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1. Spearman

   • distinction between 2 factors
     • Unspecified number of specific factors independently involved in particular tasks
     • a general factor, or g, which is purely quantitative and permeates all cognitive performance of any kind
   • abilities are related, this could be accounted for by the notion of intelligence as a general ‘thinking ability’ (or g). therefore to do a task you need g and some component specific to the task. so intelligence=g
   • individual difference
     • Apprehension of experience - explicit awareness or the realisation of what is being experienced
     • Eduction of relations - understanding relationships among terms. e.g. mean & genouragous are OPPOSITE
     • Eduction of correlates - Application of an inference to a new problem. An example would be “mean” is to “generous” as “black” is to “?”.
   • Factor analysis
     • data reduction - process whereby basic components are extracted from an array of correlation coefficients between a set of variables
     • variables that correlate highly with each other are regarded as representing a single factor
     • those that correlate weakly with each other are seen to represent independent factors
     • aim is to identify constructs that underlie relationships among sets of interrelated variables
     • Emergent factors, however, are purely statistical and do not provide direct insight into what they actually represent

2. critisicm

   • mathematical unity rather than psychological
   • Number of factors that are extracted from an analysis is rather arbitrary
   • Others maintain that Spearman was very liberal with the range of tests he accepted
   • According to Sternberg (1977), a strong general factor emerged in Spearman’s model due largely to a restricted range of related tests used in his analyses