Intelligance

Intelligance

1. Concept

   • Explicit - based on performance on tests
   • implicit - based on peoples concept: it is what people say it is

2. definitions

   • There are enormous differences in how intelligence is conceptualised. e.g. a single factor or a set of factors
     • however a general concept is: Intelligence is a very general mental capability that, among other things, involves the ability to reason, plan, solve problems, think abstractly, comprehend complex ideas, learn quickly and learn from experience. It is not merely book learning, a narrow academic skill… Rather, it reflects a broader and deeper capability for comprehending our surroundings - ‘catching on’, ‘making sense’ of things, or ‘figuring out’ what to do.

3. galton - first to mesure intelligance, looked for individual differences between university students. concluded that there is a stable, biological difference in people, a low level property in the nervous system that is inherited, reflects differences in efficiency of simple neural processes.

   • corrolation
     • extend to which two variables are related
       • how abilities vary in relation to each other
       • How well we can use scores on one variable to predict scores on another
     • invented the term eugenic - controlled breeding to create the desired human

4. IQ - Alfred binet

   • no pass = duller than average
   • goal‐seeking (“direction”), choice of  strategy (“adaptation”), and monitoring or self‐evaluation  (“autocriticism”). such functions assocsiated with frontal and executive functions
     • intelligence came to be viewed as a unitary variable that increased rather linearly across childhood development.
   • Developed tests involving repeating digits, solving arithmetical problems,  discriminating weights, sentence completion and distinguishing between  abstract terms
   • critisism - individual difference, low correlations between and within tests,differential rates of growth and decline of functions & complexity of brain structure and pathology
   • IQ = ratio of mental to chronological age (x 100)