The method

How Prism measures cognition × personality

Prism doesn’t pick between an IQ test and a personality assessment — it runs both and combines them into one profile. Six cognitive domains scored on the deviation-IQ scale (Cattell-Horn-Carroll), the Big Five scored on T-scores (IPIP-NEO-60), and a single archetype + variant that lives at the intersection. Most products in this category measure half. Prism measures the shape that emerges when both halves run together.

What we measure

6 cognitive domains, scored independently

Each domain targets a distinct broad ability identified by the CHC model. The bank holds 285 cognitive items across the six domains; your run draws an adaptive subset. Each domain is scored on its own scale. No averaging until the very end.

Gf

Pattern Recognition

Fluid Reasoning

The ability to identify regularities, logical rules, and abstract structures in novel information. Pattern recognition underpins inductive reasoning, series completion, and matrix problems. In Prism, this domain uses progressive matrix items inspired by public-domain Raven-style tasks.

Gc

Verbal Reasoning

Crystallized Intelligence

Depth and breadth of acquired knowledge expressed through language. Verbal reasoning covers vocabulary, analogies, and logical deductions from written premises. Prism tests this through analogy completion and verbal classification items.

Gv

Spatial Reasoning

Visual-Spatial Processing

The capacity to generate, retain, and transform mental images. Spatial reasoning underlies mental rotation, paper folding, and perspective-taking. Prism items derive from public-domain Shepard-Metzler rotation paradigms.

Gsm

Working Memory

Short-Term Memory

Holding and manipulating information in active awareness under time pressure. Working memory is the cognitive bottleneck that limits complex reasoning, multitasking, and learning speed. Prism uses digit-span and n-back style items.

Gq

Numerical Reasoning

Quantitative Reasoning

Facility with numerical concepts, quantitative relationships, and mathematical operations. Distinct from fluid reasoning because it draws on learned numerical schemas. Prism tests number series, proportion reasoning, and quantitative logic.

Gs

Processing Speed

Processing Speed

The rate at which simple cognitive tasks are performed accurately under time pressure. Speed influences timed performance across all other domains. Prism measures this through rapid symbol matching and comparison tasks.

The science

Cattell-Horn-Carroll theory

In 1993, John Carroll published a meta-analysis of decades of factor-analytic research on human cognitive abilities. His three-stratum model merged with the earlier Cattell-Horn fluid/crystallized framework to form what researchers now call CHC theory.

CHC is the most widely validated structural model of intelligence in modern psychometrics. It distinguishes between a general factor (g) at the top, a set of broad abilities in the middle stratum, and dozens of narrow abilities beneath those.

Clinical instruments like the WAIS-IV, WJ-IV, and SB-5 already use CHC as their structural backbone. Prism brings that same framework to a ~25-minute online format by targeting six broad abilities directly.

Your final report includes both the composite Prism Score and the six factor scores that compose it, so you can see the overall figure and the underlying shape at the same time.

The three-stratum hierarchy

III

Stratum III: General Intelligence (g)

The overall factor that correlates across all cognitive tasks. Traditional IQ tests estimate g with one number. It explains roughly half the variance in any single cognitive task. The other half belongs to the levels below.

II

Stratum II: Broad Abilities (Gf, Gc, Gv, Gsm, Gq, Gs)

Six semi-independent channels through which general intelligence operates. Two people with identical g can have wildly different profiles at this level. This is what Prism measures.

I

Stratum I: Narrow Abilities

Dozens of specific skills that cluster under the broad abilities. For example, under Gf sit induction, general sequential reasoning, and quantitative reasoning. A full clinical battery would measure these individually. Prism focuses on the broad level for practical insight in about 25 minutes.

Scoring

How your scores are calculated

Cognitive scores use the deviation-IQ scale (M=100, SD=15). Big Five scores use T-scores (M=50, SD=10) from the IPIP-NEO-60 inventory. Both are the same psychometric conventions clinical instruments have used since 1955.

%

Percentile Scores (per domain)

Each of the 6 domains receives a percentile rank from 1 to 99. A score of 74th means you outperformed 74% of the norming sample on that specific ability.

Percentiles are normed against the Prism test-taker population and recalibrated as the sample grows. They tell you where you sit relative to others on each individual dimension.

This is where the shape of your profile comes from. Two people who score the same Prism Score can have completely different percentile patterns across the six domains.

IQ

Deviation IQ (Prism Score)

Your Prism Score uses the deviation IQ formula developed by David Wechsler in 1955. The scale is set to a mean of 100 and a standard deviation of 15.

A Prism Score of 115 means you scored one standard deviation above the mean. 130 is two standard deviations above. About 68% of the population falls between 85 and 115.

The composite is a useful summary, but the profile underneath is where the real information lives. Prism gives you both.

Item calibration

Individual questions are weighted by difficulty, so your domain score reflects ability rather than luck on any single question. Full Item Response Theory calibration (2PL: empirical difficulty and discrimination per item) lands at N=500 real takes. Current reliability estimates and the Spearman-Brown math behind the error bars are documented in the public methodology doc at the repo root.

Archetypes

16 archetypes × 2 personality variants. Yours is already calculated.

The combination of your top two cognitive domains and your Big Five pattern is what locks you to a Prism. Cognition picks the archetype family (15 spike pairings + 1 balanced "Prism" for fully balanced profiles); your dominant Big Five trait then picks one of two personality variants withinthat archetype. Same Pattern + Verbal cognitive shape can land as Oracle · The Herald or Oracle · The Sage depending on whether your Extraversion sits high or low.

That two-axis model is the entire point of Prism. Cognitive tests on their own miss the personality flavour; personality tests on their own miss the cognitive shape. Treat your archetype as a lens on how your specific brain — cognitive ability and personality together — actually behaves, not as a fixed category.

O

Oracle

PatternVerbal

You saw the answer before the question finished.

You decode systems through language and logic simultaneously. While others are still reading the room, you have already mapped the argument, found the flaw, and predicted what comes next. People mistake your certainty for arrogance until you are right again. Your mind does not process information in sequence. It collapses the whole picture at once, and the words to explain it arrive almost instantly. You are the person others come to when they need someone to cut through noise and say what is actually happening.

D

Daedalus

PatternSpatial

You think in blueprints the rest of us can not see.

You build entire architectures in your mind before your hands ever move. Patterns and space collapse into one sense for you. Structures reveal themselves like hidden images in static. You do not solve problems the way other people do. You see through them, rotating the whole thing in your head until the answer is just obvious. This is why people call you a natural. You are not. You are doing something genuinely different, and it is rare.

C

Crucible

PatternWorking

Your mind holds the chaos and finds the signal.

You juggle moving pieces while simultaneously decoding what they mean together. Where others lose the thread, you are weaving it into something new. Your brain is a live feed with its own pattern-matching overlay running in the background. Most people can either hold a lot of information or find patterns in it. You do both at the same time, and that combination is genuinely uncommon. In high-stakes, fast-moving environments, you are the calm one. Not because you feel calm, but because your mind is already three moves ahead.

Q

Quant

PatternNumerical

Numbers do not lie. But only you hear what they are saying.

You collapse raw data into insight faster than anyone in the room. Sequences, anomalies, hidden structure in the noise. Your mind runs the math and the meta at the same time. You do not just crunch numbers. You interrogate them. Where others see a spreadsheet, you see a story with missing chapters, and your brain fills them in before you have consciously decided to try. This is not just analytical skill. It is a kind of numerical intuition that most people will never develop no matter how long they study.

H

Hermes

PatternProcessing

First to see it. First to move.

You recognize what is happening and act on it before anyone else even registers the shift. Speed without accuracy is reckless. Accuracy without speed is useless. You have both, and it is terrifying to compete against. Your pattern recognition fires so fast that it looks like instinct, but it is not. You are processing real information in real time, just at a speed that makes other people feel like they are watching a replay. In competitive environments, you do not just have an advantage. You are the advantage.

A

Athena

VerbalSpatial

You explain what others can only feel.

You think in dimensions most people can not articulate and then translate it into language that lands. Abstract ideas become vivid in your hands. You are the one who makes the complex feel obvious, but only after you explain it. Before that, people did not even know they were confused. Your gift is not just understanding. It is the bridge you build between understanding and communication. You see the shape of an idea and find the exact words that make someone else see it too.

S

Sherlock

VerbalWorking

You hold the whole argument in your head and find the crack.

You maintain entire chains of reasoning in real time, probing for the weak link while everyone else is still on step two. Debates, negotiations, complex problems. You do not just participate. You orchestrate. Your working memory keeps the full map of an argument alive while your verbal reasoning finds the fault line. This is why people feel outmatched when they disagree with you. It is not that you are louder or more aggressive. It is that you are tracking every thread they have forgotten they introduced.

M

Maestro

VerbalNumerical

Part poet, part proof. All signal.

You move between language and logic like they are the same discipline. You can build an argument from data and make a dataset tell a story. Most people live in one world. You are fluent in both. This is rarer than it sounds. The analytical mind and the verbal mind usually compete for dominance. In you, they cooperate. You do not just analyze and then explain. You think in both registers simultaneously, and that gives you a kind of intellectual flexibility that makes you dangerous in any room where decisions get made.

P

Prometheus

VerbalProcessing

The perfect response, every time, before anyone else has one.

You process language at a speed that makes conversation feel like your native sport. The comeback, the pitch, the reframe. It is already loaded before the other person finishes talking. You do not think on your feet. You were already there. Your verbal processing speed is not just fast. It is fast and precise, which is the combination that separates you from people who simply talk a lot. You are the person who names the thing everyone was thinking, and you do it before the moment passes.

A

Atlas

SpatialWorking

You hold the whole map in your head while everyone else checks theirs.

You maintain complex spatial models in working memory while simultaneously manipulating them. Environments, systems, structures. You carry the blueprint and edit it live. It looks like instinct. It is actually architecture. Your mind holds the full state of a spatial system and runs operations on it in real time. This is why you are the person who never gets lost, who always knows where things are, and who can reorganize a physical or virtual space in your head faster than most people can do it on paper.

F

Forge

SpatialNumerical

You build things that should not exist yet.

You combine dimensional thinking with quantitative precision to engineer what others can only imagine. Models, machines, structures, worlds. You do not just design them. You calculate them into existence. Your mind runs geometry and arithmetic in the same operation, which means you do not just know what something should look like. You know what it can withstand, how it will behave, and where it will fail. This is the cognitive profile of people who build things that last.

P

Phantom

SpatialProcessing

You read the space before anyone else enters it.

You process physical and spatial information at a speed that borders on precognition. In any environment, you have already mapped the layout, the exits, and the angles before conscious thought catches up. Fast and dimensional. Your spatial processing is not just accurate. It is immediate. You walk into a room and your brain has already built the model, assessed the geometry, and filed the relevant details. This is why you are supernaturally good in physical, fast-moving environments. Your body trusts your brain, and your brain delivers before anyone else's even starts.

P

Pythagoras

WorkingNumerical

Your mind is a live calculation most people need a spreadsheet for.

You hold multiple numerical threads in active memory and process them simultaneously. Mental math, probability, cascading variables. Your working memory does not just store the data. It runs it. While other people reach for a calculator, you have already arrived at the answer and started on the next problem. This is not about being good at math. It is about your working memory and numerical reasoning operating as a single fused system. You process numbers the way most people process language: fluidly, naturally, and in real time.

M

Maverick

WorkingProcessing

Accurate under pressure is your default setting.

You make fast decisions with full context because your working memory keeps pace with your reflexes. Where others freeze or fumble, you have already processed, prioritized, and moved. Pressure does not slow you down. It wakes you up. Your combination of working memory and processing speed means you do not sacrifice context for speed or speed for context. You hold the full picture and you act on it immediately. This is the cognitive profile of people who are built for crisis, competition, and anything where the clock is the enemy.

A

Apex

NumericalProcessing

You calculated the odds before anyone else saw the bet.

You process quantitative information at a speed that makes real-time decisions look effortless. Markets, games, crises. Anywhere that rewards fast numerical judgment, you have an edge most people can not train into. Your mind prices risk, calculates probability, and updates the model in real time while other people are still trying to figure out which numbers matter. This is not just being good with numbers. It is being fast with numbers, and that combination is what separates people who react to outcomes from people who anticipate them.

P

Prism

Balanced across all domains

You do not have a spike. You are the spike.

You tested balanced across every cognitive domain, which is rarer than dominating one. You do not specialize because you do not need to. Whatever the situation demands, you match it. Specialists envy your range. Generalists envy your depth. Most people are shaped like a spike. One or two cognitive strengths that define how they move through the world. You are shaped like a sphere. Every direction is available to you, and you choose your orientation based on what the moment actually needs. This is not being average at everything. It is being genuinely capable at everything, and that is one of the rarest cognitive profiles that exists.

Common questions

Is this based on real science?

Prism is built on the Cattell-Horn-Carroll model, the most widely validated structural framework for cognitive abilities in psychometric research. The 6 domains map directly to CHC broad abilities (Gf, Gc, Gv, Gsm, Gq, Gs). Scoring uses the deviation IQ formula developed by Wechsler in 1955.

How is this different from a traditional IQ test?

Traditional online IQ tests give you one number. That number collapses 6 distinct abilities into a single average. Prism scores each domain separately and then computes the composite. You see the total and the shape underneath it.

How long is the test?

About about 25 minutes. The bank holds 345 items - 285 cognitive across six domains plus the full 60-item IPIP-NEO-60 Big Five inventory. Your run draws an adaptive cognitive subset and the full personality block, which lands at roughly 90% per-domain reliability without the fatigue drop-off of a clinical battery. Paying unlocks the full Prism profile content (domain percentiles, career matches, pairs-with analysis, development directions), not more items. If you want to tighten your error bars further, optional free Accuracy Boosters after purchase add items on demand. A full clinical battery uses more items per domain and takes 2 to 4 hours.

Where do the test items come from?

Cognitive items are original or derived from public-domain methodologies: Raven-style matrices for pattern recognition, Shepard-Metzler rotation paradigms for spatial reasoning, Army Alpha-derived verbal analogies, digit-span and n-back tasks for working memory, and timed symbol-matching for processing speed. Personality items are the verbatim IPIP-NEO-60 inventory (Goldberg / Johnson), pulled from the public-domain International Personality Item Pool.

What is a percentile score?

A percentile tells you what percentage of the norming sample you outperformed on a given domain. A score of 82nd percentile means you scored higher than 82% of people on that specific ability. Percentiles are normed against the Prism population and updated as the sample grows.

What is a deviation IQ?

A deviation IQ places your composite score on a scale with mean 100 and standard deviation 15. About 68% of people fall between 85 and 115. A score of 130 means you are two standard deviations above the mean. This is the same formula used by the WAIS, Stanford-Binet, and most clinical instruments.

How are archetypes determined?

Your cognitive spike pattern fixes the archetype family - the shape of where your domain scores peak. Your Big Five scores then resolve which of the two personality variants within that family fits you. There are 15 spike-driven archetypes plus a 16th, Prism, for profiles that come in genuinely balanced across all six domains.

Is this a clinical diagnosis?

No. Prism is designed for self-insight and entertainment purposes. It uses validated psychometric methodology, but a ~25-minute online assessment is not a substitute for a clinical evaluation conducted by a licensed psychologist with a full-length instrument.

Can my Prism change?

Yes, if you take more items. Your first test gives you a Prism with honest error bars. If you're on a boundary, optional free Accuracy Boosters after purchase can refine it. More data = more precision. Full math on the methodology page.

Why do I see error bars?

Because that's how measurement actually works. Most IQ tests hide their precision behind a single number. We show yours. A tighter error bar is not a higher score - it's a more confident estimate.

Confidence you can see

Every result ships with its own error bars

Most IQ tests hide their precision behind a single number. We don’t. Every Prism result shows you exactly how confident the measurement is - and what you can do to tighten it.

Error bars on every domain

The radar draws a 95% confidence interval around each of your six domain scores. A user whose CI spans 108 to 124 genuinely has that range of possible true scores. A tighter bar is not a higher score - it is a more confident estimate.

A confidence bar on your type

Your Prism type is assigned with a Monte-Carlo confidence probability: high, medium, or exploratory. If your profile is genuinely balanced or boundary-close, the label tells you that - rather than hiding it behind a confident-sounding single answer.

Free Accuracy Boosters

After you unlock your full profile, you can opt into free booster rounds: 12 items at a time, up to 3 rounds. Error bars tighten with each round. If you were on a boundary, your Prism can sharpen into a more precise type - by design, not by accident.

The Spearman-Brown math behind the error bars, the Monte-Carlo procedure behind the type confidence bands, and the 0.70 / 0.85 cutoffs are fully documented in the public methodology doc at the repo root.

The framework

Cattell-Horn-Carroll

Prism’s cognitive scoring uses CHC theory — the dominant model of cognitive abilities in modern psychometrics, used by every major clinical instrument from WAIS to Woodcock-Johnson. Six broad abilities feed your composite Prism Score:

  • Pattern Recognition (Gf) — fluid reasoning, novel problem-solving
  • Verbal Reasoning (Gc) — crystallised knowledge, language fluency
  • Spatial Reasoning (Gv) — visual-spatial manipulation
  • Working Memory (Gsm) — short-term encoding and manipulation
  • Numerical Reasoning (Gq) — quantitative knowledge
  • Processing Speed (Gs) — efficient symbol manipulation under (untimed) load

Each domain contributes to your composite weighted by its relationship with general cognitive ability — Pattern Recognition is the strongest signal, Processing Speed the weakest.

Domain weights (g-loadings)

CHC research consensus values, not ours. These are the correlations between each broad ability and general cognitive ability across decades of factor-analytic studies.

  1. Pattern Recognition (Gf)0.85
  2. Verbal Reasoning (Gc)0.78
  3. Spatial (Gv)0.72
  4. Working Memory (Gsm)0.70
  5. Numerical (Gq)0.65
  6. Processing Speed (Gs)0.55

Calibration

Where the numbers come from

Most online tests give you a number with no reference to who or what it was calibrated against. Prism is different.

Our verbal item bank is calibrated against an N=12,173 sample (VIQT — public-domain item analysis with item-level p_correct and discrimination per question). Items where the wrong answers were too plausible — items that don’t actually separate high-ability from average — were dropped. Items at the elite tier sit in the 0.50–0.65 difficulty band: hard enough that the average taker gets them wrong, but not so impossible they’re noise.

Other domains (Pattern Recognition, Spatial, Working Memory, Numerical, Processing Speed) are seeded with public-domain banks (MaRs-IB, ETS Kit, PsyToolkit) and recalibrated against Prism’s own population once we hit N=500.

The scale

What your Prism Score means

The Prism Score scales like a deviation IQ — mean 100, standard deviation 15. So 100 is the population average. 115 is one standard deviation above (top ~16%). 130 is two standard deviations above (top ~2%). 140+ is the rare-air band — and tests under 90 minutes can’t reliably tell 140 apart from 145 or 150. We cap our display at 140+ for that reason. We don’t claim precision we don’t have.

An honest correction

Self-selection, adjusted for

People who take online cognitive tests aren’t a random sample of the population. They tend to score about 4 points higher than the general population on validated clinical tests like the WAIS-III. We adjust for this — your displayed Prism Score is corrected by −4 against the raw norm, so the number you see lines up with what a clinician would measure.

Most online tests don’t disclose this. We do.

Bands, not points

Why we show a band, not a point

A 12-item domain test has a 95% confidence interval of roughly ±13 points. The composite (across all six domains) is tighter, around ±9 points.

So if your verbal Prism Score reads 128, the truth is somewhere between 115 and 141 with 95% confidence. The point estimate is your most likely value, but a single test can’t pin it down more precisely than that. Re-take, take more items, and the band tightens.

We show the band because hiding it would be lying about precision.

Built for different brains

Why Prism works for neurodivergent takers

Prism doesn’t show a clock. No question is ever “failed” because you took too long. Slower thoughtful answers don’t penalize you on the same item.

We do measure response time as one input to scoring (because it’s part of how cognitive ability shows up in real life), but it’s never a fail-state. This makes the test work better for ADHD and autistic takers — and for everyone else, frankly.

Ready?

See your 6 scores

about 25 minutes. 6 domain scores, a composite, your Big Five, and your Prism archetype with its personality variant. Free, no card required.

Start the free test

No credit card. Instant results.