The method

How Prism measures intelligence

Not a quiz. Not a number generator. Prism is a 6-domain cognitive assessment built on the most validated framework in psychometric research. Here is exactly how it works.

What we measure

6 cognitive domains, scored independently

Each domain targets a distinct broad ability identified by the CHC model. Six questions per domain. Each 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 20-minute online format by targeting six broad abilities directly.

The result: you see the Prism Score and the six factors that compose it. Not just a number. A shape.

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 20 minutes.

Scoring

How your scores are calculated

Two types of scores. Both grounded in the same psychometric conventions used by clinical instruments 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 calibrated using Item Response Theory (IRT) principles. Each item has a known difficulty parameter, so your domain score reflects true ability rather than luck on any single question. As the norming sample grows, item parameters are refined to improve precision.

Archetypes

16 cognitive archetypes. Yours is already calculated.

Your top two domains combine to form your Prism archetype. Each one describes a distinct cognitive signature with matched careers and interests. There are 15 pairings plus 1 balanced type.

Archetypes are not labels. They are lenses. A shorthand for how your strongest abilities interact, not a box that limits you.

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.

S

Schematic

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.

V

Volt

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.

S

Sage

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.

W

Weaver

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.

L

Lyric

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.

C

Catalyst

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.

A

Abacus

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.

S

Surge

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.

Why only 36 questions?

Six questions per domain, calibrated using Item Response Theory. Each item targets a specific difficulty level. This gives enough signal for a reliable broad-ability estimate in 20 minutes. A full clinical battery uses more items per domain but takes 2 to 4 hours.

Where do the test items come from?

All 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.

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 archetype is determined by your top two domain scores. The 15 possible pairings map to 15 named archetypes, each with matched careers and interests. If your profile is balanced across all six domains, you receive the 16th archetype: Prism.

Is this a clinical diagnosis?

No. Prism is designed for self-insight and entertainment purposes. It uses validated psychometric methodology, but a 20-minute online assessment is not a substitute for a clinical evaluation conducted by a licensed psychologist with a full-length instrument.

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