Week 9 Intelligence 1 Flashcards
What are some definitions of intelligence?
- the ability to carry out abstract thinking
- ability to adjust oneself to the environment
- a biological mechanism by which the effects of a complexity of stimuli are brought together to give a unified perception
What are the three main types of intelligence and what do they mean?
verbal- general learning & comprehension, good vocabulary
problem solving ability- abstract thinking/reasoning, can apply knowledge to tasks at hand
practical intelligence- real world adaptive behaviours, determines how to achieve goals
How you go about assessing intelligence is based on?
the theoretical take we have on it
What are the three main types of theoretical approaches?
- lumpers
- splitters
- hierarchical
Who was the founder of lumpers and discuss more about it
- Charles Spearman
- general theory of intelligence
- found that people who were pretty good at one thing tended to be pretty good at another thing
- thus came up that intelligence was governed by a general mental ability called ‘G’
Why is Spearman’s “G” theory criticized?
there are too many correlations therefore the G couldn’t possibly explain all the data
Who was the founder of splitters and discuss more about it
- Guilford
- intelligence has 120-150 different abilities, each separate and independent
- if you want to measure intelligence you have to measure each and every ability
For Guildford’s model of intelligence, what were the three overarching sections that the task had to fit into
- operations
- products
- contents
What was a problem with Guildford’s model of intelligence?
you often could not find a task to fit under each overarching section
Poetry is to prose as dance is to… is an example of which theorists’ theory
Guildford’s theory of intelligence (splitter)
What is the better alternative to splitters/lumpers?
hierarchical models
What are two hierarchical theorists?
Vernon’s model of intelligence and Thurston’s primary abilities
Discuss Vernon’s (1950) model
- lumpers were at the top, splitters at the bottom
- G = major group factors>minor group factors> specific factors
- two major group factors
What were the two major group factors in Vernon’s model?
-verbal + educational and practical
What was the difference between Vernon & Thurston’s approach?
instead of two major factors, Thurston had seven incl. verbal comprehension, word fluency, space, memory etc.
What is the current most popular model?
Carroll’s 3 tier model
How was Carroll’s 3 tier model formulated?
- collected and assessed 416 studies (meta-analysis)
- data was across continents, age-groups, gender, race: it was for everyone
What is intelligence?
cognition- and if you want to assess other things, you asses them independently of cognition
What is the top tier on Carroll’s three tier model
general intelligence
What are the 8 factors on the second tier of Carroll’s model
- fluid intelligence
- crystalised intelligence
- general memory & learning
- broad visual perception
- broad auditory perception
- broad retrieval ability
- broad cognitive speediness
- processing speed
What is arguably the most important factor in Carroll’s model?
cognitive speed processing
What is fluid ability/intelligence?
- ability to evaluate a novel task (something that you’ve never seen before)
- how well can they use their existing knowledge to do this
What is a good measure of fluid ability/intelligence
Ravens Matrices
What is crystallized ability/intelligence?
understanding the meaning of a word e.g. what is gnawing
What two factors in Caroll’s tier have a very strong developmental relationship?
memory and processing speed
What skill becomes less important as you get older and why?
memory- because we learn to read
What do the statistics on twins + siblings reared together/apart say about the relationship of genetics and intelligence?
genes play an important role but not an entire role
What are some environmental factors that correlate to intelligence?
- prenatal and early development influences
- malnutrition and famine
- family background (income, education, occupation of parents)
- psychosocial factors (quality of languages, opportunities for enlarging vocabulary)
- amount of schooling
What do test-retest correlations re infants say about commercial IQ tests?
they do not predict IQ at a later age at all
What is excellent at predicting IQ later?
speed of information processing
What is the only thing IQ tests for infants can tell you?
whether they are meeting CURRENT goals
What are the advantages of individual tests?
can give extra clinical information e.g. how does the person answer, test behavior
- every test is a mini case study
- maximize motivation through individual modifications
- make allowances for fatigue and handicaps
What are individual tests essential for?
- young children
- brain damaged patients
- psychologically disturbed
- intellectually disabled
- any clinical assessment
What are the advantages of group tests?
- ease and efficiency of scoring and administration
- less skill + training required re examiners
- quite reliable + standardization samples large
- economical
What are the disadvantages of group tests
- maintaining motivation and recall
- limited response choice e.g. multiple choice items- lose the richness obtained in indv. tests
