Week 7 Intelligence and cognition pt 1

Is intelligence some particular ability (e.g. to reason abstract, executive
function, to reframe problems...etc.)?

no

Is intelligence ‘book smarts’?

no

Can intelligence be taught?

no

What did Francis Galton hypothesise?

that intelligence should correlate with observable traits such as reflexes, muscle grip and head size

human ability is hereditary (genius clusters in families)

Why was Francis Galton controversial?

coined the term eugenics - ‘well born’

concerned with ‘race betterment’ and efforts to ‘improve the race’

What is positive eugenics?

encouraging above ave intelligence individuals to bear more children

What is negative eugenics?

removing related genes from the population via involuntary sterilisation or institutionalisation etc

What is Spearman’s g factor?

aka general intelligence

suggests that a single underlying factor influences cognitive abilities across a wide range of tasks

What is the Simon-Binet Intelligence Scale?

mental vs chronological age

ave IQ score

measures weighted factors in verbal and nonverbal abilities

What is the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Test (WAIS-IV)?

involves: matrix reasoning, block design, visual puzzles, digit span, figure weights and lots of others

How many tests make up the WAIS-IV?

What is matrix reasoning?

for each picture, there is a part missing and have to choose missing part from 5 choices

What is the block design test? What does it measure?

individuals recreate geometric patterns using blocks with different colour patterns on their sides

measures visual spatial reasoning, non-verbal reasoning, motor skills

What is the figure weights test?

which one of these 5 choices goes on the other side of this weighing scale?

What did they observe from the WAIS-IV?

correlations between scores on all the tasks

What are the 4 cognitive domains of general intelligence (Spearman’s g)?

verbal comprehension

perceptual reasoning

working memory

processing speed

What is some evidence for the hierarchical structure of intelligence?

Salthouse 2004

What did Salthouse 2004 find?

almost half of the variance among the ppts was attributable to general mental ability (Spearman’s g, general intelligence, general cognitive ability)

What did Warne and Burningham 2019 explore? What did they find?

Is Spearman’s g a cross cultural phenomenon?

used factor analysis (over 50,000 ppts)

found Spearman’s g is likely a universal phenomenon