AP Psych Unit 11 (Testing and Individual Differences)
To what extent is intelligence related to neural processing speed?
- People who score high on intelligence tests tend also to have agile brains and score high in speed of perception and speed of neural processing - The direction of correlation has not been determined, and some third factor may influence both intelligence and processing speed.
How and why do racial and ethnic groups differ in mental ability scores?
- Racial and ethnic groups differ in their average intelligence test scores - The evidence suggests that environmental differences are largely, perhaps entirely, responsible for these group differences.
to what extent is intelligence related to brain anatomy?
- Some studies have found a positive correlation between intelligence score and brain size and activity, especially in the frontal and parietal lobes - Ample gray matter and white matter enable efficient communication between brain circuits.
What does evidence reveal about environmental influences on intelligence?
- Studies of twins, family members, and adoptees also provide evidence of environmental influences. - Test scores of identical twins raised apart are slightly less similar (though still very highly correlated) than the scores of identical twins raised together. - Studies of children raised in extremely impoverished environments with minimal social interaction indicate that life experiences can significantly influence intelligence test performance - No evidence supports the idea that normal, healthy children can be molded into geniuses by growing up in an exceptionally enriched environment.
Sternberg's three intelligences
- analytical/academic problem solving, creative, and practical
Galton's meaning of intelligence
- believed Genius is inherited - Measures the "natural ability" to encourage those of high ability to mate with one another: Reaction time Sensory acuity Muscular power Body proportions
Give a summary, a strength, and a weakness of Charles Spearman's idea of general intelligence.
1 point: General intelligence is basic intelligence that predicts our abilities in varied academic areas. 1 point: A strength of this idea is that different abilities, such as verbal and spatial, tend to correlate. 1 point: A weakness of this idea is that human abilities are too diverse to be explained by a single general intelligence factor. 60-6 To what extent is intelligence related to neural processing speed?
10 year rule reported by K. Anders Ericsson
A common ingredient of expert performance in chess, dancing, sports, computer programming, music, and medicine is about "10 years of intense, daily practice"
Binet's meaning of intelligence
All children follow the same course of intellectual development but that some develop more rapidly - IQ testing - mental age
What are the traits of those at the low and high intelligence extremes?
An intelligence test score of or below 70 is one diagnostic criterion for the diagnosis of intellectual disability (others are limited conceptual, social, and practical skills). People with this diagnosis vary from near-normal to requiring constant aid and supervision. - high-scoring people tend to be healthy and well- adjusted, as well as unusually successful academically. Schools sometimes "track" such children, separating them from students with lower scores. Such programs can become self-fulfilling prophecies as both groups live up to—or down to—others' perceptions and expectations.
According to Robert Sternberg, what kind of intelligence is assessed by traditional intelligence tests?
Analytical
Are intelligence tests inappropriately biased?
Aptitude tests aim to predict how well a test-taker will perform in a given situation. So they are necessarily "biased" in the sense that they are sensitive to performance differences caused by cultural experience. By "inappropriately biased," psychologists mean that a test predicts less accurately for one group than for another. In this sense, most experts consider the major aptitude tests unbiased. Stereotype threat, a self-confirming concern that one will be evaluated based on a negative stereotype, affects performance on all kinds of tests.
Who do adopted children resemble in verbal ability?
As the years went by in their adoptive families, children's verbal ability scores became modestly more like their biological parents' scores.
The stability of intelligence test scores increases with age:
At age 4, scores fluctuate somewhat but begin to predict adolescent and adult scores. By early adolescence, scores are very stable and predictive.
How stable are intelligence scores over the life span?
Cross-sectional studies (comparing people of different ages) and longitudinal studies (retesting the same cohort over a period of years) have shown that fluid intelligence declines in older adults, in part because neural processing slows. Crystallized intelligence tends to increase.
Group differences and environmental impact
Even if the variation between members within a group reflects genetic differences, the average difference between groups may be wholly due to the environment. Imagine that seeds from the same mixture are sown in different soils. Although height differences within each window box will be genetic, the height difference between the two groups will be environmental
Head Start Program
Hunt believed school could boost a child's chance of success
Terman's meaning of intelligence
Intelligence is inherited, and he thought his stanford-binet could help guide people toward appropriate opportunities - Stanford-Binet - innate IQ
How and why do the genders differ in mental ability scores?
Males and females tend to have the same average intelligence test scores. They differ in some specific abilities. 64-2 Multiple-Choice Questions 1. Which of the following is true of boys compared with girls? a. Boys have a higher average intelligence score. b. Boys are better spellers than girls. c. Boys are better at detecting emotions. d. Boys are more verbally fluent. e. Boys are more likely to have extremely low intelligence scores. 2. Which of the following provides the best evidence that race is more of a social construct than a biological category? a. People of varying ancestry may categorize themselves in the same race. b. The races arose in different continents. c. Behavior traits (like running speed) are associated with race. d. Skin cancer rates vary by race. e. The incidence of high blood pressure varies by race. Girls are better spellers, more verbally fluent, better at locating objects, better at detecting emotions, and more sensitive to touch, taste, and color Boys outperform girls at spatial ability and related mathematics, though girls outperform boys in math computation. Boys also outnumber girls at the low and high extremes of mental abilities.
Thurstone's primary mental abilities
Our intelligence may be broken down into seven factors: word fluency, verbal comprehension, spatial ability, perceptual speed, numerical ability, inductive reasoning, and memory.
the normal curve
Scores on aptitude tests tend to form a normal, or bell-shaped, curve around an average score. For the Wechsler scale, for example, the average score is 100.
Wechsler's meaning of intelligence
Separates scores for verbal comprehension, perceptual organization, working memory, and processing speed Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale & Wechsler Intelligence Scale for children - tests Similarities, vocabulary, block design, letter-number sequencing
What are standardization and the normal curve?
Standardization establishes a basis for meaningful score comparisons by giving a test to a representative sample of future test-takers. The distribution of test scores often forms a normal (bell- shaped) curve around the central average score, with fewer and fewer scores at the extremes.
What evidence points to a genetic influence on intelligence, and what is heritability?
Studies of twins, family members, and adoptees indicate a significant hereditary contribution to intelligence scores Intelligence seems to be polygenetic, and researchers are searching for genes that exert an influence. Heritability is the proportion of variation among individuals that can be attributed to genes.
Charles Spearman's g refers to a. general intelligence. b. grouped intelligence factors. c. genetic intelligence. d. generated creativity. e. generalized reliability.
a
Students who do well on college entrance exams generally do well in their first year of college. This helps establish that these exams have a. predictive validity. b. split-half reliability. c. content validity. d. test-retest reliability. e. standard validity.
a
The purpose of Alfred Binet's early intelligence test was to a. predict how children would do in school. b. identify differences among ethnic and racial groups. c. help French graduates find the occupation in which they were most likely to succeed. d. establish the scientific definition of intelligence. e. facilitate "genetic breeding" experiments.
a
savant syndrome
a condition in which a person otherwise limited in mental ability has an exceptional specific skill, such as in computation or drawing.
intellectual disability
a condition of limited mental ability, indicated by an intelligence score of 70 or below and difficulty in adapting to the demands of life. (Formerly referred to as mental retardation.)
down syndrome
a developmental disorder caused by an extra copy of chromosome 21.
general intelligence aka g (Charles Spearman)
a general intelligence factor that, according to Spearman and others, underlies specific mental abilities and is therefore measured by every task on an intelligence test - believed that the g factor underlies all intelligent behavior, from navigating the sea to excelling in school
cohort
a group of people from a given time period.
mental age (Binet)
a measure of intelligence test performance devised by Binet; the chronological age that most typically corresponds to a given level of performance. Thus, a child who does as well as the average 8-year-old is said to have a mental age of 8.
intelligence
a mental quality consisting of the ability to learn from experience, solve problems, and use knowledge to adapt to new situations.
stereotype threat (spencer)
a self- confirming concern that one will be evaluated based on a negative stereotype. spencer also observed this self-fulfilling stereotype threat with Black students. When reminded of their race just before taking verbal aptitude tests, they performed worse. Follow-up experiments confirm that nega- tively stereotyped minorities and women may have unrealized academic potential (Nguyen & Ryan, 2008; Walton & Spencer, 2009). If, when taking an exam, you are worried that your type often doesn't do well, your self-doubts and self-monitoring may hijack your working memory and impair your performance
Factor analysis
a statistical procedure that identifies clusters of related items (called factors) on a test; used to identify different dimensions of performance that underline a person's total score
achievement test
a test designed to assess what a person has learned.
aptitude test
a test designed to predict a person's future performance; aptitude is the capacity to learn.
Children are said to have an intellectual disability if they have difficulty adapting to the demands of independent living and have IQ scores below a. 60. b. 70. c. 80. d. 90. e. 100.
b
Howard Gardner found evidence of multiple intelligences in individuals who scored low on intelligence but had an area of exceptional ability—for example, to make complex calculations. These people have
b
Recent research about brain size and function suggests that a. the occipital lobe is more active when people are thinking about questions on intelligence tests. b. people who are smarter use less energy when solving problems. c. there is no correlation between processing speed and IQ scores. d. people with larger brains are always smarter than those with smaller brains. e. subjects with larger parietal lobes tended to process information more slowly.
b
The original formula for a child's intelligence quotient compared a child's a. aptitude to his or her school performance. b. mental age to his or her chronological age. c. intelligence to his or her siblings'intelligence. d. intelligence to his or her parents'intelligence. e. math intelligence to his or her verbal intelligence.
b
Achievement tests are to aptitude tests as a. verbal performance is to spatial performance. b. elementary school skills are to secondary school skills. c. measurement is to prediction. d. reliability is to validity. e. general intelligence is to multiple intelligences.
c
Heritability of intelligence refers to a. the extent to which a person's intelligence is caused by genetics. b. the effect of adoption on the intelligence of adopted children. c. the amount of group variation in intelligence that can be attributed to genetics. d. the extent to which the quality of schools and other environmental factors determine intelligence. e. the correlation between intelligence test scores of identical twins.
c
Which of the following is one of Robert Sternberg's types of intelligence? a. Naturalistic intelligence b. General intelligence c. Practical intelligence d. Savant intelligence e. Kinesthetic intelligence
c
In general, males score higher than females on tests of a. spelling. b. verbal fluency. c. emotion detection. d. spatial ability. e. sensitivity to touch, taste, and odor.
d
The ability to perceive, understand, manage, and use emotions is called a. interpersonal intelligence. b. general intelligence. c. practical intelligence. d. emotional intelligence. e. adaptive intelligence.
d
The most widely used modern intelligence test was developed by a. Alfred Binet. b. Louis Terman. c. Robert Sternberg. d. David Wechsler. e. Howard Gardner.
d
Intelligence Quotient (IQ)
defined originally as the ratio of mental age (ma) to chronological age (ca) multiplied by 100 (thus, IQ = ma/ca × 100). On contemporary intelligence tests, the average performance for a given age is assigned a score of 100, with scores assigned to relative performance above or below average.
standardization
defining uniform testing procedures and meaningful scores by comparison with the performance of a pretested group
The Flynn effect refers to the a. superiority of certain racial and ethnic groups on intelligence tests. b. extreme scores (very high and very low scores) that are more common for males than females on math tests. c. stereotype threat that might cause some Black students to underperform on standardized tests. d. predictive ability of intelligence tests. e. gradual improvement in intelligence test scores over the last several decades.
e
What would be true of a thermometer that always reads three degrees off? a. It is valid but not reliable. b. It is both reliable and valid. c. It is neither reliable nor valid. d. It is not valid, but you cannot determine if it is reliable from the information given. e. It is reliable but not valid.
e
What are the four components of emotional intelligence?
emotional intelligence, which is an aspect of social intelligence, is the ability to perceive, understand, manage, and use emotions
According to Charles Spearman and others, which of the following underlies specific mental abilities and is measured by every task on an intelligence test?
general intelligence (g)
tutored human enrichment (Hunt)
he trained caregivers to play language-fostering games with 11 infants, imitating the babies' babbling, then engaging them in vocal follow-the- leader, and finally teaching them sounds from the Persian language. The results were dramatic. By 22 months of age,the infants could name more than 50 objects and body parts, and so charmed visitors that most were adopted—an unprecedented success for the orphanage.
stanford-Binet
he widely used American revision (by Terman at Stanford University) of Binet's original intelligence test.
grit
in psychology, grit is passion and perseverance in the persuit of long term goals
Analytical (academic problem-solving) intelligence
is assessed by traditional intelligence tests, which present well-defined problems having a single right answer. Such tests predict school grades reasonably well and vocational success more modestly.
creative intelligence
is demonstrated in reacting adaptively to novel situations and generating novel ideas. Many inventions result from such creative problem solving
practical intelligence
is required for everyday tasks, which may be ill-defined, with multiple solutions. Managerial success, for example, depends less on academic problem-solving skills than on a shrewd ability to manage oneself, one's tasks, and other people. Sternberg and Richard Wagner (1993, 1995) offer a test of practical managerial intelligence that measures skill at writing effective memos, motivating people, delegating tasks and responsibilities, reading people, and promoting one's own career. Business executives who score relatively high on this test tend to earn high salaries and receive high performance ratings.
fluid intelligence
our ability to reason speedily and abstractly; tends to decrease during late adulthood.
crystallized intelligence
our accumulated knowledge and verbal skills; tends to increase with age.
Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS)
the WAIS is the most widely used intelligence test; contains verbal and performance (nonverbal) subtests. included: - Similarities - Vocabulary - Block design - Letter-number sequencing
reliability
the extent to which a test yields consistent results, as assessed by the consistency of scores on two halves of the test, on alternate forms of the test, or on retesting.
validity
the extent to which a test measures or predicts what it is supposed to. (See also content validity and predictive validity.)
content validity
the extent to which a test samples the behavior that is of interest.
social intelligence
the know-how involved in successfully comprehending social situations.
heritability
the proportion of variation among individuals that we can attribute to genes. The heritability of a trait may vary, depending on the range of populations and environments studied.
predictive validity
the success with which a test predicts the behavior it is designed to predict; it is assessed by computing the correlation between test scores and the criterion behavior. (Also called criterion-related validity.)
The correlation between the IQ scores of fraternal twins raised together is lower than IQ scores of identical twins raised together. What conclusion can be drawn from this data?
there is a genetic effect on intelligence
What did Gardner believe about intelligence? and what are the 8 intelligences
we do not have an intelligence, but rather multiple (8) - naturalist, linguistic, logical-mathematical, musical, spatial, bodily kinesthetic, intrapersonal