INTELLIGENCE

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  INTELLIGENCE

  
  
  
  
  • Sir Francis Galton, a pioneer in the measurement of individual differences in late nineteenth-century England, was particularly concerned with sensory responses (visual and auditory acuity and reaction times) and their relationship to differences in ability.
  • Several individual tests have been used to test intelligence.
    • The Binet-Simon intelligence scale, developed by French psychologists Alfred Binet and Theodore Simon, was administered to children to evaluate their performance ( mental age) at a givenchronological age. The mental age/chronological age measure, called amental quotient, was used to evaluate a child's learning potential.
    • Lewis Terman of Stanford University revised the Binet scale in 1916. The revised scale, called the Stanford-Binet intelligence scale, although it retained the concept of mental and chronological ages, introduced the concept of the intelligence quotient (IQ) arrived at by the following widely used formula, which allows comparison between children of different ages.

David Wechsler developed the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS) in 1939, revised as the WAIS-R. Wechsler also developed theWechsler Intelligence Scale for Children (WISC), revised as theWISC-R. The revised forms of these scales are still widely used. They contains two sub-scales, verbal and performance, which provide averbal IQ and a performance IQ; the subscales are combined for thetotal IQ. Test score combinations may reveal other strengths and weaknesses to a skilled examiner.

J.P. Guilford
Structure of Intellect 

Structure of Intellect is a general theory of human intelligence. 

This is a three-dimensional model in which Guilford identified three fundamental components of intelligence. These were 

1. Operations (five kinds) 
2. Contents (five kinds) 
3. Products (six kinds) 



The model postulates that all three components are independent and combine freely, forming 150 components of intelligence. (5 x 5 x 6 = 150.) 

Note that the notion that intellectual skill in one category is independent of skills in another category is shared by Howard Gardner in his theory of multiple intelligences. 

Operation #1 = Evaluation 
Contents = Visual 
Products = Units 

Operation #2 
Convergent Production 
Contents = Auditory 
Products = Classes 

Operation #3 
Divergent Production 
Contents = Symbolic 
Products = Relations 

Operation #4 
Memory 
Contents = Semantic 
Products = Systems 

Operation #5 
Cognition 
Cpmtemts = Behavioral 
Products = Transformation 


Guilford was interested in developing operational definitions through psychometric tests which he developed and used to measure the abilities predicted by the Structure of Intellect theory. He was interested in how creativity was generated and used his model to explore this area. 

 

The Operation Dimension

This consists of five (later six when memory was separated into recording and retention) kinds of operations or general intellectual processes:

1. Cognition - The ability to understand, comprehend, discover, and become aware.
2. Memory - The ability to encode information and recall information. Later divided into
   • Memory Recording - The ability to encode information.
   • Memory Retention - The ability to recall information.
3. Divergent Production - The process of generating multiple solutions to a problem
4. Convergent Production - The process of deducing a single solution to a problem.
5. Evaluation - The process of judging whether an answer is accurate, consistent, or valid.

Cognition—The ability to understand, comprehend, discover, and become aware of information.

The Content Dimension

This dimension includes the broad areas of information in which operations are applied. It was divided into four categories, later five when auditory and visual were separated:

1. Figural - Information that is non-verbal or pictorial. Later divided into
   • Auditory - Information perceived through hearing.
   • Visual - Information perceived through seeing.
2. Symbolic - Information perceived as symbols or signs that have no meaning by themselves; for example, Arabic numerals or the letters of an alphabet.
3. Semantic - Information perceived in words or sentences, whether oral, written, or silently in one's mind.
4. Behavioral - Information perceived as acts of an individual or individuals.

The Product Dimension

As the name suggests, this dimension contains results of applying particular operations to specific contents. There are six kinds of products, they are:

1. Unit - Represents a single item of information.
2. Class - A set of items that share some attributes.
3. Relation - Represents a connection between items or variables; may be linked as opposites or in associations, sequences, or analogies.
4. System - An organization of items or networks with interacting parts.
5. Transformation - Changes perspectives, conversions, or mutations to knowledge; such as reversing the order of letters in a word.
6. Implication - Predictions, inferences, consequences, or anticipations of knowledge.

Therefore, according to Guilford there are 6 x 5 x 6 = 180 intellectual abilities or factors. Each ability stands for a particular operation in a particular content area and results in a specific product, such as Comprehension of Figural Units or Evaluation of Semantic Implications.

Guilford's original model was composed of 120 components because he had not separated Figural Content into separate Auditory and Visual contents, nor had he separated Memory into Memory Recording and Memory Retention. When he separated Figural into Auditory and Visual contents, his model increased to 5 x 5 x 6 = 150 categories. When Guilford separated the Memory functions, his model finally increased to the final 180 factors (Guilford 1980).