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Cognition: Thinking, Intelligence, and Language

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Title: Cognition: Thinking, Intelligence, and Language


1
Cognition Thinking, Intelligence, and Language
  • Chapter 8

2
What is Cognition?
  • Another word for thinking
  • The mental activity of processing information.
  • One way we think is by using mental images.
  • Mental representations that have a picture-like
    quality to them.

3
Concepts
  • Another way we think is in concepts.
  • Ideas that represent a class or category.
  • Are organized at different levelsfrom more
    general to more specific.
  • Superordinate concepte.g., vegetable
  • Basic level typee.g., potato
  • Subordinate concepte.g., orange sweet potato
  • We have prototypes of our most common concepts.
  • E.g., to us, a carrot is a prototypical vegetable.

4
Confirmation Bias
  • A barrier to logical thinking.
  • We tend to search for evidence that confirms or
    fits with beliefs that we already have, and
    sometimes ignore things that dont confirm our
    beliefs.

5
What is Intelligence?
  • Intelligenceability to learn from experience,
    solve problems, and use knowledge to adapt to new
    situations.
  • Intelligencea concept. Can we measure it
    directly?
  • We make decisions about intelligence levels based
    on intelligence tests, which give us numerical
    scores.

6
Origins of Intelligence Testing
  • Intelligence testing began with Alfred Binet, a
    French psychologist, late 1800s.
  • Set out to measure mental age, compare it to
    chronological age. Average 9 year-old has mental
    age of 9, above average 9 year-old would have
    mental age of 11, for example.

7
Origins of Intelligence Testing
  • Terman, a Stanford University professor,
    re-normed Binets test for American kids, created
    the Stanford-Binet (still used).
  • Terman promoted the use of testing in support of
    the eugenics movement, wanted to discourage
    mentally dull people from reproducing.
  • Also began the first mass use of such tests,
    evaluating recruits in WWI and immigrants.

8
Concept of IQ
  • IQ means intelligence quotient
  • Most tests today dont compute IQ in this sense.
    Instead, score on an intelligence test is
    calculated by comparing test-taker to others
    their own age.
  • The average is still 100, with standard deviation
    of 15. This means that most people achieve
    scores between 85 and 115.

9
Modern Tests of Intelligence
  • Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS) is the
    most commonly used test of intelligence today.
  • Consists of 11 subtests that test both verbal and
    performance abilities.
  • There is also a Wechsler Intelligence Scale for
    Children (WISC).

10
Test ConstructionValidity
  • Validity is the extent to which a test measures
    what it is supposed to measure this can be
    assessed in variety of ways.
  • Content validity is the extent to which test
    samples the behavior that is of interest (driving
    test samples driving behavior).
  • Predictive validity is the extent to which a test
    predicts the behavior it is designed to predict
    a correlation b/w the test (SAT) and a given
    criterion (college grades).

11
Test ConstructionReliability
  • Reliabilityextent to which a test yields
    consistent results.
  • Can be assessed by looking at consistency on two
    halves of the tests, alternate forms of the test,
    or people taking the test two different times.
  • On something like a WAIS, the reliability is high
    (.90 or so) test-retest reliability should be
    high, because intelligence should not change
    dramatically.

12
Test Construction Standardization
  • Standardizationprocess of making scores
    meaningful by comparing them to the scores of a
    standardization group or norm group.
  • Your score on an intelligence test doesnt mean
    much unless we can compare it to the scores of
    others your age and see whether you are average,
    above average, or below average.

13
Test Construction Standardization
  • Standardized test results usually form a normal
    distribution, or normal curve. Most scores
    cluster around the mean, fewer scores as you move
    out to extremes.
  • On intelligence tests, mean is 100 and standard
    deviation is 15. This means that 68 of people
    are between 85 and 115, 96 between 70 and 130.

14
Flynn Effect
  • Tests such as the WAIS are periodically
    restandardized, so when you take it today you are
    compared to a norm group from a few years ago,
    not the 1930s.
  • Each time test is restandardized and compared to
    the original sample from 30s, we find that
    intelligence test performance is improving
    steadily.
  • This is called Flynn effect after man who
    discovered it. Causes?

15
Bias in Testing?
  • To determine if intelligence tests are biased,
    you have to define what type of bias you are
    talking about.
  • Intelligence tests do detect not only innate
    differences, but those differences caused by
    differing cultural experiences.
  • Often, when people ask if tests are biased, they
    are asking if the test is less valid for use with
    some groups than with others.

16
Bias in Testing? (continued)
  • In this sense, intelligence tests and other
    aptitude tests (like the SAT) are not biased
    they do not have better predictive validity for
    one group than for another.
  • In other words, if an intelligence test score of
    95 or an SAT score of 900 predicts a C
    grade-point average, that prediction holds true
    across groups.

17
Bias in Testing? (continued)
  • In both testing and school performance, negative
    beliefs about ones performance can have a
    self-fulfilling prophecy effect.
  • Research suggests that, if you believe that
    members of your group often do poorly (on testing
    or in class), you are less likely to succeed than
    if you believe that members of your group often
    do well.

18
Extremes of IntelligenceMental Retardation
  • Mental retardation diagnosis involves
    intelligence test score of below 70 and some
    difficulty in everyday functioning.
  • About 85 of those diagnosed with retardation
    have Mild Mental Retardation WAIS score of 50-70
    and can often live somewhat independently, work,
    etc.

19
Extremes of IntelligenceGifted Individuals
  • A WAIS score of gt130 puts one in the top 2 of
    individuals, but note that there is no set
    criteria for terms like gifted or genius.
  • Some long-term studies of people with very high
    intelligence suggests that they are generally
    well-adjusted and successful across many areas of
    functioning stereotype of the maladjusted nerd
    is usually not accurate.

20
IntelligenceOne General Ability or Several
Specific Abilities
  • Spearman proposed the idea of a general
    intelligence (g), that underlies all specific
    mental abilities.
  • Those who do well in one area (such as verbal
    skills) tend to score above avg. in other areas
    as well (such as reasoning ability), suggesting
    that g underlies all of these abilities.

21
IntelligenceOne General Ability or Several
Specific Abilities
  • Gardener proposed a theory of multiple
    intelligences, which are relatively independent
    from one another.
  • He believed that those who are weak in some areas
    often make up for it with strengths in other
    areas.
  • Others have argued against the accuracy of his
    theory and have questioned the use of the term
    intelligence for things like physical ability.

22
IntelligenceOne General Ability or Several
Specific Abilities
  • Sternberg simplified the concept of multiple
    intelligences down to three basic aspects
    analytical, creative, and practical.
  • Traditional intelligence testswhat type do they
    measure?

23
Emotional Intelligence
  • Emotional intelligence is the ability to
    perceive, express, understand, and regulate
    emotions.
  • Emotionally intelligent peopleempathic and
    socially aware able to regulate emotions, delay
    gratification.
  • But, is this intelligence? Or a skill, talent?

24
Genetic Influences
  • There does seem to be a heritable component of
    intelligence.
  • Identical twins (same genes) have more highly
    correlated (similar) intelligence scores than
    fraternal twins (different genes)
    Genetic
  • Identical twins raised together have more highly
    correlated scores than those raised apart
    Environmental

25
Genetic Influences (continued)
  • Variation in test scores attributable to genetic
    factors anywhere from 50 to 70.
  • This means that we can attribute to heredity
    about 50 of the variation in intelligence within
    a group of people
  • Cant say what percentage of an individuals
    intelligence is inherited!
  • Also, remember that genes and environment
    interact in various ways.

26
Environmental InfluencesEarly Intervention
  • There is ample evidence that childrens
    environments have an impact on their
    intelligence, to an extent.
  • There appears to be a sort of genetically
    determined range, and the environment affects
    where you fall in that range.
  • E.g., kids in a very poor-quality environment
    might fall at the lower end of their range.
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