13. Individual differences Flashcards
What are psychometric tests
Tests of different aspects of an individual’s
intellectual performance
What are intelligence tests?
Measure general factors that predict success
in school
what are examples of intelligence tests?
- Stanford-Binet
* Wechsler
What measures do intelligence tests typically include ?
– Digit span – Vocabulary – Analogical reasoning – Spatial judgment – Arithmetic
What is the intelligence quotient?
– (Supposedly) a measure of general
intellectual performance
This, however was problematic especially when measuring adult intelligence
What is the original equation for IQ?
I! = 100 x (mental age/chronological age)
e.g., an IQ of a 5-year-old child whose
intelligence is equivalent to that of a 6-
year-old is:
IQ = 100 x 6/5 = 120
what is the current definition of IQ?
IQ = 100 + 15 x [(score - mean of age group) / standard deviation
what is the mean and standard deviation of IQ?
mean = 100 SD = 15
what are IQ tests potentially biased towards?
particular cultures
What aspects of intelligence do IQ tests measure?
– Innate endowment?
– Acquired ability?
what is the IQ of identical twins compared to non identical twins?
Identical twins raised apart tend to have IQs that
are more similar to each other than do nonidentical
twins raised together (Bouchard, 1983)
what do IQ tests attempt to measure?
IQ tests attempt to measure general
intelligence that predicts scholastic
achievements
what do IQ tests really measure?
– Is there a single intelligence factor?
– Are there multiple factors that are
independent of each other?
what was spearman’s argument?
Spearman’s g
– Spearman (1904) argued that there is one
general intelligence factor
what did Cattell (1963) propose in regards to IQ?
Cattell (1963) proposed a distinction
between:
– Crystallized intelligence
– Fluid intelligence
what is crystallised intelligence?
• depends on acquired knowledge
what is fluid intelligence?
• reflects the ability to reason or solve problems
what is factor analysis?
A statistical method that tries to find a set
of factors that will account for performance
across a range of tests
what are the factors that factor analysis tends to show?
– Reasoning
– Verbal
– Spatial
what was Goldberg et al (1977) study on verbal ability?
– Participants performed three types of word judgment tasks – Identity judgment bear bear – Sound judgment bear bare – Meaning judgment bear lion
what is the major advantage for people who score high on psychometric tests of verbal ability?
A major advantage of people who score
high on psychometric tests of verbal
ability is the speed with which they
retrieve meanings of words
What was Daneman and Carpenters (1980) study on verbal ability?
– Participants read or listened to a number of
unrelated sentences
– They were then asked to recall the last
word of each sentence
• Measuring their reading span or listening span
– These span measures strongly correlate
with performance on verbal ability tests
what are people with high verbal ability able to do?
– Rapidly retrieve meanings of words
– Have large working memory for verbal
information
what can people with high spatial ability do?
People with high spatial ability can
process spatial information rapidly
– e.g., mental rotation (Just & Carpenter, 1985)
what will individual differences in reasoning, verbal and spatial abilities result from?
differences in:
– rates of processing
– working memory capacity
