Intelligence and testing

  1. How to define? Different "intelligences" needed in modern day USA vs. Australian bush
    1. "Lay person’s" defn: (based on surveys with people)
      1. Problem solving ability
      2. Verbal abilities
      3. Social competence
    2. Gen psychologist defn: capacity to understand the world, think rationally and use resources effectively when faced with challenges.
    3. Two factor (Spearman; oldest/widest accepted)
      1. Psychometric approach: measures (quantifies) cognitive abilities or factors thought to be involved in intellectual performance.
      2. 2 factors:
        1. G
          1. General mental ability
          2. Many think this is what intelligence teats measure (modern IQ=g)
        2. S
          1. Specific mental ability
          2. Math, mechanical, or verbal
      3. Disadvantages - Excludes other mental abilities (motor, perceptual, musical, practical, or creative abilities)
    4. Multiple intelligence (Gardner) – 7 kinds at least!
      1. Verbal 
      2. Musical 
      3. Logical mathematical 
      4. Spatial
      5. Body movement
      6. Intelligence to understand oneself
      7. Intelligence to understand others
      8. Disadvantages
        1. Not knowing how many kinds there are
        2. Not having standard measuring techniques to access.
    5. Triarchic (Sternberg)
      1. Analyzes the cognitive steps used in problem solving
      2. Componential
        1. Meta Components: awareness of own intellectual processes
        2. Performance Components: mental operations of skills used in solving problems or processing info.
        3. Knowledge Acquisition Components: gaining new info
      3. Analytic or logical thinking skills (traditional IQ tests)
      4. Problem solving skills (required creative thinking/learn from experience)\
      5. Contextual or Practical thinking skills (adjust & code w/ sociocultural environment)
      6. Disadvantages: only a few tests to measure.
    6. Fluid/crystallized (Cattell)
      1. Fluid: reasoning, memory, information, processing
      2. Crystallized: info, skills, strategies people have learned through experience & can apply in problem solving situations.
  2. Testing
    1. Measuring intelligence
      1. Brain size (Paul Broca) - Some correlation w/ IQ scores, but little practical value
      2. Binet-Simon intelligence scale
        1. Contains items in order of increasing difficulty (measured cognitive ability)
        2. Original to distinguish French "intellectually deficient" children
          1. Ranged from idiots to imbeciles to morons (lowest to highest functioning)
        3. Introduced concept of "mental age"
          1. Compares child’s score to scores of average children of same age
          2. But did not allow for comparison across different chronological ages
      3. Terman’s change (Binet-Stanford)
        1. Replace mental age with IQ: intelligence quotient
        2. IQ= (Mental age/Chronological age) *100
      4. Wechsler 
        1. Wechsler intelligence scale for children (WISC-III)
        2. Wechsler adult intelligence scale—revised (WAIS-R)
        3. 2 parts
          1. Verbal info
          2. Performance: added to measure non verbal skills; rules out cultural or educational problems
    2. Other Kinds of Tests (NOT Intelligence)
      1. Achievement: tests level of current knowledge in a given subject area
      2. Aptitude: predicts ability in a particular area
        1. SATs are supposed to do this, but College Board has acknowledged the problem
        2. Changed "Scholastic Aptitude Test" to "Scholastic Assessment Test"
  3. Problem solving
    1. Four Stages
      1. Preparation: observation, defined elements
      2. Production: rules that seem to govern
      3. Trial: test using your rule
      4. Evaluation: see if your trial worked
    2. Algorithms: specific procedure for solving a certain type of problem will work every time BUT
      1. Must be correct procedure for the task
      2. May take a long time
    3. Heuristics: "Rules of thumb"
      1. Don’t guarantee a right answer, but are faster
        1. EX: analogy (domino theory in int’l relations)
      2. Representativeness heuristic
        1. People make judgments about events according to the populations they appear to represent.
        2. Sample = 6 coin toss, population = infinite coin tosses
      3. Availability: estimates of frequency or probability are based on how easy it is to find relevant events.
        1. Are there more NSYNC or Barenaked Ladies fans?
          1. Your answer is probably based on # you know
      4. Anchoring & adjustment
        1. Inertia in judgment: first estimate serves as cognitive anchor. As we receive add’l info we make adjustments, but tend to remain in same proximity.
        2. Ex: growing up believing a religion or political party is "right"
    4. Framing: the way wording (or context) can influence decision-making.
      1. Ex: Pro life; Pro choice
    5. Factors that affect problem solving
      1. Expertise
      2. Mental Set: tendency to respond to a new problem w/ the same approach that helped solve similar problems.
      3. Insight: Gestalt: perception of relationships among elements
      4. Incubation: stand back from a problem—wait for insight
      5. Functional Fixedness: tendency to view an object in terms of its name or familiar usage
        1. Box of matches, thumbtack, candle—attach to wall
  4. Creativity: ability to do things that are novel and useful
      1. Convergent thinking: narrow in using present facts, on the single best solution to a problem - eg Multiple Choice test
      2. Divergent thinking: free association to generate multiple solutions to problems - eg Essay test
  5. Types of reasoning (transformation of information in order to reach conclusions)
    1. Deductive: conclusions are "deduced" from premises. Conclusions are true if premises are true.
    2. Inductive: reason from particular facts to a general conclusion.
      1. This is liver. I got sick from liver before. Therefore I will get sick from this liver.