Intelligence

intelligence

How do we know intelligence even exists?

Psychometricians specialize in measuring psychological characteristics for intelligence and personality. By using patterns of test scores, they

have found evidence for general intelligence as well as for specific abilities

What is Intelligence?

• Intelligence is an inferred process that humans use to explain the different degrees of adaptive success in people’s behavior

• The mental abilities that enable one to adapt to, shape, or select one’s environment

• The ability to judge, comprehend, and reason

• The ability to understand and deal with people, objects, and symbols

• The ability to act purposefully, think rationally, and deal effectively with the environment

Some Classic Definitions

• Spearman (1904)– A common factor representing abstract reasoning power that

underlies a wide variety of test items

• Binet & Simon (1905)– The ability to judge well, to understand well, to reason well

• Terman (1916)– The capacity to form concepts and grasp their significance

• Thurstone (1921)– The capacity to inhibit instinctive adjustments, flexibly imagine

different responses, and realize modified instinctive adjustments into overt behaviour

Definitions (continued)

• Wechsler (1939)– the aggregate or global capacity of the individual to act purposefully,

to think rationally, and to deal effectively with the environment

• Sternberg (1985)– the mental capacity to automatize information processing and to emit

contextually appropriate behaviour in response to novelty; intelligence also includes metacomponents, performance components, and knowledge-acquisition components

• Gardner (1986)– the ability or skill to solve problems or to fashion products which are

valued within one or more cultural settings

Views, theories and Approaches

• Alfred Binet: A Holistic View– Two assumptions

» Mental abilities develop with age

» The rate at which people gain mental competence is a characteristic of the person and is fairly constant over time

• The factor Analysts: A Multifaceted View– Developed by Charles Spearman

– Proposed that intelligence consisted of 2 kinds of factors: a single “general” factor, g, and numerous specific factors (s1, s2, s3, etc.)

– g factor was the most important; s factors were very specific to particular tests


• The Factor Analysts: A Multifaceted View– Continued by Louis Thurstone– when he applied factor analysis to items making up

intelligence tests, discovered several broad group factors, about a dozen of them

– the seven which have been frequently corroborated are referred to as the primary mental abilities:• verbal comprehension • word fluency • number • space • associative memory • perceptual speed• inductive reasoning


• Contemporary Factor Analysts– Crystallised v/s Fluid Intelligence:

» Crystallised intelligence consists of accumulated knowledge and skills including vocabulary, general information and arithmetic problems

» Fluid intelligence involves the ability to see relationships among stimuli

– The Three – Stratum Theory of Intelligence» represents the structure of intelligence as a pyramid,

with “g” at the top and eight broad abilities in the second stratum, arranged from left to right in terms of decreasing relationship

» Lowest stratum are narrow abilities which result from experience from a particular tasks


• Sternberg’s Triarchic Theory

– Made up of three interacting subtheories» Componential subtheory: spells out the information

processing skills that underlie intelligent behaviour

» Experiential subtheory: highly intelligent individuals process information more skillfully in novel situations

» Contextual subtheory: intelligent people skillfully adapt their information processing skills to fit with their personal desires and demands of their everyday worlds


• Combining Psychometric and Information Processing Approaches

• Combining psychometric and information processing approaches

• Conduct componential analyses of children’s test

• Studies reveal that speed processing, measured in terms of reaction time on diverse cognitive tasks is moderately related to general intelligence and to gains in mental test performance over time


• Gardner’s Theory of Multiple Intelligence

– argues for existence of several relatively independent human intelligences

– defines intelligence in terms of distinct sets of processing operations

– Dismiss the idea of a single overarching mental ability or “g””


• Gardner’s Theory of Multiple Intelligence

– Proposes at least eight independent intelligences:• Linguistic – sensitivity to language, grasp new meanings easily

• Musical – sensitivity to speech and tone

• Logical-Mathematical – abstract reasoning & manipulation of symbols

• Spatial – relations among objects, re-create visual images

• Bodily-kinesthetic – represent ideas in movement

• Personal – sensitivity and understanding of self and others feelings

• Social – sensitivity to motives, feelings, and behaviors of others

• Naturalist – sensitivity to recognize and classify all varieties of animals, minerals and plants

Intelligence Tests

• The Stanford – Binet Intelligence Scale– This test measures understanding and using language, memory, the

ability to follow instructions, and computational skills– For individuals between 2 years of age and adulthood– Measures general intelligence and four intellectual factors: verbal

reasoning, quantitative reasoning, abstract/visual reasoning and short term memory

– Consists of 30 tasks of increasing difficulty– In 1916, first time the concept of “intelligence quotient (IQ)” was used–

Intelligence Tests

• The Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children

– Used for 6 years old to 16 years old

– Offered a measure of general intelligence and a variety of other factors

– Measure two broad intellectual factors: verbal and performance

– 6 verbal and 5 performance subtests yielding 11 separate scores

How well do Intelligence Tests Predict

• Correlational Stabilityo The older the child at time of first testing, the better

the prediction of later

o The closer in time two testings are, the stronger the relationship between the scores

• Stability of Absolute ScoresoMajority of children show substantial IQ fluctuations

over childhood and adolescence

Influences on Intelligence

• Heredity: the more genes people have in common, the more similar they are in IQ

• Ethnicity: black children and children of low socio economic status core lower on IQ tests

• Home environment: overall quality of home predicts language progress and IQ

Education

Intelligence