 What do most laypersons believe is the definition of intelligence?

o Most laypersons believe that intelligence is made of 3 components. These are:

1. Practical problem solving ability- logical thinking, good reasoning ability
2. Verbal ability- good conversationalist, reads often and well
3. Social intelligence- sensitive to social cues, admits mistakes

 Is intelligence a unitary construct or do we have multiple intelligences?

o There are two camps of thinking among the experts in the area, the unitary view
of intelligence and the multiple intelligences view of intelligence. The unitary
view represents the overwhelming majority of experts. The unitary view of
intelligence includes the idea of the "g" factor or general intelligence factor.
Binet and Spearman are two of the most prominent proponents of this view.

The multiple view of intelligence states that each intelligence has its own
pathway and that each is somewhat independent of the other. Thurstone and
Gardner are the primary proponents of this view. Gardner's model of intelligence
states that there are eight separate intelligences. These include linguistic (i.e.,
verbal and language skills), musical, logical-mathematical (i.e., reasoning and
math), spatial (i.e., ability to remember, conceptualize, and mentally manipulate
three dimensional objects), bodily-kinesthetic (i.e., ability to understand how to
move one's body in space), nature (i.e., biology and ecology), interpersonal (i.e.,
ability to relate well with others), and intrapersonal (i.e., ability to understand
one's inner self). In traditional models of intelligence, only the linguistic, logical-
mathematical, and spatial are typically thought of as "intelligence." The other
"intelligences" that Gardner proposes expand the definition of intelligence far
beyond its normal boundaries.

 What is IQ and how is it the same or different from intelligence?

o IQ is a score derived from an intelligence test that reflects three things.
1. Cognitive ability- at least 50% of which appears to be genetic
2. Motivation- almost totally influenced by the environment
3. Achievement- somewhat related to cognitive ability but also very related
to motivation

As we can see, the score reflects more than simply the cognitive ability of the test
taker. If the child is not motivated, the child will underperform on the intelligence
test and have a lower IQ. In addition, if the child has had poor quality schooling
or a lack of an academically stimulating environment, this will likely affect the
child's achievement levels. Achievement represents the child's warehouse of
knowledge (the child's internal library). All things being equal, a fuller warehouse
leads to a better intelligence test performance. So it is important to always
recognize that the IQ is a composite of several aspects and is not a pure measure
of native intelligence.

 What do intelligence tests measure?

 1. Intelligence tests measure sensory, perceptual, and motor development in infants
and very young children
2. Intelligence tests measure primarily academic ability and to a lesser extent
perceptual organization in all other age populations. Of all the subtests used in
global IQ tests, the vocabulary subtest correlates the highest with the total IQ
score of any of the subtests.

 What is not measured by intelligence tests?

o Mechanical skills
o Musical skills
o Artistic skills
o Creativity
o Social skills

 How much of intelligence is due to genetics and how much to the environment?
o Experts estimate that approximately 50% of intelligence is genetic though some
put the percentage slightly higher. Twin studies have been used to establish a
genetic influence. For example, identical twins reared apart usually show a high
correlation in intelligence. Genetics appears to fix a range of about 25 IQ points
(this is not true however for those who are mentally retarded- they have a severely
restricted range). This means that genetics creates a boundary and within that
boundary IQ can go up or down depending on whether the person is involved in
intellectual challenge or is intellectually stagnating. It's a well known
phenomenon that one can grow one's IQ. One way to grow the IQ is to go to
college.

 How stable is IQ across time?

o IQ is very stable from the beginning of elementary school through adulthood.
Twenty five year test-retest IQ reliabilities have been found to be around .60.
Infant intelligence tests however are only predictive of cognitive impairment.
They will not predict gifted and talented though they may predict mental
retardation.

Cross sectional studies (i.e., different age cohorts are compared to each other at
time 1) suggest a growth in IQ from ages 16-34 followed by a decline thereafter.
However, this finding is due to an educational differences confound. Those in
older age cohorts tend to have more education since the most recent generations
have the most college. The more education one has, generally the more
intelligence one has. Longitudinal studies that follow age cohorts across time
suggest that IQ is likely to increase from age 20 to the later 50's. Math skills may
begin to slip after age 40. The average adult will not begin to slip below the mean
for adults until the 80's.

Intelligence is believed to be a blending of crystallized intelligence and fluid

intelligence. Crystallized intelligence is intelligence reflected by accumulated
learning like vocabulary and general information. On the other hand fluid
 intelligence is mental agility. It represents the ability to use short-term memory,
abstract thought, and speed of thinking in a flexible way. Studies indicate that
crystallized intelligence generally increases with age and that fluid intelligence
declines after a certain age in adulthood.

 What is the influence of culture on IQ?

o There is no such thing as a culture free test. All other things being equal, the more
assimilated into the predominate culture the test taker is, the better the
performance.

 What was the purpose of the original Binet test?

o The purpose of the original Binet test was to identify "intellectually limited
individuals so they could be removed from the regular classroom and receive
special education experiences." These were French students and the original test
created by Binet was in the French language. It is important to remember that the
original IQ test was used to measure academic intelligence. This is why
subsequent IQ tests have had a bias toward viewing intelligence as academic
intelligence as contrasted to Gardner's view of intelligence for example.

 What principles did Binet use to design the original Binet scale?
o Binet used the principles of mental age and general mental ability. As we
discussed earlier, the concept of mental age refers to the age equivalent of the
mean raw score in the normative group. If a 5 year old child receives the same
raw score as the mean raw score of the 8 year olds, then the 5 year old child
receives a mental age of 8. General mental ability refers to viewing intelligence
as a unitary construct or as a "g" factor as Spearman postulated. As noted in
your text, "the concept of general intelligence implies that a person's intelligence
can best be represented by a single score, g, that presumably reflects the shared
variance underlying performance on a diverse set of tests." See pp. 235-237 for a
discussion of the early Binet scales.

 How did the American version of the Binet scale come into being?
o L. M. Terman developed the American version of the scale. He named his 1916
scale the Stanford-Binet Scale after Stanford University (the university where he
worked) and of course after Binet the originator of the scale. For a complete
history of the Stanford-Binet, see pp. 238-248.

 Which edition of the Stanford-Binet is the modern edition?

o The modern edition is the 2003 Stanford-Binet Fifth Edition. The fifth
edition has a Full Scale IQ that measures the "g" factor. It has both verbal and
nonverbal domains and measures the five factors of fluid reasoning, knowledge,
quantitative reasoning, visual-spatial processing, and working memory. This
individually administered IQ test can be used with ages 2 to 85+. Both the verbal
and nonverbal scales are used with most populations. However, the nonverbal
scales are especially useful with the deaf or hearing impaired, language impaired
 individuals, and those who are head injured. The fifth edition is useful with
special populations like the learning disabled, those with mental retardation, the
gifted and talented, those with ADHD, and autism, as well as those suffering from
dementia or brain injury. The reliability is high and the standard error of
measurement is low. Furthermore, the validity is high. This is an excellent gold
standard test of intelligence that is used primarily in a school psychology context
though it can also be used for general diagnostic purposes with adults as well. The
Stanford-Binet is a proprietary product of the Riverside Publishing Company. For
cost and additional information about the Stanford-Binet, see the Riverside
Publishing Company's Stanford-Binet web site.

The Wechsler Intelligence Scales

 What are the Wechsler Intelligence Scales?
o The Wechsler Intelligence Scales include the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale-
III (WAIS-III) (The WAIS-IV is the newest version of the WAIS-III, which is
now obsolete), the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children-IV (WISC-IV),
and the Wechsler Preschool and Primary Scale of Intelligence-III (WPPSI-
III) all derived from the original 1939 Wechsler-Bellevue Intelligence Scale. The
Wechsler-Bellevue Intelligence Scale was created in part to address perceived
inadequacies of the 1937 Binet Scales. Remember that the Binet Scales were
originally created as child scales and expanded upward to include adults.
Wechsler wanted to create a scale that was specifically designed to assess adult
intelligence. In addition, he wanted to use a point scale that assigned points to
each item so that scores for each content area could be determined. Finally, one of
the early criticisms of the Binet Scale was that it relied too heavily on language
and verbal skills. Therefore, Wechsler created a performance scale to measure
nonverbal intelligence. As noted in your text, "The performance scale consisted of
tasks that require a subject to do something (for example, copy symbols or point
to a missing detail) rather than merely answer questions...A performance scale
attempts to overcome biases caused by language, culture, and education."

 How is the current version of the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale structured?
o The current version of the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale, the WAIS-IV,
was developed in 2008. Due to the newness of the most recent version and dearth
of information on it in the text, we will focus on the WAIS-III, which will be used
until the middle part of 2010. Therefore, you will be responsible for knowing the
information related to the WAIS-III.
The WAIS-III instrument has seven verbal subtests and seven performance
 subtests. The seven verbal subtests include vocabulary, similarities, arithmetic,
digit-span, information, comprehension, and letter-number sequencing, The seven
performance scales include picture completion, digit symbol-coding, block
design, matrix reasoning, picture arrangement, symbol search, and object
assembly. Two subtest scales have been removed from the WAIS-IV version,
picture arrangement and object assembly. They have been replaced with three
new subtest scales: Cancellation, Figure Weights, and Visual Puzzles. There are
four Index Scores consisting of Verbal Comprehension, Perceptual
Organization, Working Memory, and Processing Speed. As noted in your text,
"An index is created where two or more subtests are related to a basic underlying
skill." A Verbal IQ, Performance IQ, Full Scale IQ (the global IQ), and the
four Index Scores can be obtained. See pp. 253-265 for more discussion about
the structure of the Scale.

 What is the quality and popularity of the WAIS-III?

o Like the Stanford-Binet, the WAIS-III is a high quality gold standard

individually administered IQ test. Even though the Wechsler tests were created
after the Binet tests, they have far eclipsed the Stanford-Binet in popularity and
rate in the top ten of popularity among clinical psychologists. The Wechsler tests
have traditionally been much more user friendly than the Stanford-Binet and the
WAIS-III is the most popular of all the individually administered IQ tests.

The WAIS-III is used for age groups 16 to 89+. The normative group includes
2,450 people stratified by the major demographic variables. The IQ scores range
from 45 (-3.66 standard deviation units) to 155 (+3.66 standard deviation units).
The reliabilities are high though slightly lower for the Performance Scale IQ than
the Verbal IQ and the Full Scale IQ. Likewise, the Standard Error of
Measurements are low though slightly higher for the Performance Scale IQ.
Numerous studies have been conducted demonstrating high levels of validity for
this instrument. For more information about the WAIS-III, see the

 What is the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children-Fourth Edition (WISC-IV)?

o The Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children-Fourth Edition (WISC-IV) is a
high quality (gold standard) individually administered IQ test that is used with
children ages 6-16 years 11 months. It is considered to be a downward extension
of the WAIS since it is based on the same concepts as the WAIS. The WISC-IV

has the four major indexes of Verbal Comprehension, Perceptual

Reasoning, Processing Speed, and Working Memory. The Verbal IQ has been
renamed the Verbal Comprehension Index (VCI) and the Performance IQ has
been renamed the Perceptual Reasoning Index (PRI). A Full Scale IQ (global
IQ) may also be obtained. The normative group consists of 2,200 children
selected through a stratified random sampling strategy. The reliability of the Scale
is high and the SEM is low. In addition, numerous studies demonstrate a high
validity for the instrument. For more information about the WISC-IV, see the
WISC IV link located in the table of contents for this module. For an excellent
 overview of the theoretical model and test blueprint, see the site's technical report.
The link for the report is also listed on the table of contents for this module.
o What is the Wechsler Preschool and Primary Scale of Intelligence-III
(WPPSI-III)
 The Wechsler Preschool and Primary Scale of Intelligence-III
(WPPSI-III) is a high quality individually administered IQ test for
children ages 2.6 to 7.3. The test divides children into two bands, those
ages 2.6 to 3.11 and those ages 4.0 to 7.3. The test measures verbal
comprehension (Verbal IQ) and perceptual organization (Performance IQ)
in the younger band of children and verbal comprehension, perceptual
organization, and processing speed in the older band of children. The
WPPSI was the last individually administered IQ test developed in the
Wechsler series. The original WPPSI was developed in 1967 with a
revised version developed in 1989. The current version was released in
2003. The scale has a stratified normative sample. The reliability is high
though slightly lower than the reliabilities found for the WISC-IV. It
should be noted that in general, tests that measure intelligence in very
young children tend to have lower reliabilities and higher SEM's than their
counterparts that measure intelligence in older children and adults. As
noted in the text, "Clinical studies were conducted with children with
mental retardation, developmental delay, giftedness, autism, attention
deficit hyperactivity disorder, and language disorder. These validity
studies foster a better understanding of the relative performance of clinical
and nonclinical groups." For more information on the WPPSI-III, see the
Harcourt WPPSI-III web site.