Cognition: Thinking, Intelligence, and Language

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Cognition Thinking, Intelligence, and Language

• Chapter 8

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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).

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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).

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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?

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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?

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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?

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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

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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.

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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.