At 8:30 last night, millions of people sat down eagerly in front of their TVs to watch the final of University Challenge. Would Imperial College London beat Corpus Christi College, Cambridge? How would Brandon "the ScowlerA person who gives an angry look." Blackwell, star of Imperial's team, fare against Corpus Christi's ace answerer, Ian "Grandmaster" Wang?

And would anyone remember the capital of Uzbekistan?

Quiz shows have been a staple of TV schedules for decades: University Challenge dates back to 1962. The sight of eager contestants under pressure - increased, in many cases, by enormous prize money - is inherently dramatic.

As well as the shows themselves, the formula has inspired novels, plays, films, and TV dramas - most recently, ITV's Quiz about a case of alleged cheating on Who Wants To Be a Millionaire?

Personalities are an important part of it: Blackwell comes across as brashConfident to the point of rudeness. It may be related to the word "rash", meaning reckless.; Wang as over-enthusiastic. And quizzes can be great levelers - a team that is brilliant at science might lose to one that is strong on sport. In 1980, London taxi driver Fred Housego shot to fame when he replaced a history professor as Mastermind champion.

Part of the attraction is that viewers can also feel incredibly clever if they get an answer before the contestants. The TV shows have encouraged all kinds of other competitions - from board games, such as Trivial Pursuit, to charity quizzes. Online contests have become enormously popular during the coronavirus lockdown: one, the Virtual Pub Quiz, has attracted 175,000 people.

But experts argue that there are different types of intelligence. Professor of psychology Adrian Furnham makes a distinction between "crystallised" intelligence (remembering what you have learnt) and "fluid" intelligence (the ability to analyse and solve problems at speed).

He argues that somebody who had never been to school would do badly on shows that are based on crystallised intelligence, such as University Challenge or Who Wants To Be a Millionaire?, but they might be brilliant at Sudoku because of their fluid intelligence.

Quiz shows also involve keeping cool under pressure, which not all clever people are good at.

Some say, yes, they do. In many respects, they are just like tests at school - which require crystallised intelligence - except that you have a shorter time to give the right response. Sometimes, though, you will be asked a question to which you have never known the answer, in which case you have to make an
educated guess - and that is a test of fluid intelligence.

Others argue that quiz shows simply test a person's ability to recall factual information. Real intelligence is about using your brain in everyday tasks, or at work, that often means identifying a problem and working out a solution to it for yourself, which is far more demanding than being given a question to which there is only one correct answer.