intelligence notes - anderson 5

Intelligence.notebook

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January 10, 2014

IntelligenceChapter 11

Upcoming Due Dates:

1. Jan. 10th Chapter 11 HW due

2. Jan. 14th Chapter 11 Test

3. Jan. 16th Chapter 11 Journal Due

These dates will also be on my calendar to serve as a reminder of when things are due.

Intelligence Tests Intelligence test tests for assessing a person's mental abilities and comparing them with the abilities of other people, by means of numerical scores

it is debated how useful they are and how fair they are

Questions to consider:

Should these tests be used for admittance into

schools?

What is intelligence?

How can we assess it?

What role does heredity play in it?

What do different test scores mean?

Alfred Binet: Predicting School Achievement

Alfred Binet began the modern intelligencetesting movement

the tests became necessary when France made it mandatory for all children to attend school

needed to identify those children with special needs

that may not benefit from a regular classroom

teachers' judgement was too subjective needed a more objective form to "judge" the students' abilities

Binet and Theodore Simon were asked to come up with an objective method for determining a child's ability


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January 10, 2014

Alfred Binet: Predicting School Achievement Binet and Simon developed an objective test

assumed that all children follow the same course of

intellectual development but some do it more

quickly

on the test a "dull" or a child that retarded in their

development should perform the same as a younger

child

a "bright" child would perform at the level of an

older child


Binet and Simon wanted to measure a child's mental age

mental age the chronological age typical of a given

level of performance

the average nine year old has a mental age of 9

children with a lower than average mental age, a 9

year old with a mental age of 7, would struggle with

schoolwork considered normal for their age


Measuring Mental Age

theorized that mental aptitude is a general capacity

that shows up in various ways

developed varied reasoning and problemsolving

questions that might predict school achievement

succeeded in finding items that did predict how well

the children handled schoolwork by testing the

questions out on Parisian children


Binet and Simon did not assume why the children were slow, average, or above average

Binet did though feel a person's environment could help or hurt the child's development

use certain "mental drills or activities" to help

develop their attention span and selfdiscipline

Binet insisted the test did not measure inborn intelligence

the test was purely suppose to identify French schoolchildren needing special attention


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January 10, 2014

Lewis Terman: The Innate IQ

after Binet's death, Stanford Professor Lewis Terman tried using Binet's test on children in California but found Binet's mental ages to not be accurate for California

Terman would revise the test

he named his test the StanfordBinet

William Stern would use the test to come up with an intelligence quotient or IQ

IQ a person's mental age divided by chronological

age and multiplied by 100 to get rid of the decimal

point start here



if a child's mental and chronological age are the same, they have an IQ of 100

what is the IQ of an 8 year old that can answer a questions usually meant for a 10 year old?

current intelligence tests including the StanfordBinet no longer compute IQ

today's tests looks at more of the test taker's performance ability

2/3 of people score between an 85 and 115


Terman's uses for the test

intelligence tests would lead to "smarter" people

reproducing and getting rid of the "duller" people

to evaluate newly arriving immigrants and army

recruits

Binet would have probably been horrified with how his tests were being used

Binet did not believe his tests should be used to measure inherited intelligence as Terman was trying to judge


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January 10, 2014

What is intelligence? some psychologists believe it is something we inherit, some believe it is formed by our experiences, some believe it is a combination of both, and some believe it is purely a product created from the eye of the beholder

intelligence experts do agree that intelligence is not a concrete thing but an abstract idea

Reification viewing an abstract, immaterial concept as if it were a concrete thing

example saying someone has an IQ of 120 instead of saying

her score on the intelligence test was 120

Intelligence is socially constructed

each culture values different "intelligence" attributes

Intelligence the ability to learn from experience, sovle problems, and use knowledge to adapt to new situations

Is Intelligence one general ability or several specific abilities?

Factor analysis enables researchers to identify clusters of test items that measure a common ability

people who do well on vocab items often do well

on paragraph comprehension

helps to define a verbal intelligence factor

spacial ability and reasoning ability are two other

factors

Charles Spearman developed factor analysis and he also developed general intelligence


general intelligence

also called g

factor that underlies the specific factors

takes into account that often times people that

score high on one factor score high on other factors

as well

the g factor underlies all of our intelligent behaviors


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January 10, 2014


many people questioned the ideas of the g factor but many studies have shown there to be evidence of a possible g factor

intelligence is like athleticism

its not one thing but many

often times several distinct abilities cluster together

in one individual to define a small general intelligence

factor

Multiple Intelligences Howard Gardner believes that intelligence comes in different packages unlike Spearman who thought it came in one package

he believed that brain damage may diminish one ability but not another

different abilities allowed our ancestors to cope with different challenges

he would study people with savant syndrome that had an exceptional ability in one area

these people may score low in intelligence but score

exceptionally high in one area like computation,

drawing, or musical memory


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January 10, 2014

Multiple Intelligences

many people with savant syndrome are also diagnosed with autism

may have no language ability but can compute

numbers as quickly as a calculator

using his findings, Gardner would argue that we do not have one intelligence but multiple intelligences

each intelligence independent of the other

he identified 8 different aptitudes or intelligences

he believed an overall intelligence score did not show enough about the individual's abilities


many scientists argued against Gardner because they believed there to still be a g factor

those with mental disadvantages often are faced with

physical disadvantages

other critics also saw some of his categories of intelligence to be talents not forms of intelligence

Gardner argued that every culture values different abilities making the definition of intelligence to be different for everyone

Multiple Intelligences Robert Sternberg agreed with Gardner about there being a set of multiple intelligences but he came up three aspects of intelligence

Analytical intelligence assessed by intelligence tests

that present welldefined problems that have one

single right answer

Creative Intelligence demonstrated in reacting

adaptively to novel situations and generating novel

ideas

Practical Intelligence often required for every day

tasks, in which there are often multiple solutions


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January 10, 2014


Sternberg believed traditional intelligence tests assess academic intelligence but not vocational success

Sternberg's wanted to test people on their possible leadership ability and other vocational abilities

both Gardner and Sternberg point out that differing varieties of gitedness provide for challenges in schools

teachers are being trained to appreciate different abilities and to teach in a variety of manners to reach as many students as possible

Emotional Intelligence

Social Intelligence the knowhow involved in comprehending social situations and managing oneself successfully

Emotional Intelligence the ability to perceive, express, understand, and regulate emotions

it is critical for social intelligence

emotionally intelligent people are selfaware

they manage their emotions well not too high or low

look for long term rewards instead of quick

gratification

empathy enables them to read others' emotions

know how to handle others' emotions

successful in social settings

Emotional Intelligence

Multficator Emotional Intelligence Scale(MEIS)

used to asses both overall emotional intelligence and it three

components

1. Perceive emotions recognizing emotions conveyed by

various faces, musical excerpts, graphic designs, and

stories

2. Understand Emotions recognizing how emotions change

over time, predicting differing emotions, and apprehending

how emotions blend

3. Regulate emotions rating alternative strategies that one

could use when facing various reallife dilemmas


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January 10, 2014

Intelligence and Creativity

Creativity the ability to produce ideas that are both novel and valuable

studies show that a certain level of aptitude is necessary but not sufficient for creativity

people who do well on intelligence tests often do well

on creativity tests

Intelligence and Creativity 5 components of creativity:

Expertise welldeveloped base of knowledge

Imaginative thinking skills provides the ability to see

things in new ways, to recognize patterns, and to

make connections

Venturesome personality tolerates risk, perseveres

in overcoming obstacles, and seeks new experiences

Intrinsic motivation motivated by interest,

enjoyment, or other internal factors

Creative environment environment that supports

creativity

Intelligence neurologically measurable? human intelligence surpasses animal intelligence because the human cortex is more developed

some modern studies have revealed a small correlation between head size(relative to body size) and intelligence score

remember correlation does not equal causation

head size is a weak method for measuring brain size

using MRI's have shown a stronger correlation between brain size and intelligence

genes, nutrition, environmental stimulation, or a combination of factors could lead to the differing brain sizes

Intelligence neurologically measurable? postmortem brain studies have revealed that highly educated people die with more synapses than lesseducated people

these studies do not show if the education causes the more synapses or the more synapses causes people to seek more education

other studies suggest highly intelligent people differ in their brain plasticity


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January 10, 2014

Modern Tests of Mental Abilities

Psychologists classify ability tests as either aptitude tests or achievement tests

aptitude tests intended to predict your ability to

learn a new skill

aptitude is the capacity to learn

achievement tests intended to reflect what you have

learned

college entrance exams are aptitude and final exams are achievement Why?


most tests, whether labeled aptitude or achievement, measure ability and development

Explain an example of how this can be

simply put, aptitude tests predict future performance and achievement tests assess current performance


Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale

most widely used intelligence test

consists of 11 subtests

yields an overall intelligance score like the

StanfordBinet and separate verbal and

performance(nonverbal) scores

huge differences in the scores may show possible

evidence of a learning problem

Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children(WISC)

a similar test for schoolage children


Subtests for the WAIS

Verbal

General information, similarities, arithmetic

reasoning, vocabulary, comprehension, digit span

Performance

picture completion, picture arrangement, block

design, object assembly, digitsymbol subsitution


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January 10, 2014

Standardization

the number of questions you answer correctly on an intelligence test does not tell you anything alone

we need a basis for comparing your performance with others' performance in order to make meaning of your score

in order to do this testmakers first give the test to a representative sample of people and then others take the test following the same procedures

their scores are then compared with the standards defined by the sample

this process is called standardization

Standardization

standardized test results typically form a normal distribution

a normal distribution will form a bellshaped pattern of scores called the normal curve

no matter what we measure, the scores often form

a roughly symmetrical, bellshaped distribution

clustered around the average

the average for intelligence is 100

Normal Bell Curve

a performance higher than all but 2 percent of all scores earns an intelligence score of 130

a raw score that is comparably below 98 percent of all the scores earns an intelligence of 70

to keep the average at 100, the intelligence tests are often restandardized

Flynn effect intelligence performance worldwide has been improving of late

Why could the scores have gone up? Are we

smarter?

Normal Bell Curve


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January 10, 2014

Normal Bell Curve

Reliability

even comparing your test scores to those of the standardizing group wont tell you anything unless the test has reliability

reliability the extent to which a test yields consistent

results, as assessed by the consistency of scores on

two halves of the test, on alternate forms of the test,

or on retesting

to test for reliability researchers retest people using

the same test or another form of it

if the two scores agree, the test is usually considered

reliable

Reliability

any score difference reflects "error" variation related to such things as luck, fatigue, and anxiety

the higher the correlation between the testretest scores the higher the test's reliability

Validity

high reliability does not ensure a test's validity

validity the extent to which the test actually measures what it is supposed to measure or predicts what it is supposed to predict

you can have high reliability but low validity

example using an inaccurate tape measure to

measure height

Content validity the test taps the pertinent behavior

a driver's test has content validity

Criterion an independent measure of what the test aims to assess


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January 10, 2014

Validity

aptitude tests must have predictive validity

predictive validity the test predicts future

achievement

Thoughts about the video? What does the video show you about people with "mental disabilities? Does this young man support the idea of the g factor or Gardner's multiple intelligences?

http://www.ebaumsworld.com/video/watch/83126769/

Extremes of Intelligence Low extreme

Mental retardation a condition of limited mental

ability, indicated by an intelligence score below 70

and difficulty in adapting to the demands of life

varies from mild to profound

1 percent of the population meets these criteria

males outnumber females by 50 percent

Down syndrome a condition of retardation and

associated physical disorders caused by an extra

chromosome in one's genetic makeup

http://www.ebaumsworld.com/video/watch/83126769/


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January 10, 2014

Extremes of Intelligence High Extreme

many critics question the assumptions of currently

popular "gifted child" programs

question the notion of labeling the top 3 to 5

percent of children as being gifted and putting

them their own classes separate from the

"ungifted" this is called tracking

supporters of the tracking say it is easier to teach

students at equal levels

tracking also allows students to find like minded

friends

Extremes of Intelligence High Extreme

critics have concluded that the achievement scores

of students tracked by aptitude are hardly higher than

those of similar untracked students

tracking can also lower selfesteem and sometimes

creates a selffulfilling prophecy

giftedness is not one single trait and "gifted"

children should not automatically be grouped

together

What do you think?

Genetic Influences

Results from studies of how genetics influence intelligence:

Identical twins have been seen to score almost

exactly the same on tests

How could environment still be a factor in this?

Fraternal twins scores are often much different

Even twins who are not dressed or treated the same

by the parents score close to the same scores

Identical twins have similar gray matter volume in

their brains

a gene on chromosome 6 has recently been identified to be

linked with intelligence

by inserting an extra gene that helps with memory, smarter

mice have been produced


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January 10, 2014

Genetic Influences

another study of adopted children has shown an interesting trend

with age, mental similarities between adopted

children and their adoptive families disappear as

parental influence wanes

by adulthood the correlation is almost zero

it seems that with age, genetic influences become

more apparent

adopted children's intelligence scores become more

like those of their biological parents

identical twins similarities increase with age

Genetic Influences

heritability the variation in intelligence test scores attributable to genetic factors

we can never say what percentage of our intelligence comes purely from heredity

we can look at to what extent the difference among people can be attributed to genes

heritability never pertains to an individual, only to why people differ

it so hard to take environment out of any study

Ethnic influences

Facts:

racial groups differ in their average scores on

intelligence scores

highscoring people are more likely to attain high

levels of education and income

What do you think has caused these two facts to occur?


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January 10, 2014

Ethnic influences

current studies have shown the average IQ for whites is 100 and for African American is 85

there is a differing size of a gap in the different types of aptitude tests, but there is a substantial gap in the results for all of them

so are aptitude tests a good measure for entrance into colleges if used solely?

is the racial difference because of heredity or environment?

Does culture play a role in the tests and their results?

Gender influences

psychologically, gender similarities outnumber gender differences but we pay more attention to the differences

many researchers find no gap in overall intelligence scores

differences

girls are better spellers

girls are more verbally fluent, more sensitive to

touch, taste, and odor

girls are more capable of remembering words and

the location of objects

boys outnumber girls in special education classes

boys talk later and stutter more often

boys are in more remedial reading courses

boys outnumber girls in underachieving in high schools

Gender influences

in math the average girl typically equals or surpasses the average boy

girls do better in math computation but boys do better in math problem solving

male high school seniors average 45 points higher on the SAT math test than girls 4 more right answers

boys have scored higher on tests involving spatial ability

helps when packing the car, playing chess, or doing

geometry problems

Gender influences

studies have shown that exposure to high levels of male sex hormones during the prenatal period does enhance spatial abilities

social expectations can also shape boys' and girls' interests and abilities

math and science have traditionally been considered

masculine subjects

sons are sent to computer camp while girls are

encouraged to do well in English

the math problem solving gap between boys and

girls becomes larger with age


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January 10, 2014

Gender influences

studies have shown that women are better at reading nonverbal cues such as facial expressions

Stereotype threat a selfconfirming concern that one will be evaluated based on a negative stereotype

intelligence notes - anderson 5

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