Information Processing and Intelligence: Where We Are and Where We Are Going

doi:10.1017/CBO9780511607073.002

1 - Information Processing and Intelligence: Where We Are and Where We Are Going

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 23 November 2009

Earl Hunt

Edited by

Robert J. Sternberg and

Jean E. Pretz

Show author details

Robert J. Sternberg: Affiliation:
Yale University, Connecticut
Jean E. Pretz: Affiliation:
Yale University, Connecticut

Book contents

Get access

Summary

INTRODUCTION

Intelligence tests are about one hundred years old. If you agree with Boring (1923) that intelligence is what the intelligence tests measure, then the science of intelligence is one hundred years old. I will call this psychometrically defined intelligence. Empirically the study of psychometric intelligence is a booming field, for it has led to a very large literature, impressive technological developments, and coherent relationships among test scores (Carroll, 1993). However, it has a weakness.

A purely psychometric approach to intelligence lets the technology of measurement define the concept, rather than the concept defining an appropriate measurement technology. Along with many others, I prefer a more conceptual, less boring approach. The conceptual definition of intelligence as individual variation in mental competence has a longer history. In the sixteenth century the Spanish philosopher Juan Huarte de San Juan (Huarte, 1575/1991) proposed a multifaceted theory of intelligence that was not too far from today's crystallized–fluid distinction. In the nineteenth century, Galton (1883) used laboratory techniques for measuring individual differences in basic mental processes that are recognizable ancestors of paradigms used in today's laboratories. And for that matter, Binet, the founder of modern testing, was not entirely atheoretic (Sternberg, 1990). All interesting theories of intelligence try to go beyond test scores to connect individual differences with a theory of how the mind works. Developing such a theory is the province of cognitive psychology.

Type: Chapter
Information: Cognition and Intelligence
Identifying the Mechanisms of the Mind
, pp. 1 - 25

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511607073.002 [Opens in a new window]

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Print publication year: 2004

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Book purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Abad, F. J., Colom, R., Juan-Espinosa, M., & Garcia, L. F. (2003). Intelligence differentiation in adult samples. Intelligence, 31(2), 157–166CrossRef Google Scholar

Baddeley, A. D. (1986). Working memory. Oxford: Oxford University Press

Baddeley, A. D. (1992). Working memory. Science, 255, 556–559CrossRef Google Scholar PubMed

Boring, E. G. (1923). Intelligence as the tests test it. New Republic, 35(June 6), 35–37Google Scholar

Brody, N. (2003). Construct validation of the Sternberg Triarchic Abilities Test: Comment and reanalysis. Intelligence, 31(4), 319–330CrossRef Google Scholar

Carpenter, P. A., Just, M. A., & Shell, P. (1990). What one intelligence test measures. A theoretical account of processing in the Raven Progressive Matrix Test. Psychological Review, 97(3), 404–431CrossRef Google Scholar

Carroll, J. B. (1993). Human cognitive abilities. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press

Cattell, R. B. (1971). Abilities: Their structure, growth, and action. Boston: Houghton Mifflin

Cronbach, L. J. (1957). The two disciplines of scientific psychology. American Psychologist, 12, 671–684CrossRef Google Scholar

Daneman, M., & Merikle, P. M. (1996). Working memory and language comprehension: A meta-analysis. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 3(4), 422–433CrossRef Google Scholar PubMed

Deary, I. J., Egan, V., Gibson, G. J., Austin, E. J., Brand, C. R., & Kellaghan, T. (1996). Intelligence and the differentiation hypothesis. Intelligence, 23(2), 105–132CrossRef Google Scholar

Detterman, D. K., & Daniel, M. H. (1989). Correlations of mental tests with each other and with cognitive variables are highest in low IQ groups. Intelligence, 13, 349–360CrossRef Google Scholar

Galton, F. (1883). Inquiry into human faculty and its development. London: MacMillan

Gardner, H. (1983). Frames of mind: The theory of multiple intelligences. New York: Basic Books

Gardner, H., Kornhaber, M. L., & Wake, W. K. (1996). Intelligence: Multiple Perspectives. New York: Harcourt Brace

Garlick, D. (2002). Understanding the nature of the general factor of intelligence: The role of individual differences in neural plasticity as an explanatory mechanism. Psychological Review, 109, 116–136CrossRef Google Scholar PubMed

Goleman, D. (1995). Emotional intelligence. New York: Bantam Books

Gottfredson, L. S. (1997). Why g matters: The complexity of everyday life. Intelligence, 24(1), 79–132CrossRef Google Scholar

Grudnik, J. L., & Kranzler, J. H. (2001). Meta-analysis of the relationship between intelligence and inspection time. Intelligence, 29, 523–535CrossRef Google Scholar

Herrnstein, R. J., & Murray, C. (1994). The Bell Curve: Intelligence and Class Structure in American Life. New York: The Free Press

Hick, W. E. (1952). On the rate of gain of information. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 4, 11–26CrossRef Google Scholar

Horn, J. L. (1985). Remodeling old models of intelligence. In B. B. Wolman (Ed.), Handbook of intelligence. Theories, measurements, and applications (pp. 267–300). New York: Wiley

Horn J. L., & Noll, J. (1994). A system for understanding cognitive capabilities: A theory and the evidence on which it is based. In D. Detterman (Ed.), Current Topics in Human Intelligence: Vol. 4. Theories of Intelligence (pp. 151–204). Norwood, NJ: Ablex

Huarte de San Juan, J. (1575/1991). Examen de ingenios para las ciencias (Edicion Felisa Fresco Otero). Madrid: Espasa-Calpe S.A.

Hunt, E. (1974). Quote the Raven? Nevermore! In L. W. Gregg (Ed.), Knowledge and cognition (pp. 129–157). Potomac, MD: Erlbaum

Hunt, E. (1980). Intelligence as an information processing concept. British Journal of Psychology, 71(4), 449–474CrossRef Google Scholar PubMed

Hunt, E. (1995a). Will we be smart enough? A cognitive analysis of the coming workforce. New York: Russell Sage

Hunt, E. (1995b). The role of intelligence in modern society. American Scientist 83, July-August, 356–368Google Scholar

Hunt, E. (2002). Thoughts on thought. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum

Hunt, E., Frost, N., & Lunneborg, C. E. (1973). Individual differences in cognition: A new approach to intelligence. In G. S. Bower (Ed.), Advances in learning and motivation (Vol. 7, pp. 87–123). New York: Academic PressCrossRef

Hunt, E., Lunneborg, C. E., & Lewis, J. (1975). What does it mean to be high verbal? Cognitive Psychology, 7, 194–227CrossRef Google Scholar

Jensen, A. R. (1982). The chronometry of intelligence. In R. J. Sternberg (Ed.), Advances in the psychology of human intelligence (Vol. 1, pp. 235–310). Hilldale, NJ: Erlbaum

Jensen, A. R. (1987). Individual differences in the Hick paradigm. In P. A. Vernon (Ed.), Speed of information processing and intelligence (pp. 101–176). Norwood, NJ: Ablex

Jensen, A. R. (1998). The g factor: The science of mental ability. Westport, CT: Praeger

Kane, M. J., & Engle, R. W. (2002). The role of prefrontal cortex in working memory capacity, executive attention, and general fluid intelligence: An individual differences perspective. Psychonomic Bulletin and Review, 9(4), 637–671CrossRef Google Scholar

Kyllonen, P. C., & Christal, R. E. (1990). Reasoning ability is (little more than) working memory capacity?!Intelligence, 14, 389–433CrossRef Google Scholar

Kyllonen, P. C., & Stephens, D. L. (1990). Cognitive abilities as determinants of success in acquiring logic skills. Learning and Individual Differences, 2(2), 129–160CrossRef Google Scholar

LeDoux, J. (2002). The synaptic self. How our brains become who we are. New York: Viking

Logie, R. H. (1995). Visuo-spatial working memory. Hove, UK: Erlbaum

Lopez, A., Atran, S., Coley, J. D., Medin, D. L., & Smith, E. E. (1997). The tree of life: Universal and cultural features of folkbiological taxonomies and inductions. Cognitive Psychology, 32(3), 251–295CrossRef Google Scholar

Luce, R. D. (1986). Response times: Their role in inferring elementary mental organization. New York: Oxford University Press

MacDonald, M. C., Just, M. A., & Carpenter, P. A. (1992). Working memory constraints on the processing of syntactic ambiguity. Cognitive Psychology, 24, 56–98CrossRef Google Scholar PubMed

McGill, W. J. (1963). Stochastic latency mechanisms. In R. D. Luce, R. R. Bush, & E. Galanter (Eds.), Handbook of mathematical psychology: Volume I (pp. 309–360). New York: Wiley

Nettlebeck, T. (1987). Inspection time and intelligence. In P. A. Vernon (Ed.), Speed of information processing and intelligence (pp. 295–346). Norwood, NJ: Ablex

Nettlebeck, T. (2001). Correlations between inspection time and psychometric ability: A personal interpretation. Intelligence, 29, 459–474CrossRef Google Scholar

Palmer, J., MacLeod, C. M., Hunt, E., & Davidson, J. (1985). Information processing correlates of reading. Journal of Memory and Language, 24, 59–88CrossRef Google Scholar

Posner, M. I., Boies, S. E., Eichelman, W. H., & Taylor, R. L. (1969). Retention of visual and name codes of single letters. Journal of Experimental Psychological Monographs 79, 1–16CrossRef Google Scholar PubMed

Posner, M. I., & Raichle, M. E. (1994). Images of mind. San Francisco: Freeman

Roberts, R. D., Goff, G. N., Anjoul, F., Kyllonen, P. C., Pallier, G., & Stankov, L. (2000). The Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery (ASVAB): Little more than acculturated learning (Gc)!? Learning and Individual Differences, 12(1), 81–103CrossRef Google Scholar

Schacter, D. L. (1996). Searching for memory: The brain, the mind, and the past. New York: Basic Books

Schmidt, F. L., & Hunter, J. E. (1998). The validity and utility of selection methods in personnel psychology: Practical and theoretical implications of 85 years of research findings. Psychological Bulletin, 124(2), 262–274CrossRef Google Scholar

Schretlen, D., Pearlson, G. D., Anthony, J. C., Aylward, E. H., Augustine, A. M., Davis, A., & Barta, P. (2000). Elucidating the contributions of processing speed, executive ability, and frontal lobe volume to normal age-related differences in fluid intelligence. Journal of the International Neuropsychological Society, 6, 52–61CrossRef Google Scholar PubMed

Sloman, S. A. (1996). The empirical case for two systems of reasoning. Psychological Bulletin, 119(1), 3–22CrossRef Google Scholar

Smith, E. E., & Jonides, J. J. (1997). Working memory: A view from neuroimaging. Cognitive Psychology, 33(1), 5–42CrossRef Google Scholar PubMed

Spearman, C. (1923). The nature of “intelligence” and the principles of cognition. London: Methuen

Sternberg, R. J. (1977). Component processes in analogical reasoning. Psychological Review, 84, 353–378CrossRef Google Scholar

Sternberg, R. J. (1988). The triarchic mind: A new theory of human intelligence. New York: Viking

Sternberg, R. J. (1990). Metaphors of mind. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press

Sternberg, R. J. (1996). Successful intelligence: How practical and creative intelligence determines success in life. New York: Simon & Schuster

Sternberg, R. J. (2003). Issues in the theory and measurement of successful intelligence: A reply to Brody. Intelligence, 31(4), 331–338CrossRef Google Scholar

Sternberg, R. J., Forsythe, G. B., Hedlund, J., Horvath, J. A., Wagner, R. K., Williams, W. M., Snook, S. A., & Grigorenko, E. L. (2000). Practical intelligence in everyday life. New York: Cambridge University Press