How do we define intelligence in Hong Kong?
New singing superstar Celine Tam may on first look appear to have it, but psychologists say determining level of intelligence is a far more complex task
Child singing prodigy Celine Tam Tsz-kwan is the new heroine of Hong Kong.
The nine-year-old diva wowed television viewers across the world last week with her stunning performance of the classic power ballad My Heart Will Go On for the latest series of America’s Got Talent.
But in Hong Kong, where children face intense pressure to develop intellectually, intelligence is generally measured in terms of academic success, rather than just musical ability.
So, how should we define smart?
Intelligence, in scientific terms, refers to intellectual functioning. Intelligence Quotients, or IQ tests, compare someone’s performance with other people the same age who take the same test. However, as has been widely documented, these tests do not measure all kinds of intelligence, in particular social intelligence.
The Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS) is a type of IQ test that is most commonly used in Hong Kong, according to psychologist Dr Sammy Cheng Kin-wing. The latest version, WAIS-IV, was released in 2008. It has four indexes to measure an individual’s ability:
1. The Verbal Comprehension Index reflects an individual’s ability to understand, use and think with spoken language. It also demonstrates the breadth and depth of knowledge acquired from one’s environment. It measures the retrieval of such information from long-term memory .