Chapter 10 Intelligence recall Flashcards
Intelligence
Mental quality consisting of the ability to learn from experience, solve problems, and use knowledge to adapt to new situations.
Intelligence test
A method for assessing an individual’s mental aptitudes and comparing them with those of others, using numerical scores.
General intelligence (g)
A general intelligence factor that, according to Spearman and others, underlies specific mental abilities and is therefore measured by every task on an intelligence test.
Factor analysis
a statistical procedure that identifies clusters of related items (called factors) on a test; used to identify different dimensions of performance that underlie a person’s total score.
Savant syndrome
a condition in which a person otherwise limited in mental ability has an exceptional specific skill, such as in computation or drawing.
creativity
the ability to produce novel and valuable ideas.
emotional intelligence
the ability to perceive, understand, manage, and use emotions.
mental age
a measure of intelligence test performed devised by Binet; the chronological age that most typically corresponds to a given level of performance. Thus, a child who does as well as the average 8-year-old is said to have a mental age of 8.
Stanford-Binet
the widely used American revision (by Terman at Stanford University) of Binet’s original intelligence test.
Intelligence quotient (IQ)
defined originally as the ratio of mental age (ma) to chronological age (ca) multiplied by 100 (thus, IQ=ma/ca x 100). On contemporary intelligence tests, the average performance for a given age is assigned a score of 100.
achievement test
a test designed to assess what a person has learned.
aptitude test
a test designed to predict a person’s future performance; aptitude is the capacity to learn.
Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS)
the WAIS is the most widely used intelligence test; contains verbal and performance (nonverbal) subtests.
Standardization
defining meaningful scores by comparison with the performance of a pretested group.
normal curve
the symmetrical, bell-shaped curve that describes the distribution of many physical and psychological attributes. Most scores fall near the average, and fewer and fewer scores lie near the extremes.
