Chapter 7 Flashcards
what are cognitive abilities?
mental skills, such as paying attention, reasoning, remembering, solving problems, speaking and interpreting speech
how is intelligence (or general mental ability) defined?
the general capacity to understand ideas, think abstractly, reason, solve problems and learn (NOT book smarts, academic skill or test taking marks)
what is cranioscopy (or phrenology)?
the study of how the size and shape of the skull relates to mental abilities and personal attributes
used to reinforce gender roles and stereotypes (ex. womens smaller foreheads were interpreted as womens capacity for love of children)
is phrenology still a belief today?
no, viewed as pseudoscience
what are dendrites?
neuronal structures that receive information from other neurons
how is the functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) an important tool for researchers?
allows them to measure brain activity and depict where such activity occurs within specific brain regions
what is essentialism?
the belief that human differences arise from qualities (usually biological) within individuals
what is the intelligence quotient (IQ)?
a standardized score that represents an individuals level of intelligence relative to his or her same- age peers. IQ is calculated such that the average for an individuals same age peers is always set to 100 (IQ shifted consensus on the supposed superiority of male intelligence)
when were tests to measure intelligence and IQ developped?
early 20th century (assumed women were intellectually inferior)
what is eugenics?
the study of how to arrange reproduction within a human population to increase the occurrence of heritable characteristics regarded as desirable
(preventing the reproduction of those deemed genetically inferior (immigrants, people of color, low income))
what is forced sterilization?
permanent medical procedures that prevent reproduction
what is factor analysis?
a statistical procedure used to identify clusters of related scores or items
what is the flynn effect?
the observation that scores on standardized intelligence tests have increased over the last century in various countries. (IQs have substantially increased in only the last few generations)
what is verbal fluency? how is it tested?
the ability to generate words, and tests of this ability require people to generate as many words as possible that belong to a certain category (ex. birds) in a short period of time (ex. 1 minute)
are sex differences in boys and girls close to -1 (favoring girls), close to 0 (favoring neither) or close to +1 (favoring boys)?
close to zero (in spatial abilities, and verbal abilities)
what is verbal reasoning?
the ability to understand and analyze concepts, offers an exception to the general trend toward a female advantage in verbal abilities
what are visual- spatial abilities?
cognitive skills that help individuals understand relationships between objects and navigate three dimensional space (ex. ability to rotate figures mentally, remember locations of objects (dice))
who has better spatial ability, boys or girls?
boys (play more video games)