Cognition and Intelligence

1
Cognition and Intelligence
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Concepts in Psychological Testing

• Types of Psychological Tests
• Mental Ability Tests
• Intelligence Tests
• Measure general mental ability and potential
• Aptitude Tests
• Assess specific types of learning (numeric
  ability, typing)
• Achievement Tests
• Measure previous leaning
• Gauge ones mastery and knowledge of various
  subjects
• Personality Tests
• Measure various aspects of personality including
  motives, interests, values, attitudes

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Concepts in Psychological Testing

• Standardization and Norms
• Standardization
• Refers to the uniform procedures used in
  administrating and scoring a test
• Test norms
• Provide information about where a score on a
  psychological test ranks in relation to other
  scores on that test
• Percentile score - indicates the percentage of
  people who score at or below the score one has
  obtained

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Concepts in Psychological Testing

• Reliability
• Refers to the measurement consistency of a test
• Yields similar results on each repetition
• Correlation coefficient
• measures degree of reliability of a given measure
• Validity
• Refers to the ability of a test to measure what
  it was designed to measure

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History of Intelligence Testing

• The Work of Alfred Binet
• Binet-Simon Scale
• first useful measure of general mental ability
• expressed a childs score in terms of mental
  age
• Mental age - indicated that he/she displayed the
  mental ability typical of a child of that
  chronological (actual) age
• Terman and the Stanford-Binet
• Revision of Binets scale was undertaken at
  Stanford University
• Incorporated an intelligence quotient (IQ)
• IQ - childs mental age divided by chronological
  age, multiplied by 100
• Made it possible to compare children of different
  ages

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History of Intelligence Testing

• Wechslers Innovations
• WAIS - Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale
• First high-quality IQ test for adults
• Scales were less dependent on verbal ability that
  Stanford-Binet
• Discarded the intelligence quotient in favor of a
  new scoring scheme based on the normal
  distribution
• Also developed WISC (Weschler Intelligence Scale
  for Children)

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WAIS

• Verbal Scales
• Information - Taps general range of info
• On what continent is France?
• Comprehension - Understanding of social norms
• Why are children required to go to school?
• Arithmetic - Arithmetic reasoning and working
  memory
• How many hours will it take to drive 150 miles at
  50 miles per hour?

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WAIS

• Verbal Scales
• Similarities - reasoning/abstract thinking
• In what ways are a calculator and typewriter
  alike?
• Digit Span - attention/short-term memory
• Repeat these numbers 4, 7, 3, 9, 1
• Vocabulary - ability to define words
• What does audacity mean?

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WAIS

• Performance Scales
• Digit Symbol - speed on coding task
• Picture Completion - alertness to detail
• Block Design - ability to perceive and replicate
  patterns
• Picture Arrangement - understanding of social
  situations and ordering of events
• Object Assembly - understand and replicate
  whole-part relationships

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Issues in Intelligence Testing

• What do IQ scores mean?
• Modern IQ scores indicate exactly where a score
  falls in the normal distribution of intelligence
• Do intelligence tests predict vocational success?
• IQ is related to occupational attainment
• Debate about the utility of IQ scores in
  predicting performance within a particular
  occupation

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The Normal Distribution
99.72
95.44
68.26
-3 -2 -1 0 1 2 3
SD Units
55 70 85 100 115 130 145
IQ Score
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Interaction of Heredity and Environment

• Both heredity and environment influence
  intelligence
• Heredity
• appears to set limits on intelligence
• determines a range of potential intelligence
• Environment
• these factors determine WHERE within the range
  the actual intelligence level will fall

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Cultural Differences in IQ Scores

• Jensens Heritability Explanation
• Jensen suggested that heritability of
  intelligence is about 80
• Intelligence is largely genetic in origin
• Genetic factors are the cause of ethnic
  differences in intelligence
• Cultural Bias on IQ Tests
• Because tests are constructed by white,
  middle-class male psychologists, cultural bias is
  built into intelligence tests

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Cultural Differences in IQ Scores

• Socioeconomic Disadvantage as an Explanation
  (BEST EXPLANATION)
• Low socioeconomic status (SES) is associated with
  numerous environmental disadvantages that hinder
  maximum achievement of intellectual potential
• Fewer books and learning supplies
• Less privacy for studying
• Less parental assistance for learning
• Crowded schools
• More likely to be surrounded by disruptive peers

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Problem Solving

• In the Thompson family, there are five brothers,
  and each brother has one sister. If you count
  Mrs. Thompson, how many females are there in the
  Thompson family?
• Fifteen percent of the people in Topeka have
  unlisted telephone numbers. You select 200 names
  at random from the Topeka phone book. How many
  of these people can be expected to have unlisted
  phone numbers?

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Problem Solving

• Barriers to Effective Problem Solving
• Focus on Irrelevant Information
• people tend to think numerical info is necessary
• Functional Fixedness
• tendency to perceive an item only in terms of its
  most common use (screwdriver and string problem)
• Mental Set
• exists when people persist in using problem
  solving strategies that have worked in the past
• Unnecessary Constraints
• dont assume

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The Nine-Dot Problem(Unnecessary Constraints)

• Without lifting your pencil from the paper, draw
  no more than four lines that will cross through
  all nine dots.

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Approaches to Problem Solving

• Trial and Error and Heuristics
• Trial and Error
• trying possible solutions sequentially and
  discarding those that are in error until one
  works
• primitive approach to problem solving
• Heuristics
• guiding principles or rule of thumb used in
  solving problems or making decisions
• forming subgoals, searching for analogies,
  changing the representation of the problem

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Decision Making

• Involves evaluating alternatives and making
  choices among them
• Errors and Pitfalls in Decision Making
• The Gamblers Fallacy
• the belief that the odds of a chance event
  increase if the event hasnt occurred recently
• The Law of Small Numbers
• Explains why people are willing to draw
  conclusions based on a few cases

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Decision Making

• Errors and Pitfalls in Decision Making
• Overestimating the Improbable
• tendency to overestimate the likelihood of
  dramatic, vivid - but infrequent - events that
  receive heavy media coverage
• Confirmation Bias
• the tendency to seek information that supports
  ones decisions and beliefs while ignoring
  disconfirming information
• Belief Perseverance
• the tendency to hang onto beliefs in the face of
  contradictory evidence