Intelligence and Problem Solving

Important People:

Alfred Binet - Created the first intelligence test, hired by French government to design a test specifically for school children

Lewis Terman - Took Alfred Binet's original test and adapted if for use in the US

  • Stanford-Binet - The first US test used for intelligence in children
  • IQ - Intelligence Quotient, created it so it is easier to speak about intelligence among different ages, formula is chronological age and mental age and then divide the mental age by chronological age, meant to answer what age they are responding to the test like, makes the typical IQ 100

David Wechsler - Came up with the first adult intelligence test which he called WAIS, which stands for the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale

Types of Testing:

Intelligence - The amount of intelligence that someone has (most general)

Aptitude - Show the future possibility of a person, tend to be somewhat specialized in order to give the idea of potential future success

Achievement - Testing how well you have mastered specific material (most specific)

Testing Perspective vs Cognitive Perspective - Testing perspective determines the amount, cognitive takes a more applied approach and focuses on how successful you are at using information

Cultural Bias - Immigrants coming to Ellis Island were given intelligence tests and sometimes would be turned away

Theories of Intelligence:

G-Factor - Meant to be a general factor of intelligence

  • Verbal - The ability to understand, process, and respond verbally
  • Spatial - The ability to understand and manipulate things in a 3D space component
  • Quantitative - How are you able to understand and process math

Cattell-Horn-Carroll (CHC) Model - First category is general, the second is broad and focuses on reason and logic, the last is narrow and focuses on specialized information that may or may not be associated with cognition

Sternberg's Triarchic Theory - Intelligence is made up of…

  • Analytic - Is verbal and quantitative
  • Creative - Ability to come up with new and different ways of solving problems
  • Practical - Focuses on ability to adapt to and solve problems in everyday life

Gardner's 8 Types of Intelligence - Includes more applied types of intelligence, how well you can identify and work with things in nature, how well you react with people socially

Elements of Intelligence:

Cumulative Deprivation Hypothesis - People who are in some way deprived during their childhood, has an impact on their adult intelligence

Reaction Range - Two things matter when it comes to intelligence: genetics and environment, genetic determine what range intelligence follows in, environment determines where you fall on that scale

Flynn Effect - Across generations intelligence is increasing, affected by genetic components, better know how to address the needs of people

Intellectual Disability:

Criteria

  • Onset - Has to happen prior to adulthood
  • IQ - Have to have an IQ of under 70
  • Adaptive Functioning - Have to have some issue of functioning in adapting in everyday life by themselves, does not have to be something permanently affecting them

4 Categories

  • Mild - Vast majority, can live their lives with only a little bit of help
  • Moderate
  • Severe - Typically need help their entire life
  • Profound - Typically need help their entire life

Origins

  • Chromosomal - Issue with the chromosomes
  • Metabolic - Tends to happen during development in the womb when the fetus is exposed to some type of teratogen
  • Biologic - Other types of medical disorders that can cause this
  • Unknown - 75% of cases are considered this and don’t fall into any other categories

Categories of Problems:

Convergent Problems - Problems that have a known solution, required a learned analytic strategy to solve it

Divergent Problems - Problems that have no known solution, require creative or novel solutions/strategies

Types of Problems:

Inducing Structure - Take some sort of structure or relationship from the problem and use it to find the solution

Arrangement - Take pieces of the problem and arrange them to find the solution

Transformation - Change something about the problem in order to get to the solution

Ways to Solve Problems:

Trial and Error - Randomly trying solutions hoping you get to the right one

Algorithm - Come up with all possible solutions, and systematically try those solutions

Heuristic - Using a shortcut to eliminate solutions before you even try them

Subgoals - Break a problem down into smaller problems to solve

Changing the Representation - Changing the way you look at a problem to make it easier to solve from how its initially presented

Incubation - When you step away from the problem for a little bit and doing something unrelated to the problem, so that when you look at it again you are looking at it with fresh eyes

Creativity:

4 stages

  • Preparation - Discovering or defining the thing you are trying to be creative towards
  • Incubation - When you step away from the problem for a little bit and doing something unrelated to the problem, so that when you look at it again you are looking at it with fresh eyes
  • Insight - The answer is suddenly coming to mind on how to approach the problem
  • Elaboration-Verification - Making sure your solution is accurate to the problem

Divergent Thinker - A person who has the capacity to come up with many different solutions for a problem, creativity is positively correlated to this type of thinking

Convergent Thinker - Focus on finding the one best solution to the problem

Correlates of Creativity: Positively correlated with creativity

Expertise - Have a good foundation of knowledge in order to be creative in a given sphere

Imaginative Thinking - The ability to see things in a new and unusual way

Venturesome Personality - Someone who seeks out new experiences, deals well with ambiguity and risk, perseveres when they experience obstacles

Intrinsic Motivation - Motivation that is coming from within

Creative Environment - Having an environment that supports exploration