intelifence

General intelligence (g)

a general intelligence factor that, according to Spearman and others, underlies specific mental abilities and is therefor measured by every task on an intelligence test.

factor analysis

a statistical procedure that identifies clusters of related items (called factors) on a test; used to identify different dimensions of performance that underlie a person's total score.

Savant Syndrome

A condition in which a person otherwise limited in mental ability has an exceptional specific skill, such as in computation or drawing.

Grit

In psychology, grit is passion and perseverance in the pursuit of long-term goals.

Emotional Intelligence

The ability to perceive, understand, manage, and use emotions.

Intelligence

A mental quality consisting of the ability to learn from experience, solve problems, and use knowledge to adapt to new situations.

Intelligence Test

A test that aims to assess these qualities and compare them witht hose of others, using a numerical score.

Mental Age

A measure of intelligence test performance devised by Binet; the chronological age that most typically corresponds to a given level of performance.

Stanford-Binet

The widely used American revision (by Terman at Stanford University) of Binet's original intelligence test.

Intelligence quotient (IQ)

Defined originally as the ratio of mental age (ma) to chronological age (ca) multiplied by 100 (thus, IQ=ma/caX100). On contemporary intelligence tests, the average performance for a given age is assigned to relative performance above or below average.

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.

Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS)

The WAIS is the most widely used intelligence test; contains verbal and performance (nonverbal) sub-tests.

Standardization

Defining uniform testing procedures and meaningful scores by comparison with the performance of a pretested group.

Normal curve

The symmetrical, bell-shaped curve that describes the distribution of many physical and psychological attributes. Most scores fall near the average, and fewer and fewer scores lie near the extremes.

Reliability

The extent to which a test yields consistent results, as assesses by the consistency of score's 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.

Content Validity

The extent to which a test samples the behavior that is of interest.

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.

Cohort

A group of people from a given time period

Crystallized intelligence

Our accumulated knowledge and verbal skills; tends to increase with age.

Fluid intelligence

Our ability to reason speedily and abstractly; tends to decrease during late adulthood.

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 condition of mild to severe intellectual disability caused by an extra copy of chromosome 21.

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 studies.

Stereotype threat

A self-confirming concern that one will be evaluated based on a negative stereotype.

Flynn Effect

Overall intelligence test scores have risen anywhere from 5-25 points since the beginning of the 20th century, regardless of race, ethnicity, or cultural background.

Face validity

With a quick perusal of the assessment, does the test seem to evaluate what it claims to evaluate?

Construct validity

Does the assessment accurately test what you have defined as the characteristics you wish to assess?

Criterion validity

Do the results from the assessment correlated with the results from other measures designed to assess similar or related things?

Alfred Binet

Pioneered the modern intelligence-testing movement.

Louis Terman

Revised Binet's IQ test and established norms for American children.

Charles Spearman

Invented an early form of the statistical technique of factor analysis and introduced the idea that there is a general factor of intelligence (g) as well as specific factors.

Howard Gardner

best known for his theory of "multiple intelligences"

David Wechsler

Developed WAIS and WISC

Raymond Cattell

16 Trait Personality Inventory, fluid and crystallized intelligence

Robert Stenberg

Triarchic theory of intelligence: 3 main aspects of intelligence: Analytic intelligence, creative intelligence, and practical intelligence.

L. L. Thurstone

7 primary intellectual abilities: numerical, verbal fluency, reasoning, perceptual speed, spacial relations, digit recall, and verbal comprehension

Francis Galton

Interested in link between heredity and intelligence; founder of the eugenics movement. Said that intelligence is inherited, not a factor of our environment.

Carol Dweck

Thought that the need for achievement is closely linked to personality facts, including view of self; suggested students with long history of success are at most risk for learned helplessness after big failure of their own intelligence

Analytic intelligence

A form of intelligence that involves such mental processes as abstract planning, strategy selection, focused attention, and information processing, as well as verbal and logical skills.

Creative intelligence

The ability to deal with new and different concepts and to come up with new ways of solving problems

Practical intelligence

Intelligence that is required for everyday tasks (e.g. street smarts).

Linguistic intelligence

Syntax, phonology, semantics, pragmatics.

Musical Intelligence

Pitch, rhythm, timbre.

Logical-mathematical intelligence

Numbers, quantities, categorization, casual relationships.

Spatial intelligence

Accurate visualization, mental rotation and transformation of images.

Bodily-kinesthetic intelligence

Control of one's own body, control in handling objects.

Interpersonal intelligence

Awareness of others' feelings, emotions, goals, motivations.

Intrapersonal intelligence

Awareness of one's own feelings, emotions, goals, motivations.

Naturalist intelligence

Recognition and classification of objects in the environment; sensitivity to the natural world.