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Chapter 11 - Intelligence
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We all have an intuitive understanding of what intelligence is. In fact, we probably often use terms such as smart, clever, bright or brilliant when referring to others (not to speak of ourselves!)
We would probably all agree that intelligence has to do with good performance in cognitive tasks. But what counts for good performance? Think of:
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•Stephen Harper (or better yet, George W. Bush)
•Bill Gates
•Albert Einstein
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We often use the term intelligence as if we were talking about a single characteristic a person possesses … we typically talk of someone being intelligent or not … period.
But let’s consider athletic capability. Look at these various sportspersons. Do you think that one who is good at one of the sports would also be good at particular other sports?
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Do you think that a single athletic ability is relevant to all of them?
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Savant syndrome refers to cases (very rare) where an individual with an IQ that is well below average has an exceptional talent in a particular area.
The exceptional talent is typically in one of these areas:
•Calendar calculation (given date, they know day of week).
•Amazing feats of memory.
•Great musical ability despite the lack of formal training.
•Mastery of several languages.
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Chapter 11 - Intelligence
Video on Autistic Savant Syndrome
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Spearman (1927) was one of the first Psychologists to theorize about human intelligence.
He noticed that when tests of various abilities are given to people, there was a strong correlation between the scores. This lead Spearman to propose that there was one intellectual ability which he called the g factor (g for general) that underlies all cognitive functions.
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Spearman also noticed that the correlation between all test scores was not perfect, and that people who did well on one test did not always do well on another. So he concluded there were a variety of s factors (s for specific) that also contributed to a subject’s performance on intellectual tasks.
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More recently, psychologists have relied on a statistical method called factor analysis to further study the underlying structure of intelligence.
This method involves assessing people’s performance on a number of different cognitive tasks relevant to intelligence.
Correlations between performance on these various tasks is then used to try to figure out how many underlying factors exist.
Let’s look at table 11.1 from the book to see how this is done...
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Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale
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Chapter 11 - Intelligence
Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale
What is the capital of France?
Why are we tried by a jury of our peers?
How are goldfish and canaries similar?
What does the word conventional mean?
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Chapter 11 - Intelligence
Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale
Verbal Ability
What is the capital of France?
Why are we tried by a jury of our peers?
How are goldfish and canaries similar?
What does the word conventional mean?
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Chapter 11 - Intelligence
Verbal Ability
Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale
Repeat these numbers back to me 462397654
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Chapter 11 - Intelligence
Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale
Verbal Ability Short-Term Memory Ability
Repeat these numbers back to me 462397654
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Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale
Verbal Ability Short-Term Memory Ability
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Chapter 11 - Intelligence
What is missing from picture? (whisker)
Arrange blocks to match design
Assemble “jigsaw” image of object
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Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale
Verbal Ability Short-Term Memory Ability Spatial Ability
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Chapter 11 - Intelligence
What is missing from picture? (whisker)
Arrange blocks to match design
Assemble “jigsaw” image of object
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Some studies using the factor analytic approach ended up finding many different factors related to intelligence … for example,
Thurstone (1938) found 7 factors; verbal comprehension , verbal fluency , number , spatial visualization , memory , reasoning , and perceptual speed .
However, when a factor analysis was performed on Thurstone’s factors, Cattell found that two factors underlie the 7 factors.
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He labeled these two factors
Fluid intelligence (g f
): Ability to see relations and patterns.
Crystallized intelligence (g c
): Accumulated life knowledge.
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Howard Gardner has proposed a theory of multiple intelligences that has proven particularly popular in the field of education.
According to Gardner, there are eight types of intelligences:
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• logical-mathematical
• linguistic
• spatial
• naturalist
• musical
• bodily-kinesthetic
• intrapersonal awareness
• interpersonal awareness
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One of the most enduring controversy in psychology is whether intelligence is mostly influenced by heredity or by environmental influences (nature vs. nurture).
The cartoon we just saw suggests that behavioural trait
(and what we do in life) are completely determined by our genetic make up (identical twins share all their genes).
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Video on Twins Reared Apart and Reunited
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Please raise your hand if you agree with the following statement:
“A person is the way that he/she is because of his/her genetic make-up.”
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Q : Compare identical twins separated at birth and reared apart?
A : That’s one way, and it is what was done in the cartoon and video.
More generally, the heritability of a behavioural trait is the variability in the trait that correlates with genetic differences.
Let’s look at how Table 11.6 in the textbook
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Most estimates of heritability of IQ hover around 50%
This does not mean that 50% of intelligence is based on genes, but that 50% of variability in intelligence is related to variability in genetic make-up.
The heritability index tends to increase from childhood to adolescence, presumably because children are under tighter control from parents and other authority figures than adolescents and adults.
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