Intelligence

1
Intelligence

• Chapter 11

2
What is intelligence?

• Socially constructed whatever society deems
  intelligent
• Two controversies regarding intelligence
• Is intelligence a single overall ability or
  several specific abilities?
• With the tools neuroscience now offers, can we
  locate and measure intelligence within the brain?

3
Psychometric Approach (Factor Analysis)

• Study intelligence by emphasizing analysis of
  products of intelligence, esp. IQ scores
• Charles Spearman (1904, 1927
• Scores on all almost all tests of cognitive
  ability were positively correlated
• g and s
• g was a measure of mental force or intellectual
  power
• Correlations that could not be explained by g or
  s are group factors

4
Psychometric Approach cont.

• L.L. Thurstone (1938)
• Opposed Spearmans theories
• Did not find one dominating g factor
• Found 7 independent primary mental abilities
• Numerical ability
• Reasoning
• Verbal fluency
• Spatial visualization
• Perceptual ability
• Memory
• Verbal comprehension
• Did not deny existence of g, but not as important
  as primary mental abilities

5
Psychometric approach cont.

• Spearman argued that g tells us most of what we
  need to know about a person's cognitive ability
• Raymond Cattell (1963)
• Agreed with Spearman
• 2 kinds of g
• fluid basic power of reasoning and solving
  problems
• Crystallized specific knowledge gained as a
  result of applying fluid intelligence

6
Information Processing Approach

• Analyzes the process involved in intelligent
  behavior rather than test scores and other
  products of intelligence
• What mental operations are required to complete a
  task?
• Relates basic mental processes of perception,
  learning, memory, and cognition to intelligence
• Amount of attention paid
• Processing speed

7
Triarchic theory of intelligence

• Robert Sternberg (1988b, 1999)
• 3 types of intelligence
• Analytical-measured by traditional IQ tests
• Creative intelligence
• Practical intelligence
• Intelligence not just book smarts
• How do you measure this?

8
Multiple Intelligences

• Howard Gardner (1993)
• Focused on how people learn and use symbol
  systems (language, math, music)
• Does not require same abilities and processes
• 7 specific intelligences (1998)
• Use several sources to measure intelligences that
  cannot be assessed by standard tests
• Allows all people to be highly intelligent in
  some area
• Critics argue that some of the intelligences
  tested have nothing to do with the concept of
  intelligence

9
Emotional Intelligence

• Nancy Kantor and John Kihlstrom (1987)
• Social intelligence ability to comprehend social
  situations and manage oneself successfully
• Emotionally intelligent people are self-aware
• Can effectively manage their emotions and
  impulses
• MEIS developed to assess emotional intelligence
  and its components
• Ability to perceive emotions, understand emotions
  and regulate emotions

10
Diversity in Cognitive Abilities
11
Creativity

• Ability to produce new high quality ideas or
  products
• How is this assessed? The Consequences Test
• Divergent thinking
• Components that make up creativity
• Expertise
• A set of creative skills
• Motivation to pursue creative production for
  internal reasons
• Adventuresome personality
• Creative environment
• Is creativity genetic?

12
Is Intelligence Neurologically Measureable?

• Correlation b/t brain size and intelligence
• Can this correlation be made? Why/Why not?
• Processing Speed
• Earl Hunt (1983)
• How fast you retrieve info from memory
• Perceptual speed
• Neurological speed

13
Assessing Intelligence

• Aptitude vs. achievement tests
• Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS)
• Includes 14 subtests
• 7 measure verbal skills 7 measure performance
  skills

14
Test Construction

• Have two major advantages over interviews and
  other means of evaluation
• Standardization
• Summarized with a score
• Allow for the calculation of norms
• To determine the value of test, reliability and
  validity most important

15
Test Construction cont.

• Reliability
• Degree to which a test can be repeated with the
  same results
• To determine reliability, compute correlation
  coefficient
• Validity
• Make sure the test predicts what it is supposed
  to predict
• Must have content validity
• Criterion-related validity (predictive validity)