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Intelligence testing emerged in response to social scientists’ desire to measure mental capacity systematically at the turn of the 20th century. American psychologist and social worker Samuel Calmin Kohs (1890–1984) developed the Kohs Block Design Test, which assesses non-linguistic facets of intelligence, like spatial reasoning and motor skills. In one section of this book, Kohs discusses the then recently dispelled concept of a physical and mental “criminal type,” citing studies that used intelligence testing to determine that prisoners had similar mental abilities to the general population and found no correlation between the prisoners’ physical attributes and psychodiagnostic test results.

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