Chapter 8 - Cognition and Intelligence Flashcards
Cognition
all mental activities associated with thinking, knowing, remembering and communicating.
Concepts
mental grouping of similar objects events, ideas or people
- Simplifies ones thinking
3 ways concepts are formed
- Natural: forming a concept based off experience
○ E.g. knowing the difference between school bus, metro bus, ride on, and metro because we have seen them- Formal: forming a concept based on rules, features, definitions
○ E.g. a shape that has 3 sides we know is a triangle
○ E.g. an organism that has feathers, wings, claws we know is a bird - Prototype: a mental image or best example of a category
○ Provides a quick and easy method to sorting items
- Formal: forming a concept based on rules, features, definitions
Strategies to problem solve: algorithm
a methodical, logical rule or procedure that guarantees a solution for a problem
○ Guarantees a solution but Is time consuming
○ E.g. in a grocery store looking for tomatoe paste would look like walking through every aisle from left to right until you find it
Strategies to problem solve: heuristic
a simple thinking strategy or rule of thumb that allows one to make judgement and solve problems efficiently
○ Speedier but more prone to errors than algorithms
○ E.g. in a grocery store looking for can of tomatoe paste would involve looking for the aisle that has cans
Strategies to problem solve: insight
a sudden realization of the solution to the problem
○ Contrasts with strategy based solutions
Strategies to problem solve: Trial and Error
trying ways and eliminating the ways that don’t work
○ Time consuming
Obstacles to problem solving: Confirmation Bias:
- the tendency to seek evidence for ones ideas or view more eagerly than for evidence against them those views
- Same as pre-existing beliefs
Obstacles to problem solving: Fixation
the inability to see a problem from a new perspective
Obstacles to problem solving: Pre-existing beliefs
the tendency to search for solutions that solve the problem in the way you view it
- Same as confirmation bias
Obstacles to Problem Solving: Functional Fixedness
the tendency to view objects as functioning only in their usual or customary way
- E.g. a person not being able to see a pen being used for anything else but a pen like a paperweight
Obstacles to problem solving: Mental set
the tendency to persist in solving mental problems with solutions that have worked in the past despite the fact there may be more effective ways
Intelligence:
The mental abilities that enable one to adapt to, shape or select ones environment
- Believing that intelligence is changeable can foster a growth mindset
Factors making up intelligence
- The ability to judge comprehend and reason
- The ability to understand and deal with people, objects, and symbols
- The ability to act purposefully, think rationally and deal effectively with the environment
Mental Age
the level of performance typically associated with children of a certain chronological age
The first person to test IQ
- Alfred Binet first attempted to identify special education students by measured intelligence
- He did this by measuring each child’s mental age through simple tasks - Predicting Schools Achievement
- Binet Assumes each kid follows the same course of intellectual development but not at the same rate.
- Tested each kids problem solving and reasoning
Binet Standards of test Items per chronological age
- 4 yr: Name objects from memory(fire is hot; ice is__)
- 6 yr: Define simple words or explain differences(between fish and horse)
- 8 yr: Answer questions about a simple story
- 10 yr: Define more complex words and explain reasons for behaviors(why are people quiet in a library)
- 12 yr: Identify more difficult picture and verbal absurdities
- Adult: Supply several missing words for incomplete sentences
IQ
an intelligence quotient found by mental age/chronological age x 100
IQ standards
- At any age, children who are average will have an IQ of 100 because their mental age will equal their chronological age
- Roughly 2/3’s of children will have an IQ score between 85-115
Roughly 95% of children will have an IQ score between 70 - 130
Stanford-Binet IQ test
measures things that are necessary for school success which is a revised version of Simon and Binets original test
- Lewis Terman took this original test and tweaks it so it can be administered to adults as well
- E.g. understanding and using language, memory, the ability to follow instructions and computational skills
Adaptive Testing
determines a child’s mental age by seeing at what age level the most advanced items that a child can consistently answer correctly
- Children whose mental age equaled their actual or chronological age were considered to be of regular intelligence
Spearmans General Intelligence
- There is one general intelligence the G factor which is the basis of intelligence
- Composed of overlaping areas of arithmetic, spatial, mechanical and logical intelligence
General Intelligence
the general intelligence factor which underlies specific mental abilities
- Measured by every task on an intelligence test
- Mental abilities are similar to physical abilities
Gardners Multiple Intelligences
suggests there are 8 relatively different intelligences that come with different abilities
- People can fall anywhere on the continuum
Garners Type of Intelligences :(8)
- Linguistics: sensitivity to the meaning and sounds of words and the appreciation of the ways language can be used
- Logical-Mathematics: understanding of objects, symbols and the ability to identify problems and seek explanations
- Spatial: the capacity to perceive the visual world accurately, to perform transformations upon perceptions and to recreate aspects of visual experience in the absence of physical stimuli
- Musical: sensitivity to individual tones and phrases of music, understanding of ways to combine tones and phrases and awareness of emotional aspects of music
- Bodily-Kinesthetic: the use of ones body in highly skilled ways for expressive or goal directed purposes and the capacity to handle objects skillfully
- Interpersonal: the ability to notice and make distinctions among moods, temperaments, intentions and motivations of other people and potentially to act on this knowledge
- Intrapersonal: access to one’s own feelings, the ability to draw on ones emotions to guide and understand ones behavior, recognition of personal strengths and weaknesses
- Naturalistic: sensitivity and understanding of plants, animals and other aspects of nature
Sternbergs 3 seperate Intelligences
Intelligence that is best classified into 3 areas which predict real world success:
Analytical Intelligence: school smarts, the traditional academic problem solving
Creative Intelligence: trailblazing smarts, the ability to generate novel ideas
Practical Intelligence: street smarts, the skill at handling everyday tasks
Sternbergs Ingredients/elements of Creativity:
- Expertise
- Imaginative thinking skills
- Venturesome personality
- Intrinsic motivation
Creative environment
Emotional Intelligence Abilities:
contributes to life success by helping us to perceive, understand, manage and use emotions
Characteristics of Emotionally Intelligent People
- Socially aware of themselves and others
- Can read others emotions and provide appropriate feedback
- Delay gratification in favor of long term rewards
- Are emotionally happy and physically heathy
- Often successful in career, marriage and parenting situations where academic people may fail
Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale(WAIS)
a test which contains verbal and nonverbal(performance) subtests which yields an overall intelligence score and separate scores for verbal comprehension, perceptual organisation, working memory and processing speed
- Created by David Wechsler
- Comes in forms suited for children and adults
Intellectual Disability
conditions of limited mental ability, and difficulty adapting to the demands of life
- AKA mental retardation
- Indicated by a score lower than 70
Crystal and Fluid Intelligence
- Crystallized intelligence: accumulated knowledge and verbal skills which increases with age
Fluid Intelligence: ability to reason speedily and abstractly which decreases with age
Stereotype Threat
self-confirming concern that a judgement is based on a negative stereotype
- Can affect a persons performance
Goals for Mental ability Tests
- To enable schools to recognize who might profit most from early intervention
- To be alert to misinterpretation of test scores as measures of a person’s worth and potential
- Remember that the competence that general intelligence tests sample is important
