W9 Lecture 3: Human Mental Abilities PDF

# W9 Lecture 3 ## Human Mental Abilities *Mental abilities: The capacity to perform the higher mental processes of reasoning, remembering, understanding, and problem solving. Spewman (1927) said intelligence has so many meanings it has none. Boring (1951) Intelligence is what intelligence tests...

# W9 Lecture 3 ## Human Mental Abilities *Mental abilities: The capacity to perform the higher mental processes of reasoning, remembering, understanding, and problem solving. Spewman (1927) said intelligence has so many meanings it has none. Boring (1951) Intelligence is what intelligence tests test. Intelligence is a construct (theoretical entity) - Cannot be directly observed - Something we infer from observed behavior - Sometimes called a latent variable (underlying disposition) - Basis for predicting future behavior ### How to measure what we cannot see? * Test observable behavior – infer underlying construct * Devise the test to operationalize the construct * Latent variables: Underlying variables. * Manifest variables: Ones on the surface, observable, make it measurable. * Theory and measurement are inextricably linked - we need good tests and good theory for success. ## Implicit Theories of Intelligence ## Explicit Theories of Intelligence - Informal definitions of intelligence, belief in all hold. - Believe mental abilities are fixed (entity theorist) - Believe abilities are changeable (incremental heuristic) - Very important to basis of understanding: - 7th grade learning trajectories example - Incremental beliefs -> higher grades & better response to failure - Use data collected from performances/tasks that require intelligent cognition. - Theories don't always cover all intelligence; define a scope of psychological construct they deal with (whole domain or a specific area). - Theories supported by evidence (mostly indirect) - Correlation is important here! - Theory can be challenged because: - Does it fit for other data (if theory is wrong and needs to change) - Measure is bad - how narrow/broad is it? - No one theory can account for it all!!! ## 3 Factors of Intelligence Arose from Sternbery (1981) Survey: 1. Verbal intelligence 2. Problem solving 3. Practical intelligence