What type of intelligence allows for the ability to use your mind actively to solve novel problems and is believed to represent raw information

Psychology 303: "higher" cognitive functions: language, problem solving, intelligence

" . . . a man when he grows old . . . can no more learn much than he can run much." Plato (ca. 360 BCE) , Republic

"Outside of their own business, the ideas gained by men before they are twenty-five are practically the only ideas they shall have in their lives. They cannot get anything new. Disinterested curiosity is past, the cognitive grooves and channels set, the power of assimilation gone. . ." William James (1890), Principles of Psychology

Language

language: symbolic communication--a speech sound, a printed word, a gesture can stand for/represent something (an object, an action, a relationship, an idea)--and these symbols can be manipulated to work with these representations, to create increasing complex symbols, to transmit ideas/commmands/thoughts to others

language can be a tool for recursive thought (thoughts embedded within other thoughts) [for an alternative view, consider Gorballis (2011), who believes that the mental capacity for recusion evolved first and allow the development of the language capacities of modern humans]; recursive thought allows the manipulation of increasing complex ideas, the ability to imagine possibilities that have never been seen before, the capacity to consider a past that is gone and a future that is not yet here. Imagined events provide the foundation of all types of productive thinking (as well as probably many neuroses). Gorballis (2011) also believe that recusive thinking provides a basis for "theory of mind", the awareness that other's have minds, can think, can anticipate the future, (and can be deceived).

Speech, Language, and the FOXP2 gene

The FOXP2 gene was initially focused on after studies of a British family in London who had an especially high family history of speech and language disorders found that in many affected family members, one of their two copies of FOXP2 had been inactivated by a mutation. Scientists continue to work at understanding the effects of FOXP2 on brain development. Studies have suggested that virtually every human in the world has the same allele of FOXP2, suggesting that it may have conferred a major survival value and swept through the population within the last 200,000 years. It has been speculated that this spread of FOXP2 lead to neurological changes that could have accounted for the major change in human behavior 50,000 year ago that lead Homo sapiens populations to expand and move out of Africa, with the emergence of improved language abilities being a likely candidate.

A recent report that FOXP2 had been found in analysis of Neanderthal DNA has further fueled debates about the origins of language and the role of FOXP2. Neanderthals and modern humans lineages diverged approximately 350,000 years ago. Neanderthal populations had moved out of Africa approximately 100,000 years ago and dominated Europe until the arrival of modern humans about 45,000 years ago. Many believe they were likely driven to extinction by modern humans approximately 30,000 years ago from their last refuges in Spain and Portugal. This had lead to questions about FOXP2 and human cognitive development. Further complicating the issue is evidence of DNA exchange between Neanderthal and early homo sepian populations. Many questions remain.

Factors affecting language use that change with age

reading rate declines

hearing and speech perception declines

speed of cognitive processing declines

retrieval deficits increase

working memory decline

shift to simpler grammatical structures (may be more secondary effect; more situational variable)

social and attitudinal aspects affecting communication

ageism again: elderspeak, social expectations, and self-expectations may be contributing factors to changes in grammatical structures

your textbook's "communication predicament model" of aging: older adults seen as declining mentally, leads to our speaking to them differently (in simplified language), leads to them using less sophisticated language, leads to changes in their language facility

"infantilization" of the elderly: treating someone as incapable can lead to them being less motivated to behave capably can lead to them being less capable

factors that act to maintain language facility

semantic memory well retained

verbal comprehension well retained (understanding, "getting point" may be well preserved despite sensory, perceptual, and processing deficits)

nonverbal aspects of communication well retained ("paralinguistic" aspects of communication)

greater experience with language

broader cerebral activation (right hemisphere activation)

Problem Solving & Decision Making

Piaget (again)

thought governed by principles of adaptation and organization

adaptation is the process of adjusting thinking to the environment

adaptation occurs through organization--how the organism is put together; each component part has a specialized function which is coordinated into the whole

intellectual adaptation reflect two processes:

assimilation: the use of currently available knowledge (thinking) to make sense of incoming information (the world)

accommodation: changing one's thoughts (available knowledge) to better fit the incoming information (the world)

Piaget argued that formal operational thinking was acquired during adolescence and characterized adult thought

formal operational thought is characterized by:

1. hypothesis testing approach to problem solving (hypothetico-deductive)

2. it is unconstrained by reality, there are no constraints to the kinds of problems which can be considered

3. abstract concepts can be manipulated

4. it is governed by a generalized logical structure that allows for the solution of new problems; previously unexperienced challenges are approached in a logical, methodical way

a problem with Piaget theory is evidence that not all adults attain formal operations

only about 60 to 75% of American adolescents can solve formal operational problems (Neimark, 1975)

Kuhn (1992) suggests no more than 30% of adults have full transitioned to the highest levels of formal operational thought

Piaget (1972) recognized that formal operations were not universal in adults but tended to appear more in areas of specialized training or experience

"post-formal" thought -- continuing paths of adult cognitive development

"characterized by a recognition that truth (the correct answer) varies from situation to situation, that solutions must be realistic to be reasonable, that ambiguity and contradiction are the rule rather than the exception, and that emotion and subjective factors usually play a role in thinking." (Cavanaugh & Blanchard-Fields, 2011, p. 259)

style of thinking (Kramer, Kahlbaugh, & Goldston, 1992)

absolutist: there is one correct solution; personal experience provides truth

relativistic: recognizing there are many sides to any issue; right answer depends on circumstances

dialectical: recognize different viewpoints and synthesize them into a workable solution

System 1 and System 2 (Kahneman, 2011)

"When trying to understand the strange details of human behavior, psychologists and economists sometimes appeal to a 'dual-process' account. In this view, the brain contains two separate systems: one is fast, automatic, and below the surface of conscious awareness, while the other is slow, cognitive, and conscious. The first system can be labeled automatic, implicit, heuristic, intuitive, holistic, reactive, and impulsive, while the second system is cognitive, systematic, explicit, analytic, rule-based, and reflective. These two processes are always battling it out." (Eagleman, 2011, p. 109)

"The ancient Greeks had an analogy for life that captured this wisdom: your are a charioteer, and your chariot is pulled by two thunderous horses, the white hourse of reason and the black horse of passion. The white horse is always trying to tug you off one side of the road, and the black hourse tries to pull you off the other side. Your job is to hold on to them tightly, keeping them in check so you can continue down the middle of the road." (Eagleman, 2011, p. 115)

Eagleman's discussion views these two processes as the "rational and emotional systems" (pp. 110-111) but this may not be completely helpful

Kahneman (2011) has given a clear and well articulated account of the two system model, backed up with empirical results:

"System 1 operates automatically and quickly, with little or no effort and no sense of voluntary control"

"System 2 allocates attention to the effortful mental activities that demand it, including complex computations. The operations of System 2 are often associated with the subjective experience of agency, choice, and concentration." (pp. 20-21)

one important difference between the two systems is the amount of energy they consume, System is effortful and can become depleated rapidly (Good idea to eat a snack before a test)

another important difference is what information is process: System I works on the basis of "what you see is all there is" while System II considers more elaborate possibilities (which, of course, consumes more energy)

Intelligence

the structure of mental abilities

"g", intelligence, adaptive capability, learning

Charles Spearman and a "general factor" of intelligence

specific factors, Thurstone, and primary mental abilities

Raymond Cattell and two kinds of intelligence (Cattell-Horn model)

Fluid intelligence: "consists of the abilities that make you a flexible and adaptive thinker, that allow you to draw inferences, and that enable you to understand the relations among concepts independent of acquired knowledge and experience." (Cavanaugh & Blanchard-Fields, 2011, p. 243); biological capacity to learn; innate mental ability for higher level thought

Crystallized intelligence: "is the knowledge that you have acquired through life experience and education in a particular culture." (Cavanaugh & Blanchard-Fields, 2011, p. 245); what you have learned; specific skills and information gained through culturally based experience

this distinction is conceptually interesting, may have some utility and validity, is somewhat reminiscent of the "nature vs. nurture" debates (remember how that one worked out?), but is also somewhat limited in practical significance: there are no "pure" measures of fluid intelligence--problems to be solved are always about something, and that "something" will have elements of crystallized intelligence (knowledge); and almost any measure of knowledge can tap (to some degree) the reasoning and problem solving capability of the organism

the "Flynn effect"

Evidence from IQ tests and their periodic restandardization suggests the IQ's rose over the 20th century in the developed nations of the world and are continuing to rise in developing nations [at a rate of 0,3 points a year]. Effects are evident in measures of more "fluid intelligence" such as Raven's Progressive Matrices and tests of verbal abstraction (Similarities). (see Flynn, 2012, 2009).

"Are we getting smarter?"

Dr. Flynn, who first brought this result to our attention, suggests that the changes are real but reflect the shift of focus on what is considered "intelligent behavior" by cultures; he believes that Western cultures and now much of the world has "put on scientific spectacles" with different habits of mind and values than were in operation previously: more formal schooling, more cognitively demanding job, more cognitively challenging leisure activities, different patterns of interactions between children and parents. Logical thinking and abstraction are increasing necessary (rewarded); specific knowledge and skills are less emphasized. Flynn understands intelligence ("g") in terms of an interaction between the capabilities of the individual and the differential expectations (reinforcements) of the person's society.

a current model underlying many present intelligence tests posits four basic mental factors:

verbal conceptual abilities (the Verbal Comprehension factor of the WAIS-IV and WISC-IV)

word knowledge, verbal abstractions, general fund of knowledge, social judgment and reasoning

visual spatial abilities (the Perceptual Reasoning factor of the WAIS-IV and WISC-IV)

recognizing and extrapolating abstract visual patterns, constructional performances, visual synthesis

working memory (the Working Memory factor of the WAIS-IV and WISC-IV)

actively holding and manipulating information

processing speed (the Processing Speed factor of the WAIS-IV and WISC-IV)

speeded mental performances, rapid coding and recognition tasks

Processing Speed abilities show the clearest evidence of age-related changes, with declines evident from early adulthood; however, processing speed is a weak predictor of practical problem solving and expertise, and of how well older adults perform complex, familiar tasks in everyday life

with advancing age the correlations between PS and other cognitive performances increases, but remains modest

Verbal Conceptual abilities show the clear evidence of age-related stability, into very late life

Visual Perceptual abilities show age related decline, although this is more modest if PS aspects are eliminated

Working Memory tends to more variable results (although the general tend is, like VP abilities, for a general decline; WM abilities appear to be influenced by both short (fatigue, emotional stress) and long term (mental practice and strategic approaches) moderating variables

measures of Working Memory often subsume several more basic aspects of information processing:

attention, especially selective attention (inhibition of distraction, screening out the interference of irrelevant information); which tests to become more difficult with advancing age

"working memory capacity": our basic brain capacity for active storage (RAM on a computer is a common metaphor)

cognitive strategy: which can be enhanced by training/effort and will tend to deteriorate if left unattended

metacognitive knowledge, thinking about thinking, is affected very little by age

Although this four-factor model appears to be a useful heuristic theory; recognize that, as a practical matter, it is almost impossible to design pure measures of any of these hypothetical variables

and these hypothetical variables may or may not correspond to actual underlying aspects of neurological functioning

but theories can be useful even if they are only partially "true"; especially in early work and/or with very complex problems

These mental abilities (and others; such as creativity, expertise, judgment, wisdom) show great variability in any human sample: for different age cohorts the "within sample variability" is often/usually greater than the "between sample variability" until the close of life

there is often seen a precipitous loss of mental ability at the very end of life, possibly reflecting systemic damage/disease impacting the CNS, but that is a story for another day

Factors associated with (some would say reducing) decreased degree of cognitive decline in older adulthood (Schaie, 1993):

Absence of cardiovascular and other chronic diseases

Favorable environment for cognitive activities (often reflected in higher socioeconomic status; challenging work activities and cognitive stimulating avocational activities)

Active engagement in complex and intellectually stimulating environment

Flexible personality style

High cognitive status of spouse (may be a special case of the "favorable environment" mentioned above)

Maintenance of higher level of perceptual processing speed

Other models/theories of intelligence

Howard Gardner's "multiple intelligences theory" (1983)

Gardner views intelligence as "the capacity to solve problems or to fashion products that are valued in one or more cultural settings" (Gardner & Hatch, 1989)

He reviewed the literature on intelligence using several criteria for possible types of intelligence:

potential for isolation by brain damage

existence of savants, prodigies, and exceptional individuals

an identifiable core operation or set of operations

a distinctive developmental history and a definable set of "end-state" performances

support from experimental psychological tasks

support from psychometric findings

susceptibility to encoding in a symbol system (1983, pp 62-69)

He makes two essential claims

A full account of human cognition must recognize multiple intelligences

People have a unique blend of intelligences that should be considered

Gardner posits 7 or 8 or 9 forms of intelligence:

Linguistic: "word smart", ability to use language to understand and express complex meanings

Logical-mathematical "number/reasoning smart", ability to calculate, quantify, carry out complex reasoning

Bodily-kinesthetic: "body smart", ability to manipulate objects and use physical skills

Musical: "music smart", discern pitch, rhythm, timber, tone and use to use these to relate ideas and emotions

Spatial: "picture smart", ability to think in three dimensions, mental imagery and manipulation of images, spatial reasoning

Interpersonal: "people smart", ability to understand and interact effectively with others

Intrapersonal: "self smart", understanding oneself and one's thoughts and feelings, ability to use this knowledge in planning

Naturalistic "nature smart", sensitivity to features of natural world

Existential: "deep questions smart", sensitivity to fundamental questions--meaning of life, existence of ideals (truth, God), nature of beauty and morality

Robert Sternberg's "triarchic theory" (1999)

Sternberg saw human intelligence as "mental activity directed toward purposive adaptation to, selection and shaping of, real-word environments relevant to one's life" (1985, p. 45)

Sternberg posits three independent factors in intelligence

Componential or analytic ability: ability to take apart problems and see solutions

Experiential or creative ability: effectiveness relative to task familiarity

Contextual or practical ability ("street smarts"): fit to context

Peter Salovey & John Mayer's "emotional intelligence theory" (1990)

"represents the ability to perceive, appraise, and express emotion accurately and adaptively; the ability to understand emotional and emotional knowledge; the ability to access and/or generate feelings when they facilitate cognitive activities and adaptive action; and the ability to regulate emotions in oneself and others." (Salovey, Mayer, & Caruso, 2002)

emotional self-awareness

regulating emotions

readings emotions accurately

empathy

repairing relationship ruptures

"everyday intelligence"

One difficulty is studying everyday intelligence is there is no commonly accepted definition or standard

Several characteristics are commonly cited (Schale & Willis, 1996):

an adults's ability to perform adequately activities considered essential for living independently in our society

it involves the application of cognitive abilities and skills

it reflects dealing with problems in naturalistic or everyday contexts

everyday problems are complex and multidimensional (versus laboratory tasks)

adaptive behavior scales

Instrumental Activities of Daily Living identified seven domains

taking medications

managing finances

shopping for necessarities

using the telephone

managing transportation

preparing meals

housekeeping

Schaile research (Seattle Longitudinal Study) suggests that more than half of the variance in older adults' performance on everyday tasks can be accounted for by mental ability

both fluid and crystallized abilities were found involved in everyday task performance

a somewhat greater portion of the variance was accounted for by fluid abilities

performance on measure of fluid intelligence was the strongest correlate of practical problem-solving performance

What about "executive functions"?

Executive functions refer to activities usually assumed (or demonstrated) to be sensitive to frontal lobe functioning: abstract reasoning, planning, carrying out and evaluating actions. Daniels, Toth, and Jocoby (2004) trace the concept to Hughling Jackson (1844) hypothesis that higher brain centers control lower brain centers, Jacobsen's work with experimental ablations in monkeys (Jacobsen & Nissen, 1937), and Goldstein's (1936) concept of "abstract attitude", being able to analyze situations into constituent elements; but most importantly to neuropsychological studies of the effect of frontal lobe damage on cognition, personality, and behavior. The case of Phineas Gage is usually cited as the paradigm example.

Healthy (e.g., normal) adult aging is associated with deterioration of the frontal lobes of the brain, more than other brain areas

This has lead to several versions of a "frontal hypothesis of aging"--that changes in frontal lobe tissue and functions underlie the cognitive changes associated with aging

Difficulties with this hypothesis is that there is no universally accepted definition, conceptualization, or measure of executive functions

"The executive functions consist of those capacities that enable a person to engage successfully in independent, purposive, self serving behavior" (Lezak, 1995)

"Executive function refers to a collection of abilities including categorization and abstraction, systematic memory searching and information retrieval, information, problem solving, self-direction, independence from external environmental contingencies, maintenance of and fluent shifting between information or behavior sets, use of language to guide behavior, and generation of motor behavior." (Arciniegas & Beresford, 2001)

"Executive Functions are those involved in complex cognitions, such as solving novel problems, modifying behavior in light of new information, generating strategies or sequencing complex actions" (Elliott, 2003)

"Executive functions involve processes such as goal selection, planning, monitoring, sequencing, and other supervisory processes which permit the individual to impose organization and structure upon his or her environment" (Foster, Black, Buck, & Bronskill, 1997)

related concepts are "emotional intelligence" ("personality/comportment/empathy" Arciniegas & Beresford, 2001, p. 53) and motivation (and conscious experience of emotion)

while the cognitive skills and processes discussed under this rubric do appear critical for complex thought and behavior, clear definition and conceptualization has not been achieved

one basic question is whether there is one, fundamental ability that underlies all these executive activities; or whether there is a group of similar but distinct processes

This remains a fundamental issue that has not been resolved to many investigators satisfaction:

The frontal lobes are the largest area of the human brain

At least five major frontal-subcortical "circuits" are frequently described by neurologists and neuroscientests (c.f., Arciniegas & Beresford, 2001, pp 55-56):

dorsolateral prefrontal circuit

lateral orbitofrontal circuit

anterior cingulate circuit

motor circuit (voluntary motor function)

frontal eye fields (eye movements)

MacPherson, Phillips, & Sala (2002) argue for a distinction between dorsolateral prefrontal functions (abstract reasoning, response inhibition, working memory--more "cognitive" functions) vs. ventromedial prefrontal functions (processing of emotion, regulation of social behavior) and present data that performance on tasks thought to be dependent on DL functions (WCST, SOPT, double response test) show age related declines in healthy adults whereas tests thought to be dependent on VM functions (Gambling task, Emotion identification task, Faux pas task) do not in young, middle-aged, and older adults

WCST Wisconsin Card Sorting Test -- requires identification of abstract categories used in sorting and ability to shift cognitive set

SOPT Self-Ordered Pointing Test -- ability to arrange, perform, monitor a series of responses

Delayed-Response Task -- requires ability to maintain an internal representation during a brief delay

Gambling Task -- assesses social decision making, aim of task to try and win money by making advantageous card selections

Faux Pas Task -- recognition of socially inappropriate actions in stories

Emotional identification task -- selection of emotion adjective to describe each face in a series of color pictures of faces

much of the literature on executive functions has been driven by measurement tasks, in both neuropsychology and in cognitive psychology; while this has yielded some important findings it may be fundamentally limited beyond a certain point (Daniels, et al., 2004): even lesion and neuroimaging support of for the importance of a cerebral area does not mean these functions are actually localized there, there are no "pure" measures, and without some overaching conceptual picture raw empiricism is unlikely to carry us beyond a certain point

Salthouse (Salthouse, Atkinson, & Berish, 2003) presented data showing that in a sample of healthy older adults, while EF measures had reasonable convergent validity, they had poor discriminate validity: the correlation with gF (fluid intelligence) was very high (greater than .85)

Salthouse doubts that EF contributes little unique variance beyond that of other, "non-executive" measures; e.g., fails to represent a distinct construct

the measures used by Salthouse may have been heavily weighted toward dorsolateral prefrontal functions:

WCST

Letter, Category, and Alternating Fluency Tasks -- generative tasks: coming up with as many members of a class as you can in a fixed interval of time

Connections Test (a form of the Trail Making Test -- alternating between overlearned sequences)

Towers -- a version of the Towers of Hanoi test: moving disks among positions as efficiently as possible (smallest number of moves) while following various rules (e.g., smaller pieces can be placed on top of larger pieces but larger pieces cannot be placed on top of smaller pieces)

Figural fluency test -- generating as many unique designs as possible within a time interval while following certain rules

a summary of sorts:

"Research results are unequivocal in establishing that increased age is often associated with lower performance on many cognitive tests. However, these age-related declines do not necessarily have a large impact on an individual's functioning in daily life for several reasons. First, cognitive tests are designed to evaluate an individual's maximum level of performance, but we are seldom required to perform at our maximum levels. Second, many attributes important for successful functioning are not assessed with currently available cognitive tests. Third, performance is often much better with greater experience, and amount of experience typically increases with advancing age. And fourth, many people can accommodate to cognitive declines to minimize much of the negative consequences in their daily lives." (Salthouse, 2010, p. 156)

"In place of memories, memoranda." B.F. Skinner (Skinner & Vghan, 1983, Enjoy Old Age)

What is meant by crystallized intelligence?

What is an example of crystallized intelligence?

What is an example of fluid intelligence?

What does fluid intelligence refer to?