Tests of Intelligence Flashcards
BEHAVIOURAL CORRELATES OF INTELLIGENCE
- typical suggestion = learning rate; animals that learn faster = smarter w/fixed task BUT context variables pose issue
- eg. Hebb-Williams maze; T-maze sequence
- sophisticated eg = “learning how to learn” aka. successive reversal/learning set/probability learning
- Bitterman (1965): battery of tests looking for patterns
LEARNING SETS ACROSS SPECIES
- comparisons across species = difficult; hard to specify in advance what optimal testing conditions are for given species
- aka. contextual variable issue
- scatter graphs may help
ROLE OF CONTEXTUAL VARIABLES
- goldfish set fairly simple discrimination (pigeon could easily solve this)
- learn to poke 1 colour > other = food
- fails to learn this
- BUT delivering food near stimuli -> fish learns
- aka. conditions must be adapted to animal
CONTEXTUAL VARIABLES & LEARNING SETS
HERMAN & ARBEIT (1973)
- dolphins have difficulty forming learning sets w/visual stimuli BUT could w/auditory stimuli
- aka. how well animal forms learning set depends on stimuli type used to test them
- only valid test = compare animals w/similar sensory/effector capabilities
THE COMPARABILITY PROBLEM
- how do we make sure everything except learning = equivalent between animal species aka.
1. perceptual difficulty
2. mechanical difficulty of response
3. motivation level
4. incentive reward value - Bitterman’s suggestion = control by systematic variation of confounding factors
- alternative = use comparable species (ie. pigeons & corvids)
SAME VS DIFFERENT DISCRIMINATIONS
COLOMBO, COTTLE & FROST (2003)
- task = given sample image (ie. grapes); must pick same image from 2 stimuli; pigeons succeed
- BUT can they transfer learning to novel problem w/dif stimuli ie. choosing same stimuli
- some animals can; pigeons struggle w/o long training
PIGEONS VS CORVIDS
WILSON, MACKINTOSH & BOAKES (1985)
- suggest jackdaws show better transfer to novel matching problem post training on matching w/dif stimuli; learn slower BUT w/more transfer
MACKINTOSH (1988)
- corvids (ie. crows/ravens) perform better at learning sets > pigeons
RECENCY/FAMILIARITY EXPLANATIONS
- concern w/studies = solution available to animal in recency terms w/which stimulus occurred
- so learning pref for “more recently seen” stimulus transfers across problems
- dif strategy that responds to stimuli configurations won’t
- if jackdaws can use recency info they should solve matching problem via transfer; pigeons don’t find this a natural cue
2 DIFFERENT METHODS OF SOLVING PROBLEM
- applying recency explanations to matching problem results in:
1. pick comparison stimulus because it’s familiar/recent
2. pick comparison because it’s correct - corvids could pref 1; pigeons pref 2 BUT does this = IQ? pigeons can learn 1 post training
- recency/familiarity = less salient for pigeons
ANOTHER COMPARABILITY CASE
PREMACK & PREMACK (1983)
- language trained VS non-language trained chimps
- trained chimps pass some tests non-trained chimps cannot
- some tasks they both do w/equal facility
SAME/DIFFERENT TASKS (SARAH) VERSION 2
PREMACK & PREMACK (1983)
- language trained chimps could solve Sarah’s task (match key/padlock etc.); non-trained chimps couldn’t
- BUT both could solve successive same/dif problems (1 object shown -> either same/dif object shown)
- Sarah could solve novel task; others couldn’t; non-trained chimps can too post training BUT now it’s recency-based; Sarah is more
SAME/DIFFERENT TASKS (SARAH) VERSION 2: ANALYSIS
- hard to explain results in contextual variables term
- harder to explain terms of responding based on recency/familiarity
- extended training that trained-chimps received had clear effect; does this impact IQ? maybe!
SAME/DIFFERENT TASKS (SARAH) VERSION 2: ANALYSIS
- hard to explain results in contextual variables term
- harder to explain terms of responding based on recency/familiarity
- extended training that trained-chimps received had clear effect; does this impact IQ? maybe!
