory.
To explain more, we're joined by Dr Louise Nicholls
and we'll be coming back to you in a moment, Louise.
We are going to test how your spatial working memory
is affected by gaming.
So, to help us, we have got a team of avid gamers here.
Greg, how much do you play computer games?
A couple hours a night, generally. It's fun. Nice to relax with.
Now, David, you work as a builder
and then, in your spare time, to relax,
play building games.
That is true, yeah.
There's not an angry client on the end of the phone.
Makes a difference! Yeah.
And, Alex, I heard that you describe yourself as a gaming nerd,
which I quite like.
Yeah, a little bit.
I mean, anything that ranges from PC gaming to table top gaming -
the whole spectrum. OK. OK.
Let's go over here to our...to our avid readers.
Helen, I'll start with you.
How much do you tend to read?
Two novels a week. Two novels a week?! I'm a fast reader.
And how about you, Fatima? I'm a bookworm.
I've read a lot in my time.
How about you, Martin?
I read a couple of books a month.
Yeah. I just read when I go to bed.
And how's your memory? I think it's OK, yeah.
OK. Well, we're going to put it to the test.
So, in this game, you can see there's a series of squares
on the floor in front of you.
What's going to happen is these are going to light up
in sequence, like this.
And your job is simply to just stand on these blocks
to match that same sequence.
Now, what we're going to do, we're going to alternate
between gamers and readers.
And every time one of you completes a sequence correctly,
the next sequence for your team-mate is going to be a little bit longer.
So, gamers, off you go.
OK. Good start.
There we go.
Very nice.
OK, Martin, you are also facing four.
Martin hasn't got any time to hang around.
"I know the answer. Why muck about?"
Well done, Martin. Very nice, indeed.
OK. Greg.
Five for you.
Right.
He's smiling.
I was. I'm not sure of the fifth one now.
Oh, no.
No.
So close, so close.
These five, they're hard, aren't they? Five are hard.
OK, Helen, I'm afraid you're facing a five now.
That is tricky. Louise, while they play,
what exactly is "working memory"?
It's essentially short-term memory and it's allowing us
to process and temporarily store information,
just moment to moment.
If anyone's ever walked into a room
and forgotten what they've went in for, which is everyone,
then we know what working memory is.
It's very vulnerable to distraction, actually,
because one of the central components of working memory
is our attention.
So, kind of focusing on the most relevant information for
the task at hand and then also being able to inhibit things
that can possibly distract us.
All right, Alex.
No-one's managed a five.
See how you do.
Is she going to manage it?
Now, number five.
Ahh!
Unlucky. They're tough, they're tough.
Which parts of the brain are involved in this task?
So, rather than being just one specific area,
I think it's best to think about a kind of distributed network
in our spatial working memory.
So, towards the front of the brain,
that's really the attentional component -
so focusing on items, actively rehearsing information -
whereas, towards the back of the brain,
that area is really busy representing those locations
temporarily until we don't need it any more.
How many would you imagine they'd be able to do?
About, typically, four objects
and then they would start to struggle with it.
OK, Martin. Come on.
You were very confident last time with your four. Yeah.
Martin, well done.
That's for the oldies as well.
There you go. Readers, you got a sequence of five correct!
Mostly saved by Martin there,
right at the end. Feeling smug, Martin?
Very, yeah. Yeah. OK.
And, gamers, you only got to four there, which is...
Yeah. Well done, readers.
Tightly fought game but, as a reader, I'm obviously delighted
the readers came out on top.
And I can say to my kids,
"Yep, the time you spent on those games was wasted."
Well, let's see, shall we, Michael?
Let's see.
Because we also have some results from the national picture here.
And it turns out that, when it comes to this kind of game,
Cambridgeshire had the very best in spatial working memory,
while those from Derbyshire, Gloucestershire,
Worcestershire and North Yorkshire - they were a close second.
Oxfordshire, nowhere to be seen.
But we also asked people how often they gamed
and we look to how this compared to their score
on spatial working memory.
And what we found was intriguing
because, on average, those who said that they never gamed at all,
they actually scored much lower on this test.
And, unlike what happened in the studio here,
the more people played computer games, the more likely they were
to be above the national average.
But those who tended to play every day
tended to get the highest scores in this particular game.
Now, I should tell you that the effective age has been removed here.
So, this isn't just that older people play less
so score less.
This is a very clear link to gaming.
Gamers, are you surprised by that result?
I'm gutted that we lost,
but I'm not surprised that it helps working memory.
There you go, Michael. Great news for Tetris fans, huh?
Yeah, but, sadly, I have not played Tetris for over 20 years.
Now, if you want to find that how good your working memory is
and how you compare to others,
go online, to The Great British Intelligence Test website
at the address on the screen now,
and have a go yourself.
So, Louise, sadly for me, actually,
we found that doing gaming seems to be good for at least
this aspect of our memory.
Is this consistent with other studies?
The positive relationship between the amount of gaming
and spatial working memory performance is actually consistent.
There's actually also been controlled experiments conducted
to look at, really, is gaming the cause?
And there's evidence there to suggest that gaming
can improve our working memory.
Does it matter what sort of game you play?
The most reliable findings have come
from high-action video games.
They involve a lot of quick decision making,
navigating around environments, finding visual targets.
OK, so we've got one here.
And what is good for your brain about this?
So, we've got the 3D visual world
that the player's interacting within.
But we also have the 2D map,
which is giving further information
that the player would want to take in.
Moving around quickly,
finding the visual targets
and then maybe switching between weapons and so on.
So, actually, the idea is that they're honing spatial skills
because they're really using them so much and in a very speeded way.
The good news, though, is that it's not exclusively
the high-action games have shown these kinds of effects,
so, actually, even spatial puzzle games, like Tetris,
have also been shown to affect the kind of skills
that are being used heavily within the game.
So, does it also increase skills in other areas?
I think we have to bear in mind that it is quite specific,
so it is within spatial working memory
that we're seeing the benefits.
Another point to make is that we need more research around the topic.
You know, what are the optimal number of hours
that one would spend gaming?
Cos, you know, maybe if it encroaches on sleep
or physical activity, it could go the other way.
OK. Thank you very much, Louise.
So, gaming isn't as bad as I had feared,
but what about other forms of tech use
that are dominating our lives?
In particular, our growing addiction to smartphones
and our reliance on the Internet and social media.
Hannah, what did our study find?
We asked you what devices you used,
how much you use them,
how often you were searching the Internet,
going on social media, online shopping,
streaming, you name it,
and we looked to see whether there was any relationship
between your answers and your results.
And we didn't see any clear link
between aspects of your digital life
and your cognition.
But here is something intriguing,
because we had a look at those of you
who use the Internet excessively, even compulsively,
by which we mean continually checking your e-mails,
looking at the phone after you've gone to bed -
and we can see how that changes with age,
and have a little look at this.
"Internet addiction," if you will, is much more common
in young people
and much rarer in older people.
OK. Perhaps no surprises there!
But we also asked everyone how anxious and stressed they felt,
and here are the results.
Can you see how closely these two track one another?
Now, this is suggesting there's a very strong connection
between high Internet and social media use
and higher levels of anxiety, and this, in particular,
is a really important finding.
It's never been found at this scale before.
That is really impressive.
How does it fit in with other data?
I have Dr Lee Smith with me,
who has been reviewing all the published evidence.
Well, there's quite a large body of literature now
to suggest that excessive Internet use
is associated with poor mental health
and mental health complications -
particularly in adolescents and young people.
And to give you one example,
a study was carried out on a sample of adolescents
and it showed us that those who use social media for five hours a day...
Five? Five hours.
..were 66% more likely to exhibit suicidal behaviour
compared to those who used one hour.
And, actually, I think your findings go some way
to begin to explain this association.
So, why should social media, in particular,
have this sort of really toxic effect?
One point way may be that social media platforms, at least,
always present us with one's best self
and we're always comparing that to our real selves.
So, we may be always making these upward comparisons,
potentially to something which is unachievable and unrealistic.
In addition to that, social media allows us
to quantify our social success
in the terms of number of friends we have, number of followers we have,
the number of likes and shares that we receive.
And, taken together, these two things
are probably driving levels of anxiety and levels of stress.
Thank you very much, Lee.
So, spending less time online, especially social media,
is likely to be a good thing for your brain.
Now, we've been looking at what else you can do to boost your brainpower
and there is some intriguing evidence that being active,
using your muscles a little bit more, could help.
Hannah, come over here, as I need to do a little test with you. OK.
Right, what I'd like you to do is take one of these... Yeah.
..and I will take one of these.
So, what are these? They're basically going to measure
your grip strength. OK.
So, what we're going to do... I know how competitive you are.
Is this just a really convoluted way for you to beat me?
Not at all! OK. Squeeze!
HE STRAINS
Oh. Hang on.
I can do better! OK.
SHE GROANS Right.
What have you got? You got 31.5.
What have I got? 54.2, Michael!
54.2. Exactly. All right. No need to be smug about it.
Right. So, the average for a woman your age is 31.
So, you are just above average.
And the average for a man of my age is 44
and I'm 54.
Well, well done, Michael.
I'm well above average,
there you go, at least as far as my grip strength.
On that thing. On this thing.
What on Earth has hand strength got to do with this though?
Well, hand strength is, surprisingly enough,
quite a good indicator of your overall body strength
and your general level of fitness.
And there's certainly good evidence that being stronger or fitter
may be good for your brain.
So, to find out more, I went to see the latest research in action.
The connection between exercise and the brain has been the subject
of intense study by experts at the University of South Wales.
Nice to meet you, Michael.
Professor Damian Bailey
has been subjecting volunteers to tricky cognition tests
to see what happens to their scores
before, during and after exercise.
So, our participant is pedalling on the bike
and we're doing a Stroop interference test.
A Stroop test assesses how quickly our brains
can process a mismatch in information.
Volunteers have to read the written word
and not be distracted by the conflicting colour.
And what have you found?
We've actually shown that cognitive function,
mental agility, improves whilst he's exercising.
OK. So he's actually doing better on this task while he's doing this
than he would be if he was just sitting on his bottom.
That's right, exactly.
The question is - how does exercise boost the brain?
They believe it's partly due to increasing the blood flow.
We're measuring blood flow to the brain
and blood flow through arteries inside the brain.
And we know that, by getting more blood, oxygen and glucose,
more fuel into the brain,
this can support different areas of cognitive function.
And there's a clever way
that the body makes sure as much blood as possible
gets to your brain when you're exercising.
Exercise boosts levels of a chemical in the blood called nitric oxide.
Nitric oxide makes the blood vessels relax, that's right?
Exactly that.
It allows the blood vessels to relax,
to get that all-important fuel into the brain,
to then support that change in cognition.
Importantly, Damian thinks exercise also helps brain function
by increasing levels of another chemical.
It's called brain-derived neurotrophic factor, or BDNF.
The idea is exercise boosts levels of this chemical,
which is a sort of fertiliser for brain cells.
These are the growth factors that help support...
..growth of new brain cells and new connections in the brain.
If it's making more cells, more connections,
decision making, memory, reasoning...
All of it gets better? All of it gets better.
So, if exercise can improve our brain like this,
does the intensity make a difference?
Damian is comparing high-intensity exercise with moderate.
First, the bike is set to a moderate level of exercise.
Will this be enough to boost brain function?
After ten minutes' cycling and then a short break,
the bike is switched to a harder setting.
It's now time for a bout of high-intensity exercise.
After the blood has been analysed, Damian has the results.
What happened?
This is at baseline.
Here, you can see, at the end of the moderate exercise challenge,
which is a vigorous walk,
we've got a doubling of the amount of nitric oxide.
And then, at the end of the high-intensity challenge,
again, there's a further increase.
And what about the other key chemical, BDNF?
This is a slide of a previous study, from our group,
that has demonstrated Serum BDNF -
brain-derived neurotrophic factor - concentrations,
and you see a very similar profile to the increases in nitric oxide
and to the increases in blood flow to the brain.
So, exercise triggers a complex chemical process
that benefits the brain.
The harder you work out, the better,
but a brisk walk will still help you to stay sharp.
How interesting! Can other types of exercise help as well?
Absolutely. Particularly things like strength training,
yoga, things like that.
Are you saying I've got to go and renew my gym membership?
I am, yes. Oh, OK. All right.
Well, now for something completely different.
One of the areas of results in our test
that I was most interested in was whether we would see
any differences in how men and women performed.
Now, that is certainly a very sensitive area of research,
as you know. You could say that, yeah.
This is an area that's fraught with contention.
Is there a male and a female brain?
I think it's probably very negligible,
the difference between men and women.
Women can do lots of jobs at once - men can't.
I think they kind of handle stressful situations
a lot better than men.
Well, I'm definitely better at parking cars, yes.
With emotional intelligence, I feel that women are more empathetic.
I can be terrible at parking
and I'm pretty emotional as well.
Emotional intelligence is the ability to recognise and respond
to our own and other people's emotions.
So, are women really better at reading them?
Time for a test.
Hannah. Well, let's find out.
Going head-to-head,
we have a team of women versus a team of men.
Guess who I want to win!
Over here, we have our women's team.
Diane, what do you think?
Do you think that men are less good
at things like emotional intelligence?
I think women are much more emotional
and much more in touch with themselves, so yes.
Well, we'll see how you do because you are competing,
of course, against the team of men over here.
OK. Army, I hear that you are a construction worker.
I am, yeah. How good are you at building relationships?
Very good at building relationships,
just as well as I am in the construction game.
Matt, now I understand that you are in politics.
Is emotional intelligence important to have?
Yeah, absolutely. You need to connect with people on the street
and talk to people all the time, so I think it's important that
you have to have that relatability with people.
So, you rate yourself on this task? We'll see how we get on.
Indeed we will. OK.
Now, it is worth noting that, in the national test,
we also had participants who don't identify as either male or female,
and we're going to see all of those results very shortly.
But first, teams,
here is how this game works.
So, you're going to see, on your screens, two faces - like this -
and all you have to do is to decide whether they are expressing
the same emotion or a different emotion.
And I should tell you that, in this game, you're only going to get
a point if you are right when the other team is wrong, OK?
Everyone happy? All right. Let's go.
Gosh. Super quick there from the women's team.
Right.
Nothing to choose between you so far.
Right.
Oh, you've split, you've split.
And the answer is different.
The men edge ahead.
Guys, you're dispelling the myth so far.
Oh, they're split.
Different.
Oh! OK.
It's 1-1. Right.
Nothing to choose between you.
Nothing to choose between the two teams.
Oh, they've split.
And the answer is same.
Oh, the men edge ahead. The men edge ahead.
Oh, they're split.
The men again!
Well done!
Time's up.
OK, everyone get back into your starting positions.
Let's have a look at these scores.
So, overall, the scores are -
three points to the men,
one point to the women.
Gents just edged ahead there,
dispelling any myths about men and emotional intelligence.
How did you find it?
Yeah. Pretty good, actually. Yeah. Yeah, it was easy, to be honest.
Easy? Yeah. Goodness me!
OK, ladies, are you disappointed? Slightly, yeah.
The competitive spirit.
The question is -
how typical are these groups of men and women
that we have in the studio here?
How does the rest of the nation fare
when it comes to reading emotions?
Well, you'll be surprised to hear, southerners,
that those with the highest emotional intelligence
in the country were actually in London -
at least in this test.
Just here. Right there. My home.
And there were some other very interesting results
because, if you have a brother or sister, you are more likely
to score very highly on this -
which I think makes sense -
but also if you owned a cat or dog.
The question is - what about the difference between men and women?
So, when we looked at all 250,000 people across the country -
men, women and those who selected other -
we found that it was also very close indeed
but that, on average, women do outperform
men and other on this particular test of emotional intelligence.
There's a small difference,
but it is, nonetheless, there.
But these weren't the only sex differences that we found
because, when we looked at spatial intelligence,
this is our ability to mentally manipulate images in our minds,
we actually found that the advantage swung the other way.
Again, these numbers are tiny,
but men performed better than average on this test,
women and other below average.
The question is -
why are women and men are wired differently?
To try to answer that question,
scientists at Edinburgh University have been studying
the brains of 5,000 people.
Scans showed that, on average, male brains are slightly bigger.
But as we saw earlier, with Bobby Seagull,
bigger is not necessarily better.
And there is also research looking into the role
that our sex hormones could be playing in our brain development.
But brains and biology are only part of the story.
They're interacting with other important influences,
such as our life experiences and our environment.
In fact, a very telling study,
which evaluated the results from 30,000 children,
found no differences between boys and girls
on a test of spatial ability
until they started school.
So, could the small differences we see
between men and women in these tests
be something that boys and girls learn?
Hannah went back to school to investigate.
Hi, everyone!
ALL: Hi!
These children are seven and eight years old.
Studies suggest that, by this time,
they've started believing boys and girls
are good at different things.
I think boys are really good at science
because they're smarter than girls.
I think girls I think are really good at dance.
What subjects are you good at?
I just like maths. You just like maths? Good answer!
English, cos I'm good at writing.
Yeah. I don't like science because it's too hard.
So, when does this belief
that we have different abilities
start to form?
Some scientists think it begins with play.
Professor Gina Rippon is a cognitive neuroscientist
who's been studying how our brains
are shaped by our early experiences.
I've got some clips here for you.
Hello!
These children are just three and four years old,
which, research tells us, is around the age
they start to become aware of gender.
Generally, they gravitate towards people like them.
If other boys playing with the train
then the boys will go and play with the train
and the girls will go into the kitchen.
If girls don't play with wonderful construction toys
then they don't have the kind of spatial experience,
which will give them more confidence when they start to do
maths and science, for example.
That in adults is one of the biggest areas
where there is a difference, right,
in the ability to manipulate spatial information?
But if you look at what appears to be a sex difference,
a big study done in the States, in spatial skills,
if you then start to ask them,
"So, what type of toys did you play with as a child?
"Do you play video games now?
"What kind of hobbies have you got?"
That trumps the sex difference.
And this doesn't just apply to spatial intelligence.
If boys are deprived of the opportunity for nurturing dolls
and playing in the kitchen
then that will give them a different experience.
Do you think there are some things that women are good at?
Cleaning up and with babies.
Yeah. Do you think that there are things that men are good at?
I think they're good at playing football.
Taking care of their children and stuff.
Yeah, yeah. I agree. I agree, too.
Although gender stereotypes are less common now,
they clearly still exist
and research suggests that they can have a significant effect
on how we perform on certain intelligence tests.
So, is there anything we can do to change them?
There's a very nice study where they took a group of girls,
who were underperforming on spatial tasks,
and they let them play Tetris intensively for about three months.
Those parts of brain, which underpin spatial performance,
changed quite subtly. Physically changed?
Physically changed.
After just three months,
parts of the cortex - the outer layer of the brain -
got thicker and other parts of the brain became more active
when solving a spatial problem.
So, we can actually show how a specific part of the brain,
and a specific function of the brain,
can respond to training and will change behaviour.
There you go then, Michael. You've got no excuse any more.
You can start working on your emotional intelligence right away.
I will start immediately.
He won't. OK.
For our final investigation,
we are looking into one of the things that's crucial
to every aspect of our life -
our ability to communicate, our way with words.
When do you think you're talent as a wordsmith peaks?
Can you turn a phrase better in your 20s or your 70s?
How many words I know is something that should get better
as I get older.
Verbal skills continue to improve into old age.
It probably gets a wee bit worse with age because your memory goes.
Language peaks potentially around your late 20s, early 30s.
I've had to understand new words all my life.
I think 12 to 16 is the best age because, at that age,
you are, like, reading new stuff every day in school.
I certainly don't have the word skills, do I?
Cos I'm running out of them.
To test how age affects our verbal intelligence,
we are going to pit our younger team against our older team again.
OK, older team, last time round didn't go so well for you.
No. Chance for redemption?
Oh, definitely a chance for redemption.
Definitely. Rooting for you guys.
Don't let me down, OK? I hope so.
Now, younger team over here, do you think you've got a chance?
No. No. Not at all.
HANNAH LAUGHS
OK. All right. Well, we'll see, shall we?
Now, in this game, you are going to be presented
with a word and four possible definitions - like this.
You have to pick the definition
that best matches that word.
And, again, you are only
going to get a point here
if you are right when the other team is wrong.
Give it a go. Off you go.
Oh! Just!
Lightning fingers.
Oh! Split of opinion and the older team have it.
Both right again.
Oh, they're split and the older team have it again.
Only two slip-ups so far from the younger team.
Oh, split again.
Hickory.
Oh, the...
The older team, you've dropped a point.
Don't like that!
KLAXON
And that means time is up.
OK, everybody, let's have a little look at our scores here.
It was close, but
the older team, two points. Yay!
You clawed it back. Yay!
1-1 between you. Very good indeed.
But how does all of this compare to the national results?
That's the big question.
Well, again, there were some very interesting things
buried in the data
and, across Britain, by far
the best verbal abilities were up here, in Scotland,
in Midlothian.
We also saw a very strong connection
between verbal intelligence
and how often you read books.
You can see here that people who said that they rarely read
did a lot less well, on average,
than those who spent a lot of their time reading.
But by far the biggest difference on this game was for age.
So, this graph here shows how different age groups performed -
and have a look at this.
The older our participants were, the better they scored.
And what's more, most previous studies showed that verbal abilities
peaked in the 60s.
But here we saw our participants
scoring highly well into their 80s.
And this is a very exciting finding,
and it shows that this is a skill
that really can improve as we get older.
Michael, something you can beat me at!
Yay! Apart, obviously, from the reaction time test
and the strength test as well.
Now, Professor Alan Gow has been studying how our thinking skills
can improve with age.
So, Alan, what's going on?
We talk about our verbal skills as an example
of our crystallised abilities -
these are the abilities that we accrue
through learning and experience.
So, unlike things like our memory,
our problem solving or our speed of thinking,
our crystallised skills may keep developing through midlife
and we may retain them into old age.
Which is extremely encouraging.
Now, our crystallised intelligence can keep improving with age,
but what are the best things we can do
to safeguard our intelligence as we get older?
Well, we're in Glasgow tonight
and, luckily, the Scots can shed some light on that question.
On Wednesday, the fourth of June, 1947,
children aged between 10-11 attending school in Scotland
sat a national intelligence exam.
The exam papers lay undisturbed for years,
until academics at Edinburgh University
came across them in the archives.
The discovery of these IQ tests
raised a fascinating possibility.
If they could track down the children
who'd done the original test
and then retest them, decades later,
then they could see whose IQ score had gone up,
whose down, whose stayed the same,
and that, in turn, might lead them to the keys to successful ageing.
A group of Scots, known as the Lothian Birth Cohort,
retook the very same exam they sat aged 11
over half a century later,
when they were aged 70.
Professor Ian Deary compared the results of both exams
to see how people's brains had aged.
These are the scores from age 11,
which we've plotted along the bottom,
and age 70, which goes up the side,
so each dot represents a person.
That's an average score.
And here's somebody who got an average score in childhood
and in older age.
But some people are getting very low scores in older age
and some people are doing superbly in older age.
So, we have the super agers, if you like, up here.
To find out why some people's brains had aged better than others,
Ian subjected them to tests,
including genetic profiling
and detailed questionnaires about their lifestyles.
There's a small contribution from certain genetic factors
toward how much people change in their thinking skills,
but there's a big slice here that's to do with lifestyle factors.
You can't change what your score was at 11,
you can't really change your genetics,
but you can change your lifestyle.
Ian's research has shown that those who were
consistently physically and mentally active had better thinking skills
in older age,
as did those who had learned a second language.
On the other hand, we're finding that things like
having type-two diabetes,
high blood pressure or smoking
are associated with slightly less good thinking skills.
If one's looking towards healthy living,
it's probably playing the numbers by making sure
you're doing the right thing in a number of areas.
Audrey Innes was one of the participants in this study,
along with Patrick Forsyth.
Impressively, both scored better on the test second time around.
Do you have any theories as to why you're ageing well?
I play golf, but it's getting less, I must admit -
particularly in the winter.
But, come this summer, hopefully I'll be...
Out there again. Yeah.
Are you sporty?
I cycle every day
and I have a very good friend
with whom I do cycling expeditions wherever -
Hungary or France, or wherever.
I always make sure that I'm a little bit au fait with the language.
You've aged well.
It's rather reassuring, isn't it?
Well, it is, yeah. Yeah.
You're not sort of going downhill, you're continuing to go uphill.
So, Alan, I used to think that really, by the time you hit my age,
there wasn't much you could do,
but we realise now that, actually,
the brain is quite plastic, isn't it?
There's certainly evidence growing
that learning or engaging with something new
might help to strengthen or build new connections.
A big study in the States looked at people taking up a new activity,
like quilting, digital photography, learning to use a new technology.
People that speak more than one language
may have benefits for thinking skills and brain health.
There are studies suggesting that learning a new language
at any age might be beneficial.
So, what would your top piece of advice be to keep your brain young?
Physical activity is probably the one
that consistently comes out
as being the most beneficial.
And we mustn't forget that social connections,
social interaction,
or indeed the opposite -
not being lonely - seems to be important for people's brain health.
OK, brilliant. Thank you very much, Alan.
There is so much that we can do to improve our brainpower
and it's important to add that there are lots of things
that intelligence tests can't measure, like personality.
Yes, the most important personality trait, in this regard,
is conscientiousness -
otherwise known as grit -
or old-fashioned hard work.
Studies suggest this can compensate for raw brainpower,
helping to strengthen our weaknesses.
Now, what I've learned is I clearly need to start gaming,
preferably in French,
and that Hannah needs to get down to the gym more.
Maybe in the New Year. If you want to find out how you score
on any of these tests, go online to
The Great British Intelligence Test website.
Thank you so much to our volunteers here in the studio,
to our experts and to every one of you at home
who helped make this
the biggest online intelligence test of its kind ever.
Goodnight. Goodnight.