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Preface

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 November 2009

By
Robert J. Sternberg  and
Jean E. Pretz
Edited by
Robert J. Sternberg  and
Jean E. Pretz
Robert J. Sternberg
Affiliation:
Professor of Psychology and Education, Yale; Director of the PACE Center, Yale
Jean E. Pretz
Affiliation:
Assistant Professor of Psychology, Illinois Wesleyan University in Bloomington, Illinois
Robert J. Sternberg
Affiliation:
Yale University, Connecticut
Jean E. Pretz
Affiliation:
Yale University, Connecticut
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Summary

COGNITION AND INTELLIGENCE

How did the study of cognition and intelligence get started? Although some psychologists in the nineteenth century were interested in cognitive processing (e.g., Donders, 1868/1869), the connection between information processing and intelligence seems first to have been explicitly drawn by Charles Spearman (1923), the same individual known for initiating serious psychometric theorizing about intelligence with his theory of the general factor of intelligence (Spearman, 1927).

Spearman (1923) proposed what he believed to be three fundamental qualitative principles of cognition. The first, apprehension of experience, is what today might be called the encoding of stimuli (see Sternberg, 1977). It involves perceiving the stimuli and their properties. The second principle, eduction of relations, is what today might be labeled inference. It is the inferring of a relation between two or more concepts. The third principle, eduction of correlates, is what today might be called application. It is the application of an inferred rule to a new situation.

Spearman was not the only early psychologist interested in the relationship between cognition and intelligence. Thorndike et al. (1926) proposed a quite similar theory based on Thorndike's theory of learning. According to this theory, learned connections are what underlie individual differences in intelligence. Some early researchers tried to integrate cognition and biology in studying intelligence. For example, the Russian psychologist Alexander Luria (1973, 1980) believed that the brain is a highly differentiated system whose parts are responsible for different aspects of a unified whole.

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Cognition and Intelligence
Identifying the Mechanisms of the Mind
 , pp. vii - xii
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2004

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References

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  • Preface
    • By Robert J. Sternberg, Professor of Psychology and Education, Yale; Director of the PACE Center, Yale, Jean E. Pretz, Assistant Professor of Psychology, Illinois Wesleyan University in Bloomington, Illinois
  • Edited by Robert J. Sternberg, Yale University, Connecticut, Jean E. Pretz, Yale University, Connecticut
  • Book: Cognition and Intelligence
  • Online publication: 23 November 2009
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511607073.001
Available formats
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  • Preface
    • By Robert J. Sternberg, Professor of Psychology and Education, Yale; Director of the PACE Center, Yale, Jean E. Pretz, Assistant Professor of Psychology, Illinois Wesleyan University in Bloomington, Illinois
  • Edited by Robert J. Sternberg, Yale University, Connecticut, Jean E. Pretz, Yale University, Connecticut
  • Book: Cognition and Intelligence
  • Online publication: 23 November 2009
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511607073.001
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Preface
    • By Robert J. Sternberg, Professor of Psychology and Education, Yale; Director of the PACE Center, Yale, Jean E. Pretz, Assistant Professor of Psychology, Illinois Wesleyan University in Bloomington, Illinois
  • Edited by Robert J. Sternberg, Yale University, Connecticut, Jean E. Pretz, Yale University, Connecticut
  • Book: Cognition and Intelligence
  • Online publication: 23 November 2009
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511607073.001
Available formats
×