We like to think our intelligence is self-made; it happens inside our heads, the product of our inner thoughts alone. But the rise of Google, Wikipedia and other online tools has made many people question the impact of these technologies on our brains . Is typing in the search term, “Who has played James Bond in the movies?” the same as knowing that the answer is Sean Connery, George Lazenby, Roger Moore, Timothy Dalton, etc? Can we say we know the answer to this question when what we actually know is how to rapidly access the information? Here the question is about how we seek to define intelligence itself. And the answer appears to be an intriguing one. Because when you look at the evidence from psychological studies, it suggests that much of our intelligence comes from how we coordinate ourselves with other people and our environment. Research shows that people don't tend to rely on their memories for things they can easily access. Things like the world in front of our eyes, for example, can be changed quite radically without people noticing. Experiments have shown that buildings can somehow disappear from pictures we're looking at, or the people we're talking to can be switched with someone else, and often we won't notice – a phenomenon called “ change blindness ”. This isn't an example of human stupidity – far from it, in fact – this is an example of mental efficiency. A memory study by Daniel Wegner of Harvard University provides a neat example of this effect . Couples were asked to come into the lab to take a memorisation test. Half the couples were kept together, and half were reassigned to pair up with someone they didn't know. Both groups then studied a list of words in silence, and were tested individually. The pairs that were made up of a couple in a relationship could remember more items, both overall and as individuals. What happened, according to Wegner, was that the couples in a relationship had a good understanding of their partners. So they would tacitly divide up the work between them, so that, say, one partner would remember words to do with technology, assuming the other would remember the words to do with sports. In this way, each partner could concentrate on their strengths, and so individually they outperformed people in couples where no mental division of labour was possible. Just as you rely on a search engine for answers, so you can rely on people you deal with regularly to think about certain things, developing a shared system for committing items to memory and bringing them out again, what Wegner called “transactive memory”. 1 . What is the right understanding about the intelligence? [ A ] Our intelligence is inherited. [ B ] Intelligence happens inside our heads. [ C ] Other people and the environment influence our brain power as much as our minds. [ D ] Intelligence is the product of our inner thought alone. 2 . What can we infer from Paragraph 3? [ A ] The world in front of our eyes can be changed without people noticing. [ B ] The mind relies on the world as a better record than memory . [ C ] People tend to rely on their memories. [ D ] People believe seeing is believing. 3. What is “change blindness”? [ A ] We are aware of all the changes in front of us. [ B ] Change blindness is related to eye movements. [ C ] When objects change slowly, we may fail to notice the change. [ D ] Great shifts happen in your visual field and you are not aware of these changes. 4 . What is the result of the experiment? [ A ] The couple who shared mental labor did not perform well. [ B ] The couple who shared mental labor performed better, both as a group and individually. [ C ] The couple who shared mental labor performed better only as a group, but not individually. [ D ] The couple who shared mental labor performed better only individually, but not as a group. 5 . What might be the best title for the passage? [ A ] What makes us intelligent? [ B ] How does our mind work? [ C ] How to define intelligence? [D] How to remember efficiently?