Chapter 6:

Intelligence and
Language
• In this chapter, we consider how psychologists conceptualize and
measure human intelligence, the ability to think, learn from
experience, solve problems, and adapt to new situations
• Our vast intelligence also allows us to have language, a system of
communication that uses symbols in a regular way to create meaning.
Defining and
Measuring
Intelligence
General (g) Versus Specific (s)
Intelligences
• In the early 1900s, the French psychologist Alfred Binet (1857–
1911) and his colleague Theodore Simon (1872–1961) began
working on behalf of the French government to develop a measure
that would differentiate students who were expected to be better
learners from students who were expected to be slower learners.
• Binet-Simon Scale
• Binet and Simon developed what most psychologists today regard as
the first intelligence test.
• Binet and Simon (Binet, Simon, & Town, 1915; Siegler, 1992)
believed that the questions they asked their students, even though
they were on the surface dissimilar, all assessed the basic abilities to
understand, reason, and make judgments.
• It turned out that the correlations among these different types of
measures were in fact all positive; students who got one item correct
were more likely to also get other items correct, even though the
questions themselves were very different.

• On the basis of these results, Charles Spearman (1863–1945)

hypothesized that there must be a single underlying construct that
all items measure. He called the construct that the different abilities
and skills measured on intelligence tests have in common the
general intelligence factor (g).
• Soon after Binet and Simon introduced their test, the American psychologist
Lewis Terman at Stanford University (1877–1956) developed an American
version of Binet’s test that became known as the Stanford-Binet Intelligence
Test. The Stanford-Binet Intelligence Test is a measure of general
intelligence made up of a wide variety of tasks including vocabulary, memory
for pictures, naming of familiar objects, repeating sentences, and following
commands.

• In addition to “g”, there is also evidence for specific intelligence (s), or

measures of specific skills in narrow domains. One empirical result in support
of the idea of “s” comes from intelligence tests themselves.
Crystallized versus Fluid
Intelligence
• One distinction in specific intelligences is between fluid
intelligence, which refers to the capacity to learn new ways of
solving problems and performing activities quickly and abstractly,
and crystallized intelligence, which refers to the accumulated
knowledge of the world we have acquired throughout our lives.
Triarchic Theory
• Robert Sternberg has proposed a triarchic (three-part) theory
of intelligence that proposes that people may display more or less
analytical intelligence, creative intelligence, and practical
intelligence. Sternberg (1985, 2003) defined the three intelligences
as:
• Analytical intelligence or the ability to perform academic problem
solving.
• Creative intelligence or the ability to adapt to new situations and
create new ideas
• Practical intelligence or the ability to demonstrate street smarts
and common sense
• Research has found that creativity is not highly correlated with
analytical intelligence
• Furthermore, the brain areas that are associated with convergent
thinking, thinking that is directed toward finding the correct answer
to a given problem, are different from those associated with
divergent thinking, the ability to generate many different ideas for
or solutions to a single problem
• On the other hand, being creative reflects basic abilities measured by
“g”, including the abilities to learn from experience, to remember
information, and to think abstractly
• The last aspect of the triarchic model, practical intelligence, refers
primarily to intelligence that cannot be gained from books or formal
learning. Practical intelligence represents a type of street smarts or
common sense that is learned from life experiences.
Theory of Multiple Intelligences
• Another champion of the idea of specific types of intelligences is the
psychologist Howard Gardner (1983, 1999) who developed a theory of
multiple intelligences.
• Gardner argued that it would be evolutionarily functional for different
people to have different talents and skills, and proposed that there are
eight intelligences that can be differentiated from each other.
• A potential ninth intelligence; that is, existential still needs empirical
support.
• Gardner noted that some evidence for multiple intelligences comes from
the abilities of autistic savants, people who score low on intelligence tests
overall, but who nevertheless may have exceptional skills in a given
domain
Howard Gardner’s Specific
Intelligences
• The idea of multiple intelligences
has been influential in the field of
education, and teachers have used
these ideas to try to teach
differently to different students
Measuring Intelligence:
Standardization and the Intelligence
Quotient
• The goal of most intelligence tests is to measure “g”, the general
intelligence factor. Good intelligence tests are reliable, meaning that
they are consistent over time, and also demonstrate validity, meaning
that they actually measure intelligence rather than something else.
• The standardization of a test involves giving it to a large number of
people at different ages and computing the average score on the test at
each age level.
• It is important that intelligence tests be standardized on a regular
basis, because the overall level of intelligence in a population may
change over time. The Flynn effect refers to the observation that
scores on intelligence tests worldwide have increased substantially
over the past decades.
• Once the standardization has been accomplished, we have a picture of the
average abilities of people at different ages and can calculate a person’s
mental age, which is the age at which a person is performing intellectually.
• If we compare the mental age of a person to the person’s chronological age,
the result is the Intelligence Quotient (IQ), a measure of intelligence that
is adjusted for age. A simple way to calculate IQ is by using the following
formula:

• IQ = mental age ÷ chronological age × 100.

Intelligence Scores and Life
Outcomes
• Intelligence has been associated with educational, occupational,
economic, and social outcomes. Scores on intelligence tests predict
academic and military performance, as well as success in a wide
variety of jobs.
• Intelligence is positively correlated with health-related outcomes,
including longevity
• Intelligence is also negatively correlated with criminal behaviors as
the average IQ of delinquent adolescents is about 7 points lower than
that of other adolescents
• The advantages of having a higher IQ increase as life settings
become more complex. The correlation between IQ and job
performance is higher in more mentally demanding occupations,
such as physician or lawyer, than in less mentally demanding
occupations, like clerk or newspaper delivery perso
Wechsler Scales
• The Wechsler Adult lntelligence Scale (WAIS) is the most widely used
intelligence test for adults
• The current version of the WAIS, the WAIS-IV, was standardized on 2,200
people ranging from 16 to 90 years of age. It consists of 15 different tasks,
each designed to assess intelligence, including working memory, arithmetic
ability, spatial ability, and general knowledge about the world.
• The WAIS-IV yields scores on four domains: verbal, perceptual, working
memory, and processing speed.
• The Wechsler scale has also been adapted for preschool children in
the form of the Wechsler Primary and Preschool Scale of Intelligence-
Fourth Edition (WPPSI-IV) and for older children and adolescents in
the form of the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children-Fifth Edition
Aptitude Tests
• The intelligence tests that you may be most familiar with are
aptitude tests, which are designed to measure one’s ability to
perform a given task, for instance, to do well in college or in
postgraduate training.
Emotional Intelligence
• Emotional intelligence refers to the ability to accurately identify, assess, and
understand emotions, as well as to effectively control one’s own emotions
• The idea of emotional intelligence is seen in Howard Gardner’s
interpersonal intelligence, the capacity to understand the
emotions, intentions, motivations, and desires of other people, and
intrapersonal intelligence, the capacity to understand oneself,
including one’s emotions
• Although measures of the ability to understand, experience, and
manage emotions may not predict effective behaviors, another
important aspect of emotional intelligence is emotion regulation.
Emotion regulation refers to the ability to control and productively
use one’s emotions
Group Differences
in Intelligence
Extremes of Intelligence:
Intellectual Disability and
Giftedness
• The results of studies assessing the measurement of intelligence
show that IQ is distributed in the population in the form of a bell
curve, also known as a normal distribution, which is the pattern
of scores usually observed in a variable that clusters around its
average
Extremely Low Intelligence
• One end of the distribution of intelligence scores is defined by people
with very low IQ. An Intellectual Disability or Intellectual
Developmental Disorder are terms used to identify those
possessing low IQ and adaptive functioning.
• The severity of the disability is based on adaptive functioning, or
how well the person handles everyday life tasks
• A particular vulnerability of people with low IQ is that they may be
taken advantage of by others, and this is an important aspect of the
definition of intellectual developmental disorder
• One cause of intellectual developmental disorder is Down syndrome, a
chromosomal disorder caused by the presence of all or part of an extra 21st
chromosome.
• Societal attitudes toward individuals with intellectual disabilities have changed
over the past decades. We no longer use terms such as “retarded,” “moron,”
“idiot,” or “imbecile” to describe these people, although these were the official
psychological terms used to describe degrees of what was referred to as mental
retardation in the past.
Extremely High Intelligence
• Having extremely high IQ is clearly less of a
problem than having extremely low IQ, but
there may also be challenges to being
particularly smart. It is often assumed that
schoolchildren who are labeled as gifted may
have adjustment problems that make it more
difficult for them to create social relationships.
Sex Differences in Intelligence
• Research demonstrates that men and women have almost identical
intelligence as measured by standard IQ and aptitude tests
• Women tend to do better than men on some verbal tasks, including
spelling, writing, and pronouncing words (Halpern et al., 2007;
Nisbett et al., 2012), and they have better emotional intelligence in
the sense that they are better at detecting and recognizing the
emotions of others (McClure, 2000).
• On average, men do better than women on tasks requiring spatial
ability, such as the mental rotation tasks
• Males tend to do better than females on both geography and
geometry tasks
Mental rotation task
• Differences between men and women may be in part genetically
determined, perhaps by differences in brain lateralization or by
hormones (Kimura & Hampson, 1994; Voyer, Voyer, & Bryden, 1995),
but nurture is also important.
Racial Differences in Intelligence
• One explanation for race differences in IQ is that intelligence tests
are biased against some groups and in favor of others. Bias means
that a test predicts outcomes, such as grades or occupational success,
better for one group than it does for another.
• Another way that tests might be biased is if questions are framed
such that they are easier for people from one culture to understand
than for people from other cultures.
 Stereotype Threat
• Although intelligence tests may not be
culturally biased, the situation in which
one takes a test may be.
• stereotype threat - performance
decrements that are caused by the
knowledge of cultural stereotypes.
The Development
and Use of
Language
• Language involves both the ability to comprehend spoken and
written words and to create communication in real time when we
speak or write.
• Although language is often used for the transmission of information,
this is only its most mundane function. Language also allows us to
access existing knowledge, to draw conclusions, to set and
accomplish goals, and to understand and communicate complex
social relationships. Language is fundamental to our ability to think,
and without it we would be less intelligent.
The Components of Language
• Phoneme: A phoneme is the smallest unit of sound that makes a
meaningful difference in a language. The word “bit” has three
phonemes.
• Morpheme and Semantics: Whereas phonemes are the smallest
units of sound in language, a morpheme is a string of one or more
phonemes that makes up the smallest units of meaning in a language
Semantics refers to the set of rules we use to obtain meaning from
morphemes. For example, adding “ed” to the end of a verb makes it
past tense.
• Syntax: Each language has a different syntax, which is the set of
rules of a language by which we construct sentences. For example, in
English “The man bites the dog” is different from “The dog bites the
man.”
• Pragmatics: The social side of language is expressed through
pragmatics, or how we communicate effectively and appropriately
with others. Examples of pragmatics include turn-taking, staying on
topic, volume and tone of voice, and appropriate eye contact.
• Context: Lastly, words do not possess fixed meanings but change
their interpretation as a function of the context in which they are
spoken. We use contextual information; that is, the information
surrounding language to help us interpret it.
The Biology and Development of
Language
• Psychologists believe for language there is a critical period, known
as a time in which learning can easily occur, lasting between infancy
and puberty in which language learning becomes more difficult or
impossible
Brain Areas for Language
• For the 90% of people who are right-handed, language is stored and
controlled by the left cerebral cortex, although for some left-handers
this pattern is reversed.
• Broca’s area, is responsible for language production and is located
in the left hemisphere near the motor cortex. This area was first
localized in the 1860s by the French physician Paul Broca, who
studied patients with lesions to various parts of the brain.
• Wernicke’s area is responsible for language comprehension and is
in the left hemisphere next to the auditory cortex
• Evidence for the importance of Broca’s
and Wernicke’s areas in language is
seen in patients who experience
aphasia, a condition in which language
functions are severely impaired. People
with Broca’s aphasia have difficulty
producing speech, whereas people with
damage to Wernicke’s area can produce
speech, but what they say makes no
sense and they have trouble
understanding spoken language.
Language Stages
• By the time they are 6 to 8 weeks old, babies start making coos or
vowel sounds, such as “ooohh,” “aaahh,” “goo”, as well as a variety of
cries and squeals to help them practice.
• At about six months, infants begin babbling, engaging in
intentional consonant-vowel repetitions that lack specific meaning.
Theories of
Language
Acquisition
Behavioral Perspective
• Perhaps the most straightforward explanation of language
development is that it occurs through principles of learning,
including association, reinforcement, and the observation and
imitation of others.
• There must be at least some truth to the idea that language is
learned, because children learn the language that they hear spoken
around them rather than some other language.
• Deaf children, whose parents do not speak ASL very well,
nevertheless are able to learn it perfectly on their own, and may even
make up their own language if they need to
Evolutionary Perspective
• The linguist Noam Chomsky is a believer in the nature approach to
language, arguing that human brains contain a language
acquisition device that includes a universal grammar that
underlies all human language.
• Chomsky differentiates between the deep structure of an idea, or
how the idea is represented in the fundamental universal grammar
that is common to all languages, and the surface structure of the
idea, or how it is expressed in any one language
• bilingualism, the ability to speak two languages
Can Animals Learn Language?
• The most proficient nonhuman language speaker is Kanzi, a
bonobo who lives at the Language Learning Center at Georgia
State University. Kanzi has a propensity for language that is in
many ways similar to humans. He learned faster when he was
younger than when he got older, he learns by observation, and he
can use symbols to comment on social interactions, rather than
simply for food treats.
• In sum, although many animals communicate, none of them have
a true language.