1. Intelligence
Psychology 1107
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2. Intelligence
Do we all have some in born intellectual capacity, or does our environment shape our intelligence?
Huge issue
Perhaps a waste of time
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3. A Little History Galton Darwin’s cousin Started eugenics
‘Hereditary genius’
Found that genius ran in families
Never occurred to him that rich families had rich environments!
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4. More Galton Tested and measured various qualities
Set up booths, got people to pay to be measured!
Found little
But, RT does correlate with IQ
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5. Binet Wanted to spot kids that needed special attention in school
Well, you have to measure intelligence then
Along with Simon, he assumed we all follow the same path, but some kids were slower than others
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6. Binet and Simon Not that simon…. Anyway, they measured mental age
Mental aptitude should show up in many ways
Found questions that predicted achievement
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7. Terman Stanford-Binet IQ = (Mental age / chronological age)
Doesn’t work for adults
Believed IQ was inherited
Racist?
Terman’s Termites
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8. What actually is intelligence?
To study something we must know how to measure it
‘I know what it means’ is not good enough
‘Goal directed adaptive behaviour?’
General agreement, but…..
Culture
Many abilities or one
Can you measure it neurologically?
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9. Culture Is intelligence the same here as anywhere?
Some say no and believe a culture free intelligence test is impossible
Others believe that general problem solving ability is culture free
Abstract, novel questions
Digit spam, stuff like that
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10. General or specific abilities
Me words together put bad paper on and spel not good
However, I am good at other stuff
Maybe find out how different abilities are related to each other
Best way to do this is by collecting a ton of data and analyzing it using fancy statistical techniques
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11. Factor analysis Statistical technique Find out what goes with what
Spearman thought there was also a general factor that underlies specific abilities g
There may be something to this
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12. Abilities g and everything
So there is something to g
Hmmm
What about say brain injuries
Or savants?
Well, intelligence is mental ability
What does being able to count the number of toothpicks from a box have to do with it?
Indeed, the mental and physical seem to go together
Forrest Gump was just a story
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13. More abilities, more factors, more names
Sternberg et al talk about 3 types of intelligence
Academic
School, IQ tests etc
Practical
Everyday, ill defined tasks
Creative
Novel situations
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14. Emotional or social intelligence
You know, like getting along with others
Understanding
Regulating emotions
No mild mood swings, that sort of thing
Hmm, umm, well, errr
Jury is still out
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15. Neurological measurement of brain size
Crazy as it sounds, there may be something to this
Brain is altered due to experience
Pretty crude measure though
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16. Brain function May be more telling
PET scans show that good scores on cognitive tasks relate to LESS glucose uptake
Higher IQ, faster perceptual processing
Related to brain function
Why should this have anything at all to do with complex tasks?
Get more stuff in?
We are still pretty far awy (?) best bet is still paper and pencil tests
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17. Assessing Intelligence
Have to operationally define intelligence
So,
Intelligence is your score on an IQ test
Aptitude tests predict ability to learn new skill
Achievement tests reflect stuff already learned
Most good IQ tests do both
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18. Modern IQ tests Wechsler adult Intelligence Scale is pretty common
WAIS
WISC too
2 scores, verbal and performance, should be close
Modern tests are standardized
If you answer the same number of questions correct as the average person, you are given a score of 100
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19. A little bit of statistics
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20. Just a bit of scary math type stuff
So, IQ is normally distributed with a mean of 100 and a standard deviation of 15
They (the tests) are constructed that way
Test must be reliable and valid
Reliability -> stable measurement
Test retest
Split half
Validity -> measure what it is supposed to
Predictive
Face
Criterion related
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21. More testing stuff
Aptitude tests lose some predictive ability as time goes by
Truncated sample
Reliability and validity are measure using a correlation coefficient
-1.00 <= r <= +1.00
Sign indicates direction
Size indicated by absolute value
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22. The extremes of intelligence
The ‘challenged’
IQ < 70 and cannot live independently
Most of these folks can, with some training, hold down jobs etc
Down’s syndrome is a big cause
Extra chromosome
Various levels of retardation
Not violent
Not communicable!
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23. The extremes The ‘gifted’ Terman’s Termites again IQ > 150
Better at everything
Still, really extreme may MAY have problems
Should the gifted be tracked?
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24. Creativity What is it? How do you measure it
Dunno
How do you measure it
Ummm not sure
Does it correlate with IQ?
Maybe….
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25. Genetics and environment
Just because something is genetic does not make it unchangeable
If something is genetic it is niether right nor wrong
Genetics do play a role in IQ
Identical twins have the same IQ, indeed, they look like the same person has taken the test!
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26. Genetics Even twins raised apart have the same IQ
Adopted kids’ IQs do not correlate with their parents’!
Heritability of IQ is about .50
Environmental effects are there too
However, you cannot teach someone something that is beyond them
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27. Group differences No doubt they exist Remember, GROUPS not individuals
Remember, individual variation greater than group
Looks aren’t everything
Sex differences too
spatial/math
Verbal ability
Emotion detection
bias
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