High Abilities at Fluid Analogizing: A Cognitive Neuroscience Construct of Giftedness

Abstract

Gifted intelligence is underpinned by those aspects of neural function that enable an enhanced facility to engage in fluid analogizing: a cognitive-level construct that describes intermodule information articulation within the brain. Evidence for this claim comes from a program of neuroimaging investigations of the neural underpinnings and IQ correlates of fluid analogizing coupled with theoretical modeling of high creative intelligence that contextualizes fluid analogizing within related executive neural functions. In particular, a gifted person's high ability at fluid analogizing as a cognitive process enables his or her more efficacious working memory, the most critical consequence of high-level prefrontal cortical functioning.