Mental Abilities Intelligence

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Mental AbilitiesIntelligence

• (PS) 321-331

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1. Psychometric approach
2. Information processing approach
3. Triarchal approach
Intelligence
4. Multiple Intelligences approach
5. Ecological approach
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Psychometric approach

• It analyzes peoples responses to questions and
  tasks in order to describe the structure of
  intelligence.
• Spearman noted that scores on almost all tests
  of mental abilities were positively correlated.
  People who did well on one test also tended to do
  well on all of the others. He concluded that
  these correlations were created by general mental
  ability, which he called g, for general
  intelligence, and a group of special
  intelligences, which he collectively referred to
  as s. The s factors are the specific
  information and skills needed for particular
  tasks. The correlations that could not be by
  either g or s were called group factors.
• L.L.Thurstone he criticized Spearmans
  mathematical methods. He analyzed the
  correlations among IQ tests to identify the
  underlying actors, or abilities, beaing measured
  by those tests with a statistical technique
  called factor analysis. He found seven relatively
  independent primary mental abilities, which he
  labeled as numerical ability, reasoning, verbal
  fluency, spatial visualization, perceptual
  ability, emory, and verbal comprehension. He
  didnt deny that g exists, but he argued that
  its not as important as primary mental abilities
  in discribing a particular person.
• Raymond B. Cattell he agreed with Spearman, but
  suggested that there are two kinds of g, which
  he labeled fluid and crystallized.
• Fluid intelligence the basic power of reasoning
  and problem solving. It allows us to think
  critically about assertions and understand
  relationships between concepts.
• Crystallized intelligence it involves specific
  knowledge gained as a result of applying fluid
  intelligence.

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• Who is right?
• Most psychologists today agree that there is a
  positive
• correlation between several tests of mental
  ability, a
• correlation that is due to a factor known as g.
  The
• brain probably does not contain some unified
  thing
• corresponding to what people call intelligence
  g is
• more likely a collection of subskills and mental
  abilities,
• many of which are needed to suceed on any test of
• intelligence.

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Information-processing approach

• It analyzes the process of intelligent behavior,
  not test answers and other products of
  intelligence. This approach relates the basic
  mental processes of perception, memory, and
  thought to the concept of intelligence.
• Earl Hunt suggested that intelligent behavior
  depends on the amount of attention that we can
  mobilize. He suggested that people with a greater
  intellectual ability have more attentional
  resources available.
• Jensen Vernon thought that perhaps intelligent
  people have faster brains than other people and
  carry out mental processes more quickly. When a
  task is complex, having a fast brain might
  decrease the chance that information will
  disappear from memory before it can be used.
• Hans Eynseck proposed that intelligence can be
  defined as the error-free transmission of
  information through the brain.

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Triarchal Theory

• According to Sternberg, a complete theory must
  deal with three aspects of intelligence
• Internal components (or processes)
• Performance components processes such as
  perceiving stimuli, holding information in STM
  and calculating sums and differences
• Knowledge-acquisition components they involve
  the selective application of the processes used
  in gaining and storing new information
• Metacomponents they control the performance and
  knowledge-acquisition components they are
  involved in organizing and setting up a problem.
• Relation of the internal components it amounts
  to the ability to profit from experience by
  altering how the components are applied.
• External effects adapting or shaping
  environments. It means being intelligent in
  areas that psychology doesnt examine in everyday
  life.

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Multiple Intelligences

• Howard Garnder supported the idea that cases of
  remarkable ability in specific areas constitute
  an evidence of the existence of multiple
  intelligences. He looked not just at test scores
  and information-processing experiments but also
  at the ways in which children develop, at the
  exceptional abilities of child prodigies and
  remarkable adults, at biological research, and at
  the values and traditions of various cultures.
• According to Gardner, all people possess a
  numberof intellectual potentials or
  intelligences, each of which involves a set of
  skills that allows them to solve problems.
  Biology provides raw capacities to each of these
  intelligences cultures provide symbolic systems
  such as language to mobilize the raw capacities.
• The specific intelligences that Gardner proposes
  are
• Linguistic
• Logical-mathematical
• Spatial
• Musical
• Body-kinesthethic
• Personal
• Intrapersonal
• Naturalist
• Existentialist

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Ecological Approach

• The ecological approach to intelligence views
  intelligence as mental activity that allows
  people to select, shape, and adapt to those
  aspects of the environment most relevant to their
  lives.
• The ecological approach suggests that
  intelligence is not the same in all environments.

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Mental abilities thinking

• Unusual mental abilities
• Giftedness
• Mental retardation
• Learning disabilities

Creativity