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2. Pause and Reflect: Why Study Psychology?
Psychology offers fun, do-it-yourself tests. Would you like to test your creativity? Arrange 10 coins in this same configuration. By only moving two coins, can you create two rows of 6 coins?
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3. Thinking—Creativity
How did you do? Did you think of this creative solution to the 10 coin problem?
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4. Language
Language: form of communication using sounds and symbols combined according to specified rules
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5. Language: Three Building Blocks
1. Phoneme: smallest unit of speech or sound
2. Morpheme: smallest meaningful unit of language
3. Grammar: rules specifying how phonemes, morphemes, words, and phrases should be combined to express thoughts
Syntax: rules for word order
Semantics: system of using words to create meaning
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6. Language: Three Building Blocks (Continued)
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7. Language Development Prelinguistic Stage: crying, cooing, and babbling
Baby Sign: infants as young as 9 months can learn symbolic gestures
Linguistic Stage: single-utterances, telegraphic speech, and learning the rules of grammar
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8. Theories of Language Development
Nature Perspective: language is an inborn capacity that develops primarily by maturation
Chomsky’s language acquisition device (LAD)
Nurture Perspective: language develops from a complex system of rewards, punishments, and imitation
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9. Animals and Language
Some of the most successful nonhuman animal language studies have used American Sign Language (ASL).
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10. Intelligence
Intelligence: global capacity to think rationally, act purposefully, and deal effectively with the environment
Intelligence is a hypothetical, abstract construct.
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11. What Is Intelligence? Historical views of intelligence:
1. Single ability or general factor called “g” (Spearman)
2. Multiple abilities (Thurstone and Guilford)
3. Single ability with two types of g, fluid and crystallized intelligence (Cattell)
4. Multiple abilities (Gardner and Sternberg)
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12. ©John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 2008 Carpenter/Huffman: Visualizing Psychology

13. ©John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 2008 Carpenter/Huffman: Visualizing Psychology

14. Measuring Intelligence
Stanford-Binet and Wechsler most widely used individual intelligence tests. Both tests compute an intelligence quotient (IQ), which compares the deviation of a person’s test score to norms for that person’s age group.
Original version of Stanford-Binet (IQ = MA/CA x 100)
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15. Measuring Intelligence— The Normal Distribution of IQ Scores
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16. Measuring Intelligence— Sample Wechsler Tests
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17. Measuring Intelligence
Three scientific standards for psychological tests:
Standardization—establishes norms and uniform procedures for giving and scoring tests
Reliability—measure of the consistency and stability of test scores over time
Validity—ability of a test to measure what it was designed to measure
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18. Pause and Reflect: Check & Review
Why is it important to recognize that intelligence is a hypothetical, abstract concept?
Briefly explain how reliability differs from validity.
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19. The Intelligence Controversy—Extremes in Intelligence
Mental Retardation: IQs of 70 and below
Mental Giftedness: IQs of 135 and above
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20. The Intelligence Controversy: Explaining Differences
Is it the brain? All mental activity (including intelligence) results from neural activity in the brain.
Is it genetic or environmental influences? Heredity and environment are important, inseparable factors in intellectual development.
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21. An Example of Genetic Vs. Environmental Influences on Intelligence
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22. The Intelligence Controversy: Are IQ Tests Culturally Biased?
Some ethnic groups score differently on IQ tests, but there are numerous contributing factors, including stereotype threat.
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23. Pause and Reflect: Critical Thinking
Given that some ethnic groups do score differently on standard IQ tests, do you believe they should be abolished in public schools? Why or why not?
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24. Visualizing Psychology by Siri Carpenter & Karen Huffman
PowerPoint  Lecture Notes Presentation
End of
Chapter 8: Thinking,
Language, and Intelligence
Siri Carpenter, Yale University
Karen Huffman, Palomar College
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