Intelligence Lecture 1 Flashcards
Who is a major figure in intelligence testing (include year)?
Give some background.
Who did he work with?
What did he believe?
- Alfred Binet – 1905
- Worked with Theodore Simon
“Higher” mental processes →
memory, problem solving,
language, judgements
* Idea of mental age
the way they were identifying struggling children was just by teachers. Teachers could kick kids out of school. The french government thought we needed a more standardized approach for identiying strugglign students. They developed a test to giver to children. to test children’s innate mental abilities. Not based on how much schooling they got. A lot of the previous assessments for trying to measure intelligence relied on really basic processes like reaction time etc. BUt binet and simon thought about intelligence as being assessed by these higher mental process like memory, problem solving, language. So they would give kids questions like they have to define a wrod or give them a scenario etc/ The idea was it was going beyond the physical capabilites and moving towards higher level capabiliies. He also got at the idea of mental age. He knew he couldn’t giv e them all the same test.They came up with the idea of using a mental age. Saying what age are you performing at? are you performing at the same level as same age peers?
Who was stanford Binet hired by? Why?
Binet was hired by the french government because in the 1900s we had rapid industrialization and school had a big influx of children/
Who brought the binet test to North America?
- Brought to North America by
Louis Terman
How does the scoring of the Stanford-binet intelligence test work? How is this different in the past + now?
Stanford-Binet Intelligence Test
* Mean score of 100
* Originally used intelligence quotient
* Scores now given based on deviation–
where a child scores relative to the
average at their age. (questions are normed so the expectation is 50% of children will get these right at that age. )
Initially provided 1 general score, now
also provides subscores (like verbal and spatial)
wit hthis test being brought to north america it led to the first wide spread intelligence test. The stanford binet test. When they developed this test, it was set to have a mean score of 100. At each age of the test the average was 100. You would get a mental age divided by your chronological age X 100. Missing slide on this. We don’t actually use the idea of a mental age anymore (AKA we don’t actually use the quotient) we base it on deviations. We look at how much you deviate from other 5 year olds. If you are performing one standard deviation above kids your age you would be performing at 115. When IQ tests got brought to adults, mental age didn’t make much sense anymore.
hamburgers are hot, Ice cream is… (4 year old level)
Issue: these tests have content coming from a different perspective. EXAMPLE ON UPDATED SLIDES.
what is an example of a stanford binet question for a 4 year old?
hamburgers are hot, ice cream is ….
what is an example of a stanford binet question for a 9 year old?
In an old cemetery,
scientists unearthed a skull
which they think was that of
George Washington when
he was only 5 years of age.
What is silly about that?
Other than the Stanford Binet intelligence test, what are two other intelligence tests for children?
- Wechsler Intelligence
Scale for Children
(WISC) - Wechsler Preschool and
Primary Scale of
Intelligence (WPPSI)
What is the benefit of the weschler tests? What age child is it used for?
- Wechsler Intelligence
Scale for Children
(WISC) - Provides general score
plus 5 composite scores
Weschler thought the Binet test relied too much on words so he created a non-verbal test.
used with children and adolescents 6-16
- Wechsler Preschool and
Primary Scale of
Intelligence (WPPSI)
used for 2-2.5 to 6 or 7 ish.
What is the benefit of the weschler test? What age child is it used for?
explain norming
we’re lookinhg at how much you deviate from someone of your age? We norm these tests to the nice normal distribution where the majority of folks score within 1 sd of the average and like 68% are scoring…
What is reliability?
Validity?
Lack of Bias?
Reliability (consistency)
* Split-half reliability (If you look at the score for the first and second half of the IQ test you should have similar scores on both halfs.)
- Test-retest reliability (If i give you the test today vs next week do you get similar scores?)
Test-retest reliability is particularly good on IQ tests but the further apart in time the less reliable it is.
Validity
Validity
* Content & construct validity (content validaty do the question od the test get at intelligence? (this has to work for the population that is being tested: Construct validity: does the construct of the test get at intelligence?)
* Predictive validity
is it accurate? Does this get at the measurement of what we think intelligence is? This is harder to assess, we have to be thinking about is it tapping into my definition of intelligence. One way that the validity is evaluated is asking experts on intelligence if they think the questions measure intelligence.
Lack of bias
* Content-validity bias
* Predictive-validity bias
(We can also look at the predictive validity. Do the scores predict things that are believed to be related to intelligence e.g., academic and life success? )
Most IQ tests do have some predictive validity. They have pretty good predictions for certain types of success. SEE GRAPH ON UPDATED SLIDES. IQ scores are fairly good at predicting other outcomes.
they often pilot and tweak questions with different groups of people when testing content validity. They do similar things with predictive validity as well.
What is the psychometric approach to intelligence testing?
intelligence is operationalized through IQ testing.
what is general intelligence?
What is crystalized intelligence
what is fluid intelligence?
General intelligence (g)
* General intelligence as multiple abilities/processes
general intelligence is the idea of a single factor of intelligence. It is the idea that there is one overall intelligence. But other subcategories also correlate together. Charles spearman has been a big advbocate for this. He thinks this all comes together to g.
Crystalized intelligence is factual knowledge. this increases with age.
Fluid intelligence is more your abiltiy to think on the spot and solve new problems. If i give you a new list of words you have never seen before how quickly are you able to memorize them?
Does fluid intelligence increase or decrease with age?
decreases
does crystalized intelligence increase or decrease with age?
increase
What are the theories about multiple intelligences?
- Sternberg’s Theory of
Successful Intelligence - Gardner’s Multiple
Intelligences
there is also an approach that there are multiple different types of intelligence. He theorized that you have analytical intelligence (maybe what would be measured by a traditional IQ test), creative intelligence (come up with things in new way), practical intelligence (street smarts). these perspectives on multiple intellgience have been really influential in the field of education, leading educators etc. to think about can I teach abotu the different skills. Do I consider musical etc. strengths. IN terms of how psychologists tend to think about IQ there has not been a ton of support for multiple intelligences because whenever people have tried to come up with tests. These tests often all correlate together and are still related to a general intelligence factor.
Are there genetic differences in intelligence?
there is the idea that there seems to be a genetic component to this. A lot of studies examining this look at twin studies. If we give all of these twins IQ tests, the question is are the twins who share all of their DNA more likely to be similar on IQ tests than twins who don’t share all of their DNA? if twins are both raised together, identical twins, who share more of their DNA, are more similar in their IQ. If you look at identical twins raised apart, they are actually still quite likely to have similar IQ scores.
- Genetics
- Gene-environment
correlations
(Passive effects)
(Evocative effects)
(Active effects)
but for many of us genetics also correlate with out environment. This is the idea of gene environment correlations. The idea that if I have a genetic tendency towards higher IQ I might go and seek out books or enjoy school more.
passive is the idea that if you are living in a home with genrtically related parents, you share genes with them, so your parents would also have a genrtic tendency towards high IQ and your parents may select environments that reinforce those genes. They might fill your home with lots of book or send tou to academic summer camps. There are also evocative effects.
evocative: this is the idea that the child might have a genetic tendency towards high IQ and they evoke their environment. A child who talks a lot will get a lot of people talking in return to them. Etc.
Active: child’s genes lead them to select various environments. Maybe they choose longer books when give nthe choice, maybe they pick the academic summer camp.
