Psychology Modules 31-32

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

1. Is it one overall ablility or many?
2. Can neuroscientists locate and measure intelligence in the brain?
Intelligence is often reifyed, or treated as a real object rather than an abstract concept.

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

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

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

Three intelligences:
1. Analytical (academic problem-solving) -- assessed by intelligence tests, which present well-defined problems having a single right answer
2. Creative -- demonstrated by acting adaptively not novel situations and generating novel ideas
3. Practical -- Often required for everyday tasks which are frequently ill-defined, with multiple solutions

1. Linguistic (writing) 2. Logical-mathematical (math & science) 3. Musical 4. Spatial (art) 5. Bodily-kinesthetic (athletic) 6. Intrapersonal (self understading) 7. Interpersonal (understanding others) 8. Naturalist

The ability to percieve, understand, manage, and use emotions

1. Expertise
2. Imaginative thinking skills
3. A venturesome personality
4. Intrinsic motivation
5. A creative environment

Methods for assessing an individual's mental aptitudes and comparing them with those of others, using numerical scores

Predict future performance, capacity to learn
Assess what a person has learned already

Most widely used intelligence test, contains verbal and performance subtests

Standardized, reliable, and valid

Defining meaninful scores by comparison with the performance of a pretested standardization group

Intelligence test performance has been increasing.