Exam performance is not just down to IQ. Emotional Intelligence is also important according to a new study that investigated the relationship between emotional intelligence and educational achievement. This means that teaching children to understand and manage their emotions may help them academically. The findings were presented at The British Psychological Society’s Education Section Annual Conference on the 1st of November.

More evidence that intelligence can be enhanced has been published in the open-access journal PLoS ONE. The research shows that as well as increasing the ability to a make fine judgements between sounds and improving finger dexterity, playing a musical instrument improves scores on verbal ability and pattern recognition; skills that are not normally associated with music.

Way back in June, we featured a piece of research which showed that fluid intelligence can be improved by training working memory. In that study the researchers used specialised training tasks, such as "dual n-back training". Now a new study has found that simply using internet search engines may improve intelligence.

Most people prefer to have their rewards immediately, rather than have to wait for them, but would what if the rewards of the future are greater than the rewards available now - would you be prepared to wait? What if you were offered £20 now, or you could wait and have £100 in six months time - what would you choose? Being able wait for more valuable rewards is associated with higher intelligence, and now researchers believe they have found a region of the brain that is involved in both intelligence and what psychologists call "delay discounting" - the inability to resist the temptation of a smaller reward in lieu of recieving a larger reward at a later date. Discounting future rewards too much is a form of impulsivity, and an important way in which we can neglect to exert self-control.