Overview

What does is mean to be intelligent?

History of Intelligence Testing

Nature of Intelligence

4 Phases of Aging Research on Intelligence

Age-related decline

Stability vs. Decline

Manipulation of Adult IQ

Growth of adult intellect

What is the everyday role of intelligence?

• high IQ = success in life

• competence = intelligence + ??• same guidelines across the lifespan?

• academic vs. practical intelligence

Sternberg et al. (1981)

• 3 major clusters of abilities

• problem-solving

• verbal ability

• investigated general intuitive beliefs about intelligence

• social competence

Sternberg et al. cont’d ...

• 30-year-old planning for the future, open-minded

• 50-year-old willing to learn, established career, authoritativeness

• how do conceptions change across lifespan?

• 70-year-old socially active, up on current events, accepting of change

• motivation, effort, reading - common to all

Binet• low ability vs. adequate ability/low motivation• assessed reasoning, judgement, imagination

Terman • IQ = (Mental Age Chronological Age) * 100• good for children, not adults

Galton • intelligence is inherited• ability to process sensory information• poor correlation with scholastic success

• IQ tests are age-graded,average score of 100 at each age level

• move into cognition

One ability (“g”) or several abilities?

• testing began in practical circumstances,not to test everyday performance of adults

The Primary Mental Abilities

W Word Fluency

N Number

S Space

V Verbal Comprehension

M Associative Memory

P Perceptual Speed

I (or R) Induction or General Reasoning

Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS)

• Vocabulary

• Similarities

• Arithmetic

VERBAL

• Digit Span

• Information

• Comprehension

• Digit Symbol

• Picture Completion

• Block Design

PERFORMANCE

• Picture Arrangement • Object Assembly

• Letter-Number Sequencing

• Matrix Reasoning • Symbol Search

Secondary Mental Abilities

• “native mental ability’• problem solving w/ complex relationships, novel (relatively culture-free) materials

(a) Fluid Intelligence

• reflects quality of one’s brain

• depends on experience with the world

e.g. personal experience, education, culture

(b) Crystallized Intelligence

• non-novel intellectual judgments

Woodruff-Pak (1989)

• chronological

• sequential

4 phases of changing perspectives about intelligence in the 20th century

• transitory • social, cultural and historical forces

Phase I: Age-Related Decline

• psychometric measure was absolute

• cross-sectional studies only

• industrialization - focus on youth, acquiring new skills

• unidimensional view from ~ 1920 - 1950

• WW1 Army Alpha Examination

• 1.7 million 18-60 yr-old officers

• declines found over the age of 20

Yerkes (1921)

Wechsler (1944)

• scores on intelligence scale designed to conform with ‘decline’ with age

“ decline of mental ability with age is part of thegeneral senescent process of the organism as a whole”

Phase II: Stability vs. Decline

• societal attitudes changing towards old

• increased life expectancy

• sophisticated approaches: cohort, type of ability

• 1950s

• no longer univariate and unidimensional complex multivariate, multidimensional

Owens (1953)

• total scores showed gains

• continued stability in Owens (1966)

Confused - why the discrepancy??

• 31yr follow-up of 127 men on Army Alpha

• cross-sectional studies: • longitudinal studies:

• terminal drop:

cohort effects

selective drop-out

plagues both types

Age Differences in WAIS Verbal and Performance Scores (Wechsler, 1958)

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16 18 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 55 60 65 70

Age

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an

pe

rfo

rma

nc

e

Verbal

Performance

Wechsler (1958)

Primary Mental Abilities and Age

• sequential design began in 1956• original group of adults (22-70yrs) retested every 7 yrs• new group of adults tested at each 7yr testing session, and then followed

• Seattle Longitudinal Studies SLS; Schaie et al.

• allows for assessment of:cross-sectional effectslongitudinal effectscohort effects

SLS: Cross-Sectional Effects

From HRR, p.308

30

35

40

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25 32 39 46 53 60 67 74 81 88

Age

Me

an

T S

core

s Inductive Reasoning

Spatial Orientation

Numeric Ability

Verbal Ability

Perceptual Speed

Verbal Memory

SLS: Longitudinal Effects

35

40

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60

25 32 39 46 53 60 67 74 81 88

Age

Me

an

T-S

core

s

Inductive Reasoning

Spatial Orientation

Numeric Ability

Word Fluency

Verbal Meaning

From Schaie (1994)

SLS: Global or specific changes?

From Schaie (1989)

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32 39 46 53 60 67 74 81 88

Age

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One Ability

Two Abilities

Three Abilities

Four Abilities

Five Abilitities

SLS: Cohort Effects

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25 32 39 46 53 60 67 74 81

Age

Me

an

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core

s

Inductive Reasoning

Spatial Orientation

Numeric Ability

Word Fluency

Verbal Meaning

1970

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25 32 39 46 53 60 67 74 81

Age

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Inductive Reasoning

Spatial Orientation

Numeric Ability

Word Fluency

Verbal Meaning

1991

Secondary Mental Abilities and Age

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14-17 18-20 21-28 29-39 40-61

Age

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ce

Fluid IntelligenceCrystallized IntelligenceGeneral Intelligence

See HRR, p.309

Phase III: Manipulation of Adult IQ

Can we modify adults’ intelligence?

Cohort differences can boost performance thru:

Phases I and II “counting and classifying the wrinkles of

aged behaviour” (Kastenbaum, 1968)

• education • health

• work

If cohort effects = environment forces

then

Individual environment forces … can these be manipulated experimentally to alter functioning?

cohort differences > age differences

• strong social impetus e.g., Head Start Program

SLS

individual differences in decline onset

Mental Exercise & Cognitive Training

• environment intelligence

naturalistic phenomenon!!

But … what about cognitive training

• complex relationship btwn disease, lifestyle, personal characteristics and intellectual decline

• training young (learning) vs. old (learning, slowing, remediation) • plasticity = reserve capacity in older adults

simple and effective strategy PRACTICE

Denney (1982)

• Optimally exercised Ability

• Unexercised Ability

ability a normal, healthy adult exhibits w/out practice/training

ability a normal, healthy adult demonstrates under the best conditions of training/practice

fluid intelligence, not dependent on experience, unlikely trained

crystallized intelligence, skills used daily

Denney’s Unexercised & Optimally Exercised Abilities

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1 0

2 0

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0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90

Age

Cogn

itive

Abi

lity

Optimally Exercised

Unexercised

See HRR, p.322

Adult Development and Enrichment Project(ADEPT; Baltes & Willis, 1982)

(2) tailored interventions (practice, feedback, review)

(1) minimal direct training (familiarity)

(3) no training control

• tested/trained fluid abilities using tests of figural relations, induction, memory/attention• used 3 levels of intervention

• repetition improved performance, especially mass practice• long-term and transfer effects w/ (2) varied by ability, strongest effects w/ figural relations

Schaie & Willis (SLS;1986, 1992)

• ability specific training reversed declines documented over a 14 year period

• improved performance in non-decliners

• longitudinal design, training compared with prior functioning• classified as either declining or remaining stable from 1970 - 1984• Reasoning or Space training based on status

• 7 years later, training effects substantial, greatest for decliners

(1) inductive reasoning training (ADEPT)

(2) stress inoculation training (reduce anxiety)

(3) no training

(4) post-test (just took final test) • both training groups improved performance• range of transfer to other fluid abilities narrow

Hayslip (1989, 1995)

• non-cognitive fluid ability interventions

• long term effects but may require booster

Phase IV: Growth of Adult Intellect

• new focus - notion of growth

• def’n and measures of intelligence increasingly important issues

• context in which one lives

• recognition of importance of aging adults i.e., size, social and economic power

• ecological validity questioned • reject traditional for everyday measures

• explore qualitative changes

Problems with Traditional Psychometric Testswith Older Adults

• removed from academic environment

• less formal education

• increasing years since school

• many tasks not like problems they face

• emphasis on speed in performance • motivation, anxiety, caution

Willis & Schaie (1986)

• everyday tasks correlated w/ primary abilities

• experimental everyday intellectual tasks (labels, maps, charts, paragraphs, forms, advertisements, technical documents, news text)

• overall performance on everyday tasks was primarily predicted by fluid abilities, secondarily by crystallized ability

• labels, charts, maps, forms, ads fluid

• paragraph comprehension crystallized

• old not always better than young

Diehl et al. (1995)

(1) Observed Tasks of Daily Living (OTDL) (food preparation, medication intake, phone use)

(2) Everyday Problems Test (EPT) pencil-and-paper: meal prep.; meds, phone use; shopping, house, financial management, transportation

(3) Mental Abilities

(4) reported ADLs that needed assistance

• objective and naturalistic measures of everyday intelligence

• OTDL, EPT affected by:• health, indirectly thru cognitive abilities

• scores on OTDL correlated w/ EPT, mental abilities and number of difficulties w/ ADLs

• age

• performance on OTDL, EPT strongly influenced by fluid intelligence measures, as well as age and crystallized intelligence

traditional tests tap into practical intelligence

Diehl et al. (1995), cont’d ...

Everyday Problem Solving: Denney et al.

(2) age-appropriate problems to solve

(3) problems typically faced by older adults, devised in consultation w/ older adults

same general findings across studies

(1) same set of problem to solve

• increases up to middle-age, then declines • influenced by experience, but experience cannot completely overpower aging effects• older adults as good as young adults

• 3 studies, adults aged 20-80

Denney: Everyday Problem Solving

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Age

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nitiv

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bilit

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OptimallyExercised

Unexercised

Practical Problems

Traditional Tests

Denney (1982)

Cornelius & Caspi (1987)

• EPSI modestly correlated w/ (2) and (3)• EPSI, Verbal Meaning increased w/ age• Letter Series decreased w/ age

(1) Everyday Problem Solving Inventory (EPSI)

• education unrelated to EPSI, highly related to (2), moderately related to (3) • EPSI performance unrelated to familiarity

(3) Letter Series Test

• adminstered 3 tests to 20-78 year olds

(2) Verbal MeaningTest

Cornelius & Caspi (1987) cont’d ...

4 0

4 2

4 4

4 6

4 8

5 0

5 2

5 4

5 6

20 30 40 50 60 70

Age

Pe

rfo

rman

ce

Verbal Meaning Test

Everyday ProblemSolving Inventory

Letter Series Test

Wisdom: How does in relate to intelligence?

Wisdom consideration of whether a particular course of action should be pursued

Other conceptualizations of wisdom:

Intelligence how to accomplish tasks

integration of cognition and affect Philosophical: understanding abstract relations btwn one’s self and the rest of humanity

vs. Practical: ability to display superiorjudgment wrt important matters of real life

Strategic Knowledge

WISDOM

Factual Knowledge

Life-span Contextualism

Value Relativism

Recognition & Managementof Uncertainty

Studies of wisdom have shown:

• an individual’s experience and training are important

. . . but they’re not everything

• older adults perform as well as younger adults

• wisdom manifests itself optimally within human social interactions