Problem Solving and Intelligence

Wednesday, October 2, 2024 11:19 PM

Edwin Boring said that Intelligence is whatever intelligence tests measure

- Operational definition of intelligence
○ Perform cognitive tasks
○ Learn from experience & adapt

Intelligence: the cognitive ability of an individual to learn from experience, reason well, remember
important information, and cope with the demands of daily living
○ Not all psychologists agree on how intelligence should be defined

Problem Solving
- Psychologist are interested in how we solve problems
- 2 forms of reasoning:
1) Deductive: when a person uses general ideas and theories to arrive at specific conclusion
2) Inductive: moving from specific facts and observations to broader ideas and theories
○ These 2 guide the scientific method, because we can use facts to find theories by
interpreting data (inductive), or theories to find facts by generating hypothesis (deductive)
○ Together they form the arch of knowledge

Insight problem:
- Best solved by thinking "outside the box"
- Made difficult by our functional fixedness
○ Our difficultly seeing alterative uses for common objects
- Most psychologists agree that problem solving is a part of measuring intelligence

History of Intelligence Testing

- Its important to consider
○ Reliability: a reliable test produces the same result if one person takes it multiple times
(precise)
○ Validity: a valid tests actually measures the trait it is supposed to be measuring (accurate)
- The goal of any test is to be both

Galton
- His study on reaction time established the modern study of intelligence
- Believed that faster reaction time = higher intelligence

Weschler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS) & Weschler Intelligence Scale for Children (WISC)
- Most popular intelligence tests today
- Modeled on a scale by Alfred Bonnet known as IQ or intelligence quotient
○ IQ scales are standardized relative to the population scores
○ If someone scores the mean, IQ=100

Howard Gardner
- Believed there were different and distinct types of intelligence
- Proposed a multiple intelligence theory and intelligence test
- 8 types of independent intelligence:-
1) Verbal (linguistic)
 ○ IQ scales are standardized relative to the population scores
○ If someone scores the mean, IQ=100

Howard Gardner
- Believed there were different and distinct types of intelligence
- Proposed a multiple intelligence theory and intelligence test
- 8 types of independent intelligence:-
1) Verbal (linguistic)
2) Mathematical (logical)
3) Musical (rhythmic)
4) Spatial (visual)
5) Kinesthetic (bodily)
6) Interpersonal
7) Intrapersonal
8) Naturalistic
- He claimed that all of them are unrelated, but critics claimed that if one person is good at one
certain tests they are very likely to do well on others

- Intelligence has been applied (often without evidence) to many domains

○ Ex: the idea of different learning styles has no evidence

Factors Influencing Human Intelligence

- Intelligence results from genetics and the environment (nature and nurture)
- But which one contributes more?
○ To answer this, researches use correlational studies
§ Ex: comparing identical twins to fraternal twins
§ Studying twins can show which factors correlate strongest with intelligence
§ Correlation between IQ's of identical twins = +0.8
□ Significantly greater than fraternal = 0.6
® This shows that genes play a role in intelligence
□ At the same time, that value would've been way lower if the twins grew up in
different homes
® This shows that environment plays a role too

The Flynn Effect

- The observation that raw IQ scores have been on the rise since 1932
- The mean in populations is steadily increasing
- 9-15 point increase every year

- The mean will always be 100, the raw IQ scores are increasing
 - The mean will always be 100, the raw IQ scores are increasing
- Flynn argued that increased quality of schooling and increased access to information and ideas
through media and the internet is the cause
- Some others suggest increased nutrition and health play a role
- Nobody is sure why exactly

Piaget and Intelligence Development

- Said that children are active learners
- Credited intellectual development to active learning in childhood
- Schema: a mental framework for interpreting the world around us
○ Schemas of young children is not fully developed
- Assimilation: incorporating new information into existing schemas
- Accommodation: modifying existing schemas to fit incompatible information/ create new
categories in their schemas
- Through assimilation and accommodation the child actively learns and develops as they interact
with the environment
- He proposed the 4 stages of cognitive development in children:-
○ Children must undergo a change in their schema before moving onto the next stage
○ Although children might pass at different ages, they will all pass these stages in the same
order (no skips)
1) Sensorimotor stage (0-2)
○ Begins to realize that they affect change on their environment, engage with the world and
act with intention
○ Lack object permanence: the realization that objects continue to exist when no longer
visible
2) Preoperational stage (2-7)
- Child has object permanence, but still has the challenges of egocentrism, seriation, reversible
relationships, and conservation
○ The child has difficulty seeing the world from perspectives outside their own (egocentric)
§ Proved by Piaget's Three Mountain Task
□ The child sees a display of 3 mountains and is asked what the display of the
perspective of someone across the table would look like
□ They answered by picking the perspective they see
○ Have difficulty with seriation tasks (the ability to logically order a series of objects)
○ Have difficulty with Reversible relationships
○ Have difficulty with conservation
§ Ex: fluid conservation task
§ If a child saw the same 2 cups of milk he'll know they have the same amount of fluid
§ If you take one of the cups and pour it into a thinner glass in front of the child, they'll
think the taller glass has more fluid
□ They don't understand that the volume is conserved
- These 4 can be mastered at any order
3) Concrete Operational stage (7-12)
- Schemas are still concrete and based on their experiences in the world
- Still struggle to think in abstract terms or reason based on hypothesis
4) Formal Operational stage (12+)
- Child mastered the ability to work with hypothesis, think abstractly, and do everything else of an
adult's cognitive ability
- Usually gain interest in games, books, fantasy, and role playing
○ They understand the theoretical worlds where these things take place
 3) Concrete Operational stage (7-12)
- Schemas are still concrete and based on their experiences in the world
- Still struggle to think in abstract terms or reason based on hypothesis
4) Formal Operational stage (12+)
- Child mastered the ability to work with hypothesis, think abstractly, and do everything else of an
adult's cognitive ability
- Usually gain interest in games, books, fantasy, and role playing
○ They understand the theoretical worlds where these things take place
- Some criticisms of Piaget's theories
○ Development of skills out of order (decalage)
○ Tasks he used to get his hypothesis have a reliance on language abilities

Biases and Heuristics

- Our decisions can be prone to error and bias
- Confirmation bias: the tendency to seek out information that supports our hypothesis
○ Collecting and confirming data feels good, so people are naturally biased
○ In reality, the best way to know you are right is to look for evidence that you are wrong
○ It's lessened in more contextual scenarios
○ Follow-up questions during diagnosis is an example of confirmation bias
- Heuristic: a mental shortcut used to solve a problem quickly and often correctly
- Availability Heuristic: our tendency to make decisions based on the information that is most
quickly available to us
○ Using recent past examples to make choices
○ It makes life cognitively less demanding
○ However it can lead to errors
- Representativeness Heuristic: our tendency to assume that what we are seeing is representative
of the larger category we have in our mind
○ This allows us to reach a decision quickly but without considering statistics, baseline rates,
or the probability of events
○ Ex: you see a quiet man who reads books and listens to classical music
§ If you were asked if they were an English teacher or a farmer, you would say English
teacher because this is what you think an English teacher would look and act like
§ However, you don't consider that statistically, there's more farmers than English
teachers, so this answer is more probable
○ Gamblers are prone to the representative heuristic
§ If he has to guess if a spin will land on an odd or even number and the last many
spins were all even, he might guess the next one will be odd to fit his prototype of a
random pattern of spins
□ In reality each wheel spin is independent and the chances of an odd number
haven’t changed
- We favor the outcome that best represents patterns we're familiar with
 - Both guide us in everyday life

Conclusion
- Measuring and accurately defining intelligence is difficult and prone to error