Intelligence

What is intelligence

Thinking Question:

Are there different types of intelligence? Like what? Explain.

Emotional Intelligence

• Marshmallow Test (3 minutes) (Mischel, 1960’s)• Done on 4 year olds• If could wait till “teacher” came back in 15-20 minutes,

could have 2• Shows “emotional” intelligence by measuring impulse

control• Longitudinal study: 12-14 years later those who resisted

temptation were more socially competent, personally effective and self assertive. Also were superior students and did better on their SATS!

What is Intelligence?

• Intelligence–capacity for goal-directed and

adaptive behavior–involves certain abilities • profit from experience• solve problems• reason effectively

What is Intelligence?

• IQ is a score on a test– it is not something you have

• Is intelligence singular or multiple abilities?• Does it relate to speed of brain

processing?

Intelligence

• Is intelligence culturally defined?• Are intelligence tests

culture free?

Origins of Intelligence

• Intelligence Test– a method of assessing an

individual’s mental aptitudes and comparing them to those of others, using numerical scores

Origins of Intelligence

• Mental Age– a measure of intelligence test performance

devised by Binet– chronological age that most typically

corresponds to a given level of performance

– child who does as well as the average 8-year-old is said to have a mental age of 8

Origins of Intelligence

• Stanford-Binet– the widely used American

revision of Binet’s original intelligence test• revised by Terman at Stanford

University

Origins of Intelligence

• Intelligence Quotient (IQ)–defined originally the ratio of mental

age (ma) to chronological age (ca) multiplied by 100 • IQ = ma/ca x 100)

–on contemporary tests it is the average performance for a given age is assigned a score of 100

Are There Multiple Intelligences?

• Factor Analysis– statistical procedure that identifies clusters of related

items (called factors) on a test– used to identify different dimensions of performance

that underlie one’s total score• General Intelligence (g)– factor that Spearman and others believed underlies

specific mental abilities– measured by every task on an intelligence test

Are There Multiple Intelligences?

• Savant Syndrome– condition in which a person otherwise limited in

mental ability has an amazing specific skill• computation • drawing

Howard Gardner (1980s-present)• I. Developed the modern Theory of Multiple Intelligence • a. Studied children with savant syndrome• —they normally scored low on intelligence tests and• yet • had an “island of brilliance”

4:5 of people with savant syndrome are males and many also have autism

• Opposition—critics say that there are not concrete tests for each of the areas of psychology.

• 1. linguistic• : good vocabulary and reading comprehension • 2. logical-mathematical• : skill in arithmetic and certain types of reasoning • 3. spatial• : understanding relationships between objects • 4. musical• : abilities involving rhythm, tempo, sound identification • 5. body-kinesthetic• : dancing, athletics, eye-hand coordination • 6. intrapersonal• : self-understanding • 7. interpersonal• : ability to understand and interact with other people • 8. naturalistic• : ability to see patterns in nature

• 9?(possibly an emotional intelligence: capacity to perceive emotions and link them • to one’s thinking)

Gardner explaining his theory

Are There Multiple Intelligences?

• Social Intelligence– the know-how involved in comprehending

social situations and managing oneself successfully

• Emotional Intelligenceability to perceive, express, understand, and

regulate emotionscritical part of social intelligence

Brain Function and Intelligence

• People who can perceive the stimulus very quickly tend to score somewhat higher on intelligence tests

Stimulus Mask

Question: Long side on left or right?

Assessing Intelligence

• Aptitude Test– a test designed to predict a person’s future

performance– aptitude is the capacity to learn

• Achievement Test– a test designed to assess what a person has

learned

Assessing Intelligence

• Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS)– most widely used intelligence test– subtests• verbal • performance (nonverbal)

Assessing Intelligence- Sample Items from the WAIS

From Thorndike and Hagen, 1977

VERBAL

General Information Similarities Arithmetic ReasoningVocabularyComprehensionDigit Span

PERFORMANCEPicture Completion Picture ArrangementBlock DesignObject AssemblyDigit-Symbol Substitution

Assessing Intelligence

• Standardization– defining meaningful scores by comparison with the

performance of a pretested “standardization group”• Normal Curve – the symmetrical bell-shaped curve that describes the

distribution of many physical and psychological attributes

– most scores fall near the average, and fewer and fewer scores lie near the extremes

The Normal Curve

Ninety-five percent of all people fall within 30 points

of 100

Number of

scores

55 70 85 100 115 130 145 Wechsler intelligence score

Sixty-eight percentof people score within 15 points

above or below 100

Getting Smarter?

• Intelligence test performance has been rising

70

75

80

85

90

95

100

105

1910 1930 1950 1970 1990

Year

IQ scores

Intelligence Testing

• video

Assessing Intelligence

• Reliability– the extent to which a test yields consistent results– assessed by consistency of scores on:

• two halves of the test• alternate forms of the test• retesting the same individual

• Validity– the extent to which a test measures or predicts

what it is suppose to

Assessing Intelligence

• Content Validity– the extent to which a test samples the behavior

that is of interest • driving test that samples driving tasks

• Criterion– behavior (such as college grades) that a test

(such as the SAT) is designed to predict– the measure used in defining whether the test

has predictive validity

Assessing Intelligence

• Predictive Validity– success with which a test predicts the

behavior it is designed to predict– assessed by computing the correlation

between test scores and the criterion behavior

– also called criterion-related validity

Assessing Intelligence

• As the range of data under consideration narrows, its predictive power diminishes.

• Therefore, the predictive power of aptitude tests scores diminish as students move up the educational ladder.

Greater correlationover broad rangeof body weights

10

9

8

7

6

5

4

3

2

1

0

Little corre-lation withinrestricted

range

Football linemen’s

success

Body weight in pounds180 250 290

The Dynamics of Intelligence

• Mental Retardation– a condition of limited mental ability– indicated by intelligence scores below 70– produces difficulty in adapting to the demands of life– varies from mild to profound

• Down Syndrome– retardation and associated physical disorders caused

by an extra chromosome in genetic make-up

The Dynamics of IntelligenceDegrees of Mental Retardation

Level Typical Intelligence Scores Percentage of the Retarded Adaptation to Demands of Life

Mild 50-70 85% May learn academic skills up to sixth-grade level. Adults may, with assistance, achieve self-supporting social and vocational skills.

Moderate 35-49 10 May progress to second-grade level. academically. Adults may contribute to their own support by labor in sheltered workshops.

Severe 20-34 3-4 May learn to talk and perform simple work tasks under close supervision but are generally unable to profit from vocational training.

Profound Below 20 1-2 Require constant aid and supervision.

The Dynamics of Intelligence

• Creativity– the ability to produce novel and valuable ideas– components of creativity• expertise• imaginative thinking skills• venturesome personality• intrinsic motivation• creative environment

Genetic Influences

• The most genetically similar people have the most similar scores

0.00.10.20.30.40.50.60.70.80.91.0Similarity of

intelligencescores

(correlation)

Identicaltwinsreared together

Identicaltwinsreared apart

Fraternaltwinsreared together

Siblingsreared together

Unrelatedindividualsreared together

Genetic Influences

• Heritability– the proportion of variation among

individuals that we can attribute to genes

– variability depends on range of populations and environments studied

Genetic Influences

0.35

0.30

0.25

0.20

0.15

0.10

0.05

0.003 years 16 years

Child-parentcorrelation inverbal ability

scores

Children and theirbirth parents

Adopted childrenand their birthparents

Adopted childrenand their adoptiveparents

Genetic Influences• The Schooling Effect

Grade 6

Grade 5

Grade 4

110 115 120 125 130 135 140 145 150Age in months

118

115

112

109

106

103

100

97

IQ gains relativeto grade 4

baseline

Genetic Influences

• Group differences and environmental impact

Variation within group

Variation within group

Difference within group

Poor soil Fertile soil

Seeds

Genetic Influences

• The Mental Rotation Test of Spatial Abilities

Which two circles contains configuration of blocksidentical to the one in the circle at left?

Standard Responses