Task 2 Flashcards
Mental Ability
What tasks does the Multidimensional Aptitude Battery have?
- Vocabulary
- Arithmetic
- Spatial
- Picture arrangement
Who was the first researcher to develop a proper mental ability test?
Alfred Binet ; test to determine a childs’ mental age
What refinement did Stern make to Binets IQ test?
IQ= (mental age/ chronological age)*100
What did Spearman find?
g- factor: existence of a single, major dimension of mental ability
What is the principle of the indifference of the indicator?
The content of the task (indicator) is unimportant in determining whether the task would show a high or low g-loading
What are highly g-loaded tasks?
Mostly involve processes such as “the eduction of relations and correlates”
-> e.g. Raven’s Matrices
What are low g-loaded tasks like?
Need to use simpler mental processes that are more automatic or needing to follow rules
What did Thurstone suspect?
g-factor-> inaccurate
He hypothesized 7 primacy factors: verbal fluency, verbal comprehension, numerical facility, spatial visualization, memory, perceptual speed, reasoning
How did researchers combine Spearman and Thurstone’s findings?
g plus factors within g factor-> classifies the many ability tasks into a few broad factors
How does mental ability change during life history?
people’s levels of g increase rapidly through childhood and continue to increase into late adolescence, and then decrease during old age
What could be also possible effects on differences in intelligence between age groups
cohort effects - difference between between people born in different generations
Is mental ability stable across the life span?
There is a high level of consistency across the life course, at least after late childhood
How high is the effect of brain size on mental ability?
There is an average correlation (0.24)
How high is the effect of the amount of myelin on mental ability?
There is a positive correlation (0.5)
What is the effect of brain glucose metabolism?
The rate brain consumes glucose is lower in individuals with a higher IQ (-.68)
Higher intelligence corelates with reduced levels of glucose metabolism during problem solving
How heritable is mental ability and what is the effect of common or shared environment?
Heritability estimated about 0.5
Additive genetic influences about 0.35
Non-additive genetic influences 0.15
How much did womb environment influence fraternal twins and nontwin siblings?
Fraternal twins: 0,2
Nontwin siblings: 0.05
What are sex differences in mental ability?
Men: better in some aspects of spatial ability
Women: better in some aspects of memory and of perceptual speed
What correlations were seen between mental ability and the different stages in the schooling system?
- Elementary school: 0.6
- Secondary school: 0.5
- College: 0.4
IQ can predict if someone drops out or not: 0.55
What is the partial correlation between mental ability and occupational achievement?
The link between mental ability and occupational achievement reflects a moderately strong tendency for smarter people to gain higher-status jobs and higher incomes
How does low IQ affect health?
- health-related problems that arise in childhood might influence
- lower IQ in childhood might indicate that body and brain are not functioning well overall
- tendency to adopt bad behaviours
- tendency to enter into unhealthy environments (e.g. hazardous or stressful occupations)
What is the interaction between IQ and crime abidingness?
People with higher IQs tend to commit fewer crimes, even when socioeconomic status is held constant
-> cost/benefit ratio is higher for high IQ individuals
How can measure the different kinds of mental ability?
Fluid intelligence-> novel tasks (e.g. puzzles or riddles)
Crystalized intelligence -> familiar tasks (e.g. school topics)
What is the Flynn effect?
In 2000 people scored one full standard deviation higher than the same group did in the 1950s
-> due to the kind of thinking employed in modern times (novel thinking)
