Task 2 - Measuring Intelligence Flashcards
Mental Ability
Capabilities on tasks whose difficulty lies in their demands on mental processes
- > reasoning, understanding, imagning, remembering
- > not assessed by physical skills or sensory abilities
Dimensions of Mental Ability
Multidimensional Aptitude Battery (MAB):
- Vocabulary
- Arithmetic
- Spatial
- Picture Arrangement
Spearman’s g factor
Suggested correlation of performance in various courses could be reflection of a single, general mental ability
G-factor
General intelligence measure derived from correlations on tasks in different domains
G-loadings
loadings on subtasks
-> higher g-loading = higher correlation with g-factor
highest g-loadings: verbal, numerical, spatial or figural content (involved reasoning)
Thurstone 7 primary factors of mental ability
- Verbal Fluency
- Verbal Comprehension
- Numerical Ability
- Spatial Visualization
- Memory
- Perceptual Speed
- Reasoning
- > tasks assessing these correlated highly with each other
- > g-abilities: can be split up in more specific sub-tasks
Development of Mental Abilities
People’s levels of intelligence increase rapidly through childhood and continue to increase into late adolescence (decrease during old age)
Biological correlates of Mental ability
Brain size: .33
Nerve conduction velocity: inconsistent results (.4-~0)
Reaction time: -.3, slower, the less capable
Inspection time (length before stimulus is noticed): -.3s
Brain waves averaged evoked potentials (shorter latency, higher frequency, lower amplitude, more complex waves)
-> .3s if combined
Brain glucose metabolism: higher IQ more efficient brain processing
Genetic and Environmental Influences on Mental Ability
children heritability: .4, shared environment .35
Adults: heritability .65, shared environment
Additive genetic variance
Combined effects of genes are sum of separate effects of each gene
Non-additive genetic variance
Combined effects of genes are different from what would be expected based on separate effects of each gene
Genetic correlation with age
Heritability correlation gets higher with age into late adolescence from childhood
- > childhood: .4
- > adulthood: .5
Womb environment influences
Common shared environment for identical twins even if adopted
- > similar nutrients, toxins and hormones
- > correlation with mental ability: .2 fraternal twins considered, .05 when nontwin siblings considered
Nutrition
Longer duration of breastfeeding associated with higher levels of mental ability
-> might not be causal: mothers who breastfeed might be smarter
Birth order
First-born children have slightly higher IQs as adults than successor siblings
Mental ability and academic achievement
Fairly strong relation of IQ and academic achievement
- > strength of relation decreases with higher levels of education
- > IQ predicts better at lower levels of education
Mental ability and job
Moderately strong tendency for people with better mental abilities to gain higher-status jobs and higher incomes
Mental ability and longevity and health
People with higher IQ tend to live longer than children with lower IQs
-> positive correlation with longevity and health
Mental ability & criminality
People with higher IQ tend to be more law abiding
-> realize consequences
Mental ability & mating
Spouses tend to be similar in verbal abilities, but not in nonverbal abilities
-> less important aspect for relationships quality
Fluid intelligence
assessed by novel tasks: e.g. puzzles
- > indicators of fluid ability
- > tasks do not make sense intuitively
Chrystallized intelligence
Assessed by familiar tasks resembling tests given in school (e.g. mathematical thinking)
- > make sense intuitively
- > indicators of chrystallized intelligence
Flynn Effect
People today score much higher on mental ability tests than people a few generations ago in many countries
-> largest increases in fluid intelligence
Gardner’s theory of multiple intelligences
eight distinct intelligences:
- linguistic,
- logical-mathematical
- spatial
- musical
- bodily-kinesthetic
- interpersonal
- intrapersonal
- naturalistic
- > evidence contradicts though: indicates general mental ability
