ARE YOU SMARTER THAN...

HOW YOUR INTELLIGENCE COMPARES TO THE CLEVER MEMBERS OF THE ANIMAL KINGDOM

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WHAT IS IT THAT MAKES YOU SMART? AT ITS most fundamental level, intelligence is often defined as a person's ability to learn from an experience, understand their environment and complete tasks. The fundamentals of intelligence have been broken down and pored over for hundreds of years, from the emergence of general intelligence, or the g factor, in the late 1800s to more recent explanations of its niche branches.

Harvard psychologist Howard Gardner estimates that intelligence can fall into one of eight different categories. Each category covers the different ways humans process information, including linguistic, musical, naturalistic, spatial and interpersonal intelligence. Any person can have high intelligence in one of these categories, but may struggle in others. Whether you're adept at solving puzzles, retaining information or gauging emotion, all forms of intelligence come from the same place: the brain.

Within your skull is an organ that's so smart, it's the only organ in your body that perceives its own existence and has given itself a name. The average brain weighs around 1.4 kilograms, and it's around 60 per cent fat. The rest consists of water, carbohydrates and proteins.

Grey matter

To process thoughts and feelings and retain information, the brain uses billions of cells called neurons. Neurons work together to form a vast network of active electrical impulses to keep your body ticking.

Memories and cognitive abilities are held in the brain by forming connections of these neurons; the stronger the memory and the more information the neurons receive, the stronger the connection.