HDEV 4110-01SP

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Approaches to the Study of Intelligence

• HDEV 4110-01SP
• Jane Bernzweig, PhD

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Classroom Activity

• Everyday Theories of Intelligence
• What is your definition of intelligence?

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Psychometric approach to the study of
intelligence

• Intelligence is composed of some number of
  factors
• Spearman 2 factors (g and specific) g is
  domain-general and homogeneous), of which g is of
  primary interest
• Guilfords structure-of-the-intellect model
  180 factors organized along three dimensions
  (mental operations, contents, products)
• Thurstone 7 primary mental abilities (verbal
  comprehension, verbal fluency, number, spatial
  visualization, memory, reasoning, perceptual
  speed)
• Cattell a general intellectual factor and 2
  second-order factors, fluid and crystallized
  abilities

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Psychometric Approach

• Most agree on a general factor and lower-level,
  specific skills
• Support for g the positive manifold however,
  correlations may be higher for lower IQ
• Hierarchical model of cognitive abilities
  several specific, highly correlated abilities,
  and a second-order general factor

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Stanford- Binet Test of Intelligence
g (general factor) g (general factor) g (general factor)
Crystallized abilities (Influenced by environment and schooling) Fluid analytic abilities (solving new problems never before seen not influenced by learning or school or environment) Short term memory (ability to retrieve and use memory for a short time and to use it for a current task)
Tests of vocabulary, social convention, number series, building equations Pattern analysis, paper folding and cutting, copying, matrices Memory of sentences, digits, objects
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IQ (intelligent quotient) tests

• Stanford-Binet 15 tests measures g,
  crystallized abilities, fluid analytic abilities,
  short-term memory
• Wechsler Scales (WPPSI, WISC, WAIS) 2 factors,
  Verbal IQ (knowledge of world, similarities,
  arithmatic, vocab) and Performance IQ (block
  design, object assembly, mazes, pic completion)
• IQ initially based on mental age now a deviation
  IQ is used

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Normal distribution of IQ (Bell Curve)
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IQ (intelligent quotient) tests

• Some issues regarding standardized tests
• IQ tests and minority children IQ tests
  standardized for majority children may not
  accurately measure intelligence among minority
  children test administration methods may bias
  results
• Achievement tests and reading comprehension
  performance on reading comprehension portion of
  SAT/ACT. Students not given the passages to read
  performed better than expected by chance and
  often nearly as well as students who had read the
  passage and answered the questions. good guesses

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Information Processing Approach to Intelligence

• Criticism of psychometrics is that tests are
  based on items that discriminate among people and
  not on theory. They dont explain why
  differences occur or what underlies the
  differences
• Basic level processes that are implicated in
  intelligence
• Speed of information processing
• faster processing by older, brighter, nondisabled
  children
• moderate correlations with IQ
• Working memory - correlates with speed and IQ
  may, at least at some ages, have greater
  contribution to IQ than speed of processing

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Information Processing Approach to Intelligence

• Higher level cognitive abilities
• Strategies (ability to plan and anticipate what
  will happen make efficient use of functioning)
• higher and lower functioning children may differ
  in terms of strategy implementation and benefit
• gifted children may possess better nonstrategic
  processes as well
• Knowledge base
• One possible advantage of good readers is a
  better-developed semantic memory, language
  concepts
• In some circumstances the advantage of an
  enriched knowledge base may outweigh the
  advantages of higher IQ
• Metacognition (persons understanding of own
  ability) can you monitor and apply efficient
  strategies? gifted children may have better
  understanding of when to use strategies, when to
  generalize

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Piagetian approaches to the study of intelligence

• Inherently developmental theory unlike the others
• Piaget started out to study the intelligence of
  children with limited ability
• Relationship between Piagetian stage and IQ may
  vary as a function of age, perhaps due to
  developmental changes in the nature of
  intelligence

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Sternbergs Triarchic Theory of Intelligence

• The contextual subtheory (practical)
• Intelligence must be viewed in the context in
  which it occurs
• Three processes
• adaptation (fitting in with the environment)
• selection (choosing an environment for optimal
  development)
• shaping (changing the environment to ones
  advantage)
• Implies that intelligence is to some extent a
  function of the requirements of ones culture
• The experiential subtheory (creativity) how
  prior knowledge influences future performance.
  Ability to deal with novelty and to automatize
  processes

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Sternbergs Triarchic Theory of Intelligence

• The componential subtheory (analytic) problem
  solving recognizing and defining the nature of
  the problem, devising an efficient strategy for
  tackling the problem and then evaluating the
  solution - 3 information processing components
  (metacomponents, performance, knowledge-acquisitio
  n)
• The Triarchic Theory applied to education
• 3 parts of the theory represent three thinking
  styles practical (contextual), creative
  (experiential) and analytical (componential)
  strengths in parts of the system
• Independent subcomponents no g factor
• instruction tailored to childs thinking style
  produces better learning

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Gardners theory of Multiple Intelligences

• Criteria to be an intelligence
• Potential isolation of ability-controlled areas
  of brain by brain damage
• The existence of savants and prodigies
• An identifiable core operation or set of
  operations
• A distinctive developmental history, along with a
  definable set of expert end-state performances
• An evolutionary history and evolutionary
  plausibility
• Support from experimental psychological tasks and
  from psychometric findings
• Susceptibility to encoding in a system

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Gardners theory of Multiple Intelligences

• Multiple intelligences and education
• Supports intellectual assessment only if it
  evaluates all types of intelligence rather than
  just the 2 measured by current tests
• Because intelligences are independent, expect
  differences in ability level for the various
  intelligences

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Multiple Intelligences in Early Childhood
Curricula

• Zero to Three article on assessing intelligences
  in preschool curriculum

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Transactional Approach to Intelligence

• Sameroff and Sameroff and Chandler
• The childs biology organizes the childs
  development and the environment also organizes
  the child
• Applied to parent-child interactions
• SES impacts intelligence SES is highly
  correlated with environments one finds oneself
• Negative effects on intelligence due to
  impairment at birth are obliterated when children
  of same age (impaired and not impaired at birth)
  grow up in middle class homes
• Rameys studies show that children with early
  malnutrition who receive responsive caretaking
  and nutritional supplements have similar IQ
  scores to those same-aged babies who were not
  malnourished. Positive effects on early
  intervention

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Behavior Genetics and Intelligence

• Heritability of a characteristic (how much it is
  influenced by ones genes)
• IQ heritability about .52 based on studies of
  identical and non-identical twins (.86 identical
  twins and .60 for non-identical twins)
• IQ is similar to ones biological parents from
  early childhood until adolescence
• Shared and non-shared environments (siblings
  become less alike as they get older thus
  reflecting influence of non-shared environment)

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Experience and Intelligence

• Virtual twin they are two children reared in
  the same family at the same time but who are not
  identical twins (bio and adopted child only 9
  months apart or 2 adopted children) to look at
  the environmental effects without the strong
  genetic component
• Correlation of IQ for these children is .26 which
  is must less than .86 for identical twins or
  fraternal twins (.60) or bio siblings (.50).
  Shared environments have only a small effect on
  development compared to genetics
• Harmful environmental effects have a strong
  impact on some traits and average or above
  average environments have little impact beyond
  what is contributed by genes (parents need to be
  just good enough)

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Stability of Intelligence

• How likely are you to maintain your intelligence
  or IQ ranking throughout life?
• Suggest a general intelligence that is relatively
  stable throughout life
• Some aspects of intelligence my change
  continuously and show stability while others are
  discontinuous and less stable