Intelligence

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Intelligence

• Meredyth Daneman
• PSY100

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What is Intelligence?

• abstract reasoning, problem solving, capacity to
  acquire knowledge
• memory, mental speed, linguistic competence,
  mathematical competence, general knowledge,
  creativity
• sensory acuity, goal-directedness, creativity
• what intelligence tests measure

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Overview

• Nature of intelligence
• Methods to measure intelligence
• Theoretical approaches
• Heredity and intelligence

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Nature of Intelligence

• Functional
• Multi-faceted
• Culturally Defined

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Nature of Intelligence

• Provisionally define intelligence as
• the application of cognitive skills and
  knowledge to learn, solve problems, and obtain
  ends that are valued by an individual culture

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Intelligence Testing

• Intelligence tests are measures designed to
  assess an individuals level of cognitive
  capabilities compared to other people in the
  population

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Intelligence Testing (Galton)

• Sir Francis Galton
• believed building blocks of intelligence are
  simple sensory, perceptual, and motor abilities
• found that these elementary tasks did not
  correlate with much of anything
• pioneering statistician correlation

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Intelligence Testing (Binet)

• Binet
• believed that a true measure of intelligence is
  an individuals performance on complex tasks of
  memory, reasoning, and comprehension
• developed the concept of mental age or mental
  level

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Intelligence Testing

• A childs mental age (MA) indicates that he/she
  displays the mental abilities of a child of that
  chronological age (CA)
• a child with a CA of 5 who can answer questions a
  typical 7-yr old answers, has a MA of 7
• a 5-yr old who can answer the questions expected
  for his/her age but no older, has a MA of 5

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Intelligence Testing (Terman)

• Terman
• revised the scales Stanford-Binet
• intelligence quotient (IQ), a score meant to
  quantify intellectual functioning to allow
  comparison among individuals

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IQ (MA/CA) X 100

• 8yr old performs at level of 12yr old
• (12/8) X 100 150
• 12yr old performs at level of 8yr old
• (8/12) X 100 66
• 12yr old performs at level of 12yr old
• (12/12) X 100 100

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Intelligence Testing (Wechsler)

• Wechsler
• developed test that could be used for adults
• WAIS (adults)
• WPPSI (children)
• verbal and performance subtests
• frequency distribution of IQ scores

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Wechsler Intelligence Scales Verbal IQ
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Wechsler Intelligence Scales Performance IQ
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Frequency Distribution of IQ Scores

• Original IQ formula was useful for assessing
  childrens test performance, but not adults test
  performance
• Wechsler remedied the problem by abandoning
  concept of MA and calculating IQ as an
  individuals position relative to peers of the
  same age on a frequency distribution

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• The scores on an IQ test form an approximately
  bell-shaped curve. The curve shown here
  represents scores on the Wechsler IQ test, with a
  standard deviation of 15 (15 points above and
  below the mean, which is 100).

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The Extremes of Intelligence

• Mental retardation
• IQ less than 70
• about 2 of population
• 75-90 are in mild to moderate range
• (IQ 50-70)
• 10 in severe to profound range
• (IQ below 50)

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The Extremes of Intelligence

• Giftedness
• IQs exceeding 130

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Validity Reliability of IQ Tests

• Validity the ability to assess the construct it
  was designed to measure
• Reliability the ability to produce consistent
  results

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IQ Testing Criticism Controversy

• Lack of theoretical basis
• Are IQ tests culturally biased?
• Are IQ tests valid?

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Approaches to Intelligence

• psychometric approach
• information-processing approach
• multi-component approach

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Psychometric Approach

• The psychometric approach tries to identify
  groups of items in a test that correlate with one
  another in order to discover underlying skills or
  abilities
• Factor analysis a statistical procedure for
  finding patterns of correlations among measures
  in order to identify underlying factors or mental
  abilities

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Identifying a Common Factor

• Sprint Weights Pullups
  Situps
• --------------------------------------------------
  -------------------
• Sprint --- .35 .45
  .41
• Weights --- --- .70
  .52
• Pullups --- --- ---
  .37
• Situps --- --- ---
  ---
• --------------------------------------------------
  --------------------

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Spearmans Two-Factor Theory

• general factor or g-factor
• specific factors or s-factors

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Cattells Theory

• Fluid intelligence
• speed and accuracy for abstract reasoning,
  especially for novel problems (drawing
  inferences, finding analogies, recognizing
  patterns)
• Crystallized intelligence
• accumulated knowledge and vocabulary

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Thurstone seven primary abilities

• word fluency
• comprehension
• numerical computation
• spatial skills
• associative memory
• reasoning
• perceptual speed

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Information-Processing Approach

• tries to understand the processes that underlie
  intelligent behaviour e.g., what is general
  intelligence or g?
• various proposals
• working memory capacity
• retrieving information from long-term memory
• speed of processing (inspection time)

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Theory of Multiple Intelligences (Gardner)

• Seven intelligences
• musical
• bodily/kinesthetic
• spatial
• linguistic or verbal
• logical/mathematical
• intrapersonal
• interpersonal

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Gardner

• Savants
• one island of brilliance
• Prodigies
• extraordinary and generally early developing
  genius in one area, but normal abilities in
  others

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Heredity and Intelligence

• Evidence for Hereditary Influences
• twin studies
• adoption studies

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Heredity and Intelligence

• Evidence for Environmental Influences
• adoption studies
• environmental deprivation enrichment
• generational change (the Flynn effect)

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Flynn Effect

• IQ has been rising steadily over the
  industrialized world since 1930s
• Has to be attributed to environmental factors
• Hypotheses
• reductions in severe malnutrition
• advances in technology (TV, computers, video
  games)
• improved schools, smaller families, better
  educated and informed parents

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Heredity vs. Environment

• individual differences
• vs.
• group differences

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• .