Chapter 9 Psych Notes: Theories of Intelligence and the Binet Scales

The Problem of Defining Intelligence y y Intelligence: a blend of abilities including personality and various aspects of memory Three independent research traditions that have been employed to study the nature of human intelligence o 1. Psychometric approach: examines the elemental structure of a test; examine the properties of a test through an evaluation of its correlates and underlying dimensions o 2. Information-processing approach: examine the processes that underlie how we learn and solve problems o 3. Cognitive Tradition: focuses on how humans adapt to real-world demands Binets approach is based heavily on the psychometric tradition How can we begin to judge whether the Binet test allowed testers to judge all different children? There is a correlation between socioeconomic background and scores on all standardized intelligence tests, including Stanford-Binet People have challenged that intelligence tests are biased, especially against ethnic minorities and the poor ; ironically intelligence tests were initially developed to eliminate subjectivity in the evaluation of childrens ability Formal intelligence testing began with the French minister of public instruction at beginning of 21st century; wanted to create a procedure for identifying intellectually limited individuals so they could be removed from the regular classroom and receive special educational experiences 1904 French minister appointed a commission whose assignment it was to identify subnormal children; Binet was a part of this Binet created the worlds first intelligence test

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Binets Principles of Test Construction y Binet defined intelligence as the capacity... o 1. To find and maintain a definite direction or purpose o 2. To make necessary adaptations (strategy adjustments) to achieve that purpose o 3. To engage in self-criticism so that necessary adjustments in strategy can be made Believed that intelligence expressed itself through the judgemental, attentional, and reasoning facilities of the individual Was guided by two major concepts that to this day underlie not only the Binet scale but also major modern theories of intelligence: age differentiation and general mental ability

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Principle 1: Age Differentiation y Age Differentiation: refers to the fact that one can differentiate older children from younger children by the formers greater capabilities y Binet assembled a set of tasks that an increasing proportion of children could complete as a function of increases in age y Using these tasks, Binet could estimate the mental ability of a child in terms of his or her completion of the tasks designed for the average child of a particular age, regardless of the childs actual or chronological age y Mental age: a principle of age differentiation in which one can determine the equivalent age capabilities of a child independent of his or her chronological age Principle 2: General Mental Ability y General mental ability: measuring only the total product of the various separate and distinct elements of intelligence o Freed himself from the burden of identifying each element or independent aspect of intelligence; also freed from finding the relation of each element as a whole Through this idea, Binet could judge the value of any particular task in terms of its correlation with the combined result (total score) of all other tasks Tasks with low correlation could be eliminated, and tasks with high correlations retained

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Spearmans Model of General Mental Ability y y Advanced the notion of a general mental ability factor underlying all intelligent behaviour According the Spearmans theory, intelligence consists of one general factor (g/psychometric g), plus a large number of specific factors (S ex. vocabulary, mechanical skill, numerical reasoning) Positive manifold: he notion of general mental ability (g), was based on the phenomenon that when a set of diverse ability tests are administered to large unbiased samples of the population, almost all of the correlations are positive o Results from the fact that all tests, no matter how diverse, are influenced by g o For Spearman g could best be conceptualized in terms of mental energy To support the notion of g, Spearman developed a statistical technique called factor analysis Factor analysis: method for reducing a set of variables or scores to a smaller number of hypothetical variables called factors o Through factor analysis, can determine how much variance a set of scores or tests have in common; this common variance = g o Found as general rule that approximately half of the variance in a set of diverse mental-ability tests is represented in the g factor

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Implications of General Mental Intelligence (g) y Concept of general intelligence implies that a persons intelligence can best be represented by a single score, g, that presumably reflects the shared variance underlying performance on a diverse set of tests If the set of tasks is large and broad enough, the role of any given task can be reduced to a minimum Differences in unique ability stemming from a specific task tend to cancel each other, and overall performance comes to depend heavily on the general factor

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The gf-gc Theory of Intelligence y y y y Recent theories believe that human intelligence cant best be represented through multiple intelligences rather than a single score According to gf-gc theory, there are 2 basic types of intelligence: fluid (f) and crystallized (c) Fluid Intelligence: the abilities that allow us to reason, think, and acquire new knowledge Crystallized Intelligence: represents the knowledge and understanding that we have acquired

The Early Binet Scales 1905 Binet-Simon Scale y y y Purpose was restricted to identifying mentally disabled children in the Paris system Individual intelligence test consisting of 30 items presented in increasing order of difficulty 3 levels of intellectual deficiency were designated o 1. Idiot- the most severe form of intellectual impairment  Upper limit involved the ability to follow simple directions and imitate simple gestures o 2. Imbecile- moderate levels of impairment o 3. Moron the mildest form of impairment First version lacked an adequate measuring unit to express results; also lacked normative data and evidence to support its validity Norms were based on 50 children

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1908 Scale y y y Retained the principle of age differentiation 1908 was an age scale: items were grouped according to age level rather than simply one set of items of increasing difficulty Age scale presents some challenges: when items are grouped to age level, comparing a childs performance on different kinds of task is very difficult unless the items are exquisitely balanced (like the 5th edition) o Current edition has a procedure that allows test users to combine all verbal items into a single scale and all nonverbal items into a scale to overcome such problems with age scale format Scale still only produced one score, almost exclusively related to language, verbal and reading ability; other factors such as the integration of visual and motor function Introduced the concept of mental age (this abandoned in later versions) 200 individuals for standardization scale

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Termans Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scale y Third revision in1911; U.S version had been made

The 1916 Stanford-Binet Scale y y Principles of age differentiation, mental age concept, general mental ability and the age scale were retained Terman increased the standardization sample size; was exclusively white-native Californian children (therefore far from representative)

The Intelligence Quotient (IQ) y Uses a subjects mental age in conjunction with his or her chronological age to obtain a ratio score; the ratio score was presumed to reflect the subjects rate of mental development IQ= MA/CA x100 ; this was later abandoned due to the fact that this scale had a maximum chronological age (anyone who was older than 19.5 years would still score under 100 even if they answered all the questions right)

The 1937 Scale y y Extended the age range down to 2 year-old level Added new tasks, increasing the maximum possible mental age to 22 years, 10 months

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Scoring standards and instructions were improved to reduce ambiguities, enhance the standardization of administration, and increase interscorer reliability Several performance items were added; however only 25% of the items were non verbal, therefore the test was not balanced between the two Standardization sample included 11 U.S states representing a variety of regions; sample size was also substantially increased (3184); individuals were only white and included more urban subjects than rural one Included an alternate form; forms M and L were designed to be equivalent in terms of both difficulty and content

Problems with the 1937 Scale y Its reliability coefficients were higher for older subjects than for younger ones; therefore the results of younger subjects were not as stable as those for the older subjects Reliability figures also varied as a function of IQ level, with higher reliabilities in the lower IQ ranges (<70) and the poorer one in the higher ranges Lowest reliabilities occurred in the youngest age groups in the highest IQ score Despite the care in selecting the standardization sample, different age groups showed significant differences in the standard deviation of IQ scores; due to these discrepancies, the IQs at one age level were not equivalent to IQs at another

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The 1960 Stanford Binet Revision and Deviation IQ (SB-LM) y y Tried to create a single instrument by selecting the best from the two forms of the 1937 scale Tasks that showed an increase in the percentage passing with an increase in age received highest priority, as did tasks that correlated highly with scores as a whole (the two main guiding principles for the construction of the scale) Instructions for scoring and test administration were improved, and IQ tables were extended from age 16 to age 18 The problem of differential variation in IQs was solved by the deviation IQ concept Deviation IQ: a standard score with a mean of 100 and a standard deviation of 16 (today its 15) o Was ascertained by evaluating the standard deviation of mental age for a representative sample at each age level New IQ tables were then constructed that corrected for differences in variability at the various age levels; by correcting for these differences in variability, one could compare the IQs of one age level with those of another

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Therefore scores could be interpreted in terms of standard deviations and percentiles with the assurance that IQ score for every age group corresponded to the same percentile 1960 revision didnt include a new normative sample or restandardization 1972 version had new standardization group of 2100 children, including nonwhite children 1986 version that drastically revised the Binet scale; however these were removed with the 2003 version o

The Modern Binet Scale Model for the 4th and 5th Editions of the Binet Scale y y These versions incorporated the gf-gc theory of intelligence Based on a hierarchical model o at the top of the hierarchy is g, which reflects the common variability of all tasks o Next level are 3 group factors:  1. Crystallized Abilities reflect learning (the realization of original potential through experience y Verbal reasoning y Non- verbal reasoning  2. Fluid- Analytic Abilities original potential/basic capabilities that a person uses to acquire crystallized abilities  3. Short-term Memory amount of information one can obtain briefly after a single, short presentation

The Role of Thurstones Multidimensional Model y Model of modern Binet represents an attempt to place an evaluation of g in the context of a multidimensional model of intelligence from which one can evaluate specific abilities This multidimensional model stemmed from Thurstone In contrast to Spearmans notion of intelligence as a single process, intelligence could best be conceptualized as compromising independent factors, or primary mental abilities then Evidence later showed that the group factors were correlated, and from them a g factor could be extracted ( and this is what they did in the 4TH and 5th models)

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Characteristics of the 1986 Revision y Retained the wide variety of content and task characteristics of early versions

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However, to avoid having this wide content unevenly distributed across the age groups, the age scale format was entirely eliminated In place of the age scales, items with the same content were placed together into any one of 15 separate tests to create point scales More modern 2003 5th edition provided a more standardized hierarchical model with 5 factors; each factor in turn has an equally weighted nonverbal and verbal measure (g is still at top of hierarchy) Placing together items of similar content in a point scale permits the calculation of specific score for each of the 15 tests o In addition to an overall score that reflects g, you can also get scores related to each specific content area o Each of the specific 15 tests were grouped into 1 of 4 content factors

Characteristic of the 2003 5thEdition y y y Represents an elegant integration of the age scale an point scale The non-verbal and verbal scales are equally weighted Examination begins with one of two routing measures (subtests): one nonverbal and one verbal o The subtests are organized in a point scale; each contains similar content of increasing difficulty o Purpose of routing tests is to estimate the examinees level of ability o Non verbal routing test measure non verbal ability; verbal routing test measures verbal ability o The remaining 8 subtests are arranged in an age scale format ( tasks of differing content are grouped together on the basis of difficulty) th The 5 edition retains the advantage of the point scale by allowing examiners to summarize scores within any given content area while also using a mixture of tasks to maintain an examinees interest Using the routine tests to estimate ability, the examiner then goes to an age scaled-based subtest at the appropriate level for the examinee Start point: the estimated level of ability If a certain number of early items are missed, then the examiner will move to a lower/easier level Basal: the level at which a minimum criterion number of responses is obtained Ceiling: a certain number of incorrect responses that indicate the items are too difficult; this is where testing stops Examiners can complete scaled scores for each of the 5 nonverbal subtests and each of the 5 corresponding verbal subtests o These have a mean of 10 and a SD of 3 In addition a standard score with a mean of 100 and a SD of 15 is computed for nonverbal IQ, verbal IQ, full-scale IQ and each of the 5 factors ( fluid reasoning,

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knowledge, quantitative reasoning, visual-spatial processing and working memory Standard scores for each of the 5 factors are based on summing the non verbal and verbal subtest for each respective factor

Psychometric Properties of the 2003 5th Edition y y y y Altered the SD to 15 (instead of 16) Age range spans 2 to 85 years of age Norms are based on a representative sample of 4800 individuals from age 2 to 85+, stratified by gender, ethnicity, religion and education To augment the standardization sample, 3000 additional individuals were included, encompassing various subpopulations such as gifted, mentally retarded, ADHD, and those with speech, language and hearing problems Has very good reliability