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g as Bridge Model

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Abstract

Psychometric g—a statistical factor capturing intercorrelations between scores on different IQ tests—is of theoretical interest despite being a low-fidelity model of both folk psychological intelligence and its cognitive/neural underpinnings. Psychometric g idealizes away from those aspects of cognitive/neural mechanisms that are not explanatory of the relevant variety of folk psychological intelligence, and it idealizes away from those varieties of folk psychological intelligence that are not generated by the relevant cognitive/neural substrate. In this manner, g constitutes a high-fidelity bridge model of the relationship between its two targets and, thereby, helps demystify the relationship between folk and scientific psychology.

Type
Cognitive Sciences
Copyright
Copyright 2021 by the Philosophy of Science Association. All rights reserved.

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Footnotes

Thanks to Dan Dennett, Nabeel Hamid, Bill Lee, Angela Potochnik, Jordan Rodu, Sharon Ryan, and Robert Sternberg for comments and conversation; to Sam Curtis, Daniel Hoek, Karen Kovaka, Deborah Mayo, Kelly Trogdon, and other members of my audience at Virginia Tech in October 2020 for a stimulating Q&A; and to two anonymous reviewers for invitations to say more.

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