Monday, February 29, 2016

12:03 PM

Quizlet: https://quizlet.com/_22fvsa

Changing representations

  • In trying to solve a problem, we commonly think back to how we have solved similar problems
    • oo Mental sets
  • Functional fixedness - mental representations about the typical functions of particular objects can also create difficulties

Ex

  • Imagine you are reading a book
  • Someone breaks into the room
    • ooThey are large and carrying a large knife
  • How close is your nearest weapon
    • ooIt’s your book
    • ooHard to think about a book as a weapon

Ch 7 - Part 2

Think about the most intelligent person you know

  • What sets them apart?

Intelligence

  • Intelligence differs in individuals
  • Psychologists consider two aspects when measuring it
    • ooHow do they apply it
    • ooThe degree to which intelligence is determined by genes
  • Assessed using psychometric tests
    • ooFocuses on how people perform on standardized tests
      • Focus on
        • Achievement
          • What have you already learned
        • Aptitude
    • ooSome of the earliest most widely used intelligence tests were created by Alfred Benet by the French government

Intelligence Quotient (IQ)

  • Binet introduced concept of metal age
  •  IQ
    • ooFor children (mental age/chronological age)*100

Across large groups of people, the distribution of IQ scores forms a bell curve, or normal distribution

  • Most people are close to the average

With these types of tests, are we actually measuring intelligence directly?

  • Marilyn vos Savant
    • ooObtained an IQ score of between 170 - 228
    • ooIntelligence contains so many factors that “attempts to measure it are useless”

We know that IQ is related to things that we tend to associate with intelligence

  • IQ is fairly good predictor of life outcomes (e.g. doing well at school)
  • Data suggests modest correlations between IQ and work performance, IQ and income, IQ and jobs requiring complex skills

IQ scores typically predict only about 25% of the variation in performance at either school or work

  • IQ may be important, but it is only one of the factors that contribute to success in the classroom, the workplace, and life generally
  • Additional factors include background, self-control, motivation, and willingness to work

Problems with IQ tests?

  • One important criticism of intelligence tests is that they may penalize people for belonging to particular cultures or particular groups
  • Culturally specific knowledge may affect scores
    • ooMeaning of work “fantastic”
    • ooMeaning of word “trombone” vs the word “pipa”
  • IQ tests reflect Western cultural values and modes of thinking
    • ooWhat is adaptive in one society is not necessarily adaptive in others
      • We classify peaches as fruit, but other cultures just classify it as sweet

Does the physical structure of the brain reflect intelligence?

  • Many studies have documented a relationship between head circumference, which researchers use to estimate brain size, and scores on intelligence tests
    • ooThese are small but significant correlation between the size of selected brain structures on intelligence tests
  • Different kinds of intelligence seem to be related to the size of certain brain regions
    • ooThese regions include areas associated with walking, etc

Do groups differ in terms of intelligence

  • Do males and females differ?
  • Do various racial and ethnic groups differ?

Sex differences

  • Most psychometric tests of intelligence are designed to avoid sex differences
  • However, tests that do show that men and women perform differently in different areas, but not necessarily better or worse

Stereotype threat

  • Some groups are more susceptible to performing poorly due to concerns about stereotypes
  • Make people concerned with things that they are stereotypically bad at, they will perform worse
    • ooIt’s a combo of over-thinking that you don’t want to be stereotyped and buying into the idea

Intelligence has been measured in other ways as well

  • One line of research examined the correlations among intelligence test items using factor analysis
    • ooIn this statistical technique, items similar to one another are clustered, and the clusters are referred to as factors

  • ooG is pretty important
    • Low g is related to early death from heart disease, diabetes, stroke, Alzheimer’s, traffic accidents, and drowning
  •  Multiple intelligence
  • Musical, bodily-kinesthetic, linguistic, mathematical/logical, spatial, interpersonal, and interpersonal intelligence
  • Polyglot, multi-instrumentalists

Others have theorized that there are three types of intelligence

  • Analytical
    • ooSimilar to that measured by psychometric tests - being good at problem solving and other academic challenges
  • Creative
    • ooInvolves the ability to gain insight and solve problems
  • Practical

Emotional intelligence

Regardless, intelligence is associated with faster mental processing

  • People who score higher on intelligence tests respond more quickly and consisted on reaction time and inspection

Savants

  • Have minimal intellectual capabilities in most domains, but at a very early age each savant shows an exceptional ability in intelligent process
  • A savant’s exceptional ability may be related to math, music, or art
  • The combination of prodigious memory and the inability to learn seemingly basic tasks is a great mystery; this rare combination adds a dimension to our understanding of intelligence
Mental sets Problem-solving strategies that have worked in the past
Intelligence Ability to use knowledge to reason, make decisions, make sense of events, solve problems, understand complex ideas, learn quickly, and adapt to environment
Mental age Compared to other people of the same age, how you perform mentally
IQ An index of intelligence (computed by dividing mental age by chronological age and multiplying by 100)
Multiple intelligences Idea that there are different types of intelligence which are independent of one another
Emotional intelligence Form of social intelligence that emphasizes regulating and recognizing yours and others’ emotions