The hypothetical common feature identified by all intelligence (IQ) tests. The concept of general intelligence was developed by Charles Spearman, a British psychologist and statistician. Spearman noticed that students who do well in one subject tend to do well in all school subjects and, conversely, that students who do poorly in one field of study also lag behind in others. He proposed that the general ability to master academic material resulted from superior general intelligence and that specific cognitive talents correlated with overall intellectual superiority. This concept, like many others in the field of psychometrics and intelligence testing, is controversial.