Lecture 5 - Theories of intelligence 2

Question 1

What is a psychometric approach?

Answer 1

• based on the findings of factor-analytic studies
• describes how people tend to differ but cannot explain why
• focused on whether people answer items correctly

Question 1

What is a cognitive approach?

Answer 1

• lab based as is based on intelligence tests that highlight biological and physiological processes involved in intelligence
• focused on why some people are better than others at various mental abilities

Question 2

Elementary cognitive tasks (ECT’s)?

Answer 2

• simple tasks to measure cognitive processes such as stimulus discrimination, visual search and retrieval of information
• correlated with traditional measures of intelligence
• useful because they involve no past learned information

Question 3

Cognitive approach - hick reaction time task?

Answer 3

• common procedure in psychometric testing
• measures people’s choice of reaction times with various numbers of choices
• slope indicates efficieny of a persons mental processing
• high psychometric intelligence = flatter slope
• high IQ scores = less variable response time
• conclusion = simple cognitive processes underpin complex thinking

Question 4

Cognitive approach - working memory as a measure of g?

Answer 4

• working memory is basic to intelligence differences
• high correlations between working memory tasks and psychometric intelligence
• it has been found that individual differences in g were due to differences in working memory capacity

Question 5

Challenge to Spearman’s unitary g-factor - Thurstone?

Answer 5

• applied a different statistical method = involved weighing the observed variables differently
• this yielded a set of primary mental abilities
• these primary mental abilities were neither like g or s

Question 6

Thurstone’s primary mental abilities?

Answer 6

• suggested that there were 7
• de-emphasised g as he suggested that there were a number of stable and independent mental abilities which were not general
• also suggested that each person possesses different levels of these 7 factors and these levels do not depend on one another

Question 7

Carroll?

Answer 7

• reanalysed over 400 sets of reliable data on human mental ability testing
• was summarised in a diagram called the ‘three stratum model’ of human cognitive ability
• described a 3 level hierarchy with general intelligence (g) at the top, specific abilities (s) at the bottom and a small no. of middle-level abilities in the middle
• this means both Spearman and Thurstone were kind of right

Question 8

Bottom-up approach?

Answer 8

• 1 way to determine the nature of middle level abilities is start with the data and work our way up
• could compute the correlations between the performances of a large no. of people on a large no. of tests and then see how those correlations cluster
• however this approach is incapable of discovering any middle-level ability that intelligence tests fail to measure

Question 9

The top-down approach - Sternberg?

Answer 9

• argues there is 3 kinds of intelligence:
  1. analytical intelligence = the ability to identify and define problems and to find strategies for solving them
  2. creative intelligence = ability to generate novel solutions
  3. practical intelligence = ability to apply and implement these solutions in everyday settings
• he sought to place his theory between what he viewed as two extremes in this area of research:
  -> those who emphasize the g factor, are limited to using standard psychometric tests, and employ factor analysis
  -> and those who emphasize newer, multiple intelligences, but have collected few data to support them

Question 10

Spearman’s g and universal findings?

Answer 10

• Warne and Burningham
• 31 non western nations
• 97 samples
• all of the showed a general cognitive factor
• g accounted for 46% of variance