The Winding Path

This perspective allows us to see how the thinking aspects of our mind develop, as opposed to feelings, or personality. The latter aspects are there of course, and are important, but we won’t be focusing on them.

What is Intelligence?

One of the first topics that comes up when discussing cognition is intelligence. What exactly is it? Well, I’m not going to explain; those more knowledgeable than I are still arguing about it and have been for a long time. But we must have some idea of what it is if we want to learn how it develops, and if we want to learn how it develops we need to evaluate it. It has often been said that “intelligence is what intelligence tests measure,” which hints at just how varied the definitions of intelligence can be. Design a test that measures skill in maths and logic, or a different test which measures general knowledge, or yet another which measures the ability to use language. All of those could be called intelligence tests, and if you’ve ever taken an IQ test you’ll have answered questions of those types.

Yet even Alfred Binet who, along with Theodore Simon, developed tests on which modern IQ tests are based, said that the tests were not designed to measure intelligence. They devised those tests to identify school children who would need special assistance. The tests were modified by others later and there are now standardised IQ tests which are used all over the world. But if they don’t truly measure intelligence, at least not while taking into account all reasonable definitions of intelligence, are they of any use? Well, yes. They have been shown to be able to predict how well people will perform in environments which require use of the skills IQ tests measure. That includes school and university performance, or jobs which require typically academic skill sets. For example there’s really not much point giving a plumber an IQ test to see how he’d perform on the job. But if that plumber decides he wants to become a theoretical physicist, an IQ test would help him decide how hard he’d have to work to make that happen.

For more you can check out this BBC article about intelligence.

Jean Piaget

So what other methods can we use to measure intelligence? Enter Jean Piaget, whom I mentioned a couple of months ago when I talked about embracing uncertainty. He developed a theory of cognitive development based upon observations that during different periods of a child’s life, different elements of adaptation dominated (see my previous post on that topic for more info). Like many theorists who came before him, his theory divided development into stages, which I’ll describe before talking about how they can be used to evaluate intelligence. The theory suggests that children are very actively involved in their own development, and that each stage is a pre-requisite for the following ones.

Stages of Cognitive Development

1. The Sensorimotor Stage
   Senses and movement. That’s how we explore the world at this stage, from birth to about two years old. We start by doing something simple and reflexive, like sucking, then because we like it we do it again. And again. Gradually that circular interaction extends to things which do something in response to our actions. Like a squishy toy that squeaks. Finally we vary our interactions with those things instead of repeating one action all the time. Such as throwing blocks all around the room.

   All of this leads to the formation of mental representations of things in the environment. Through most of this stage those representations are not permanent, meaning that if something is hidden from your view, you no longer think about it. This leads to some exciting games of peek-a-boo. Oh don’t deny it, you enjoy it too, though probably not as much as the baby does.

2. The Preoperational Stage
   Mental representations let us use symbols, including language. Things, or just words, can be used to represent something else. We also learn about past and future. However our perspective is very much centred on ourselves. We expect everyone to see things from our point of view, not ideologically, but literally! If you crouch behind the couch to play with your cat, if the couch blocks your parent’s view you still expect them to be able to see what you’re doing.

   You’ll also only be able to focus on one aspect of something at a time. The most common example of this is when liquid from a short, fat glass is poured into a tall, skinny glass. At this stage you will say that there is more liquid in the tall, skinny glass because the most obvious change is the height, and the liquid in the tall glass is higher, so there’s obviously more. Duh!

   This stage lasts from about two to seven years of age.

3. The Concrete Operations Stage
   From about seven to eleven we enter the concrete operations stage. The key to this stage is the idea of conservation. This is the ability to recognise that changes in the appearance of an object don’t actually change its quantity. This means knowing the liquid in the previous stage is still the same volume. Other examples include recognising that one large pile of coins, when split into two or more piles, still contains the same total number of coins.

   So we can see that operations means the ability to manipulate symbols logically. One stack represents a whole, and that whole is still present even when the stack is split into mini-stacks.

4. The Formal Operations Stage
   Finally, from around 12, we might develop the ability to manipulate abstract symbols. In other words, thinking hypothetically. This is also the stage at which deductive reasoning becomes possible. You can encounter a problem, come up with many possible solutions, then using logic and observation, determine which are invalid until you reach a satisfactory conclusion.

   Not everyone reaches this stage, and most of those who do reach it don’t use this type of thinking very often.

Evaluation Cognitive Development

Hopefully you can now see how these stages can be used to find out how developed a person’s thinking abilities are. Rather than measuring intelligence and assigning a score, we can present someone with various problems and observe how he handles them. Through questioning a tester could find out the types of thinking he does and doesn’t use, allowing her to evaluate his cognitive development.

However this is quite different to measuring intelligence on a scale. It’s a more qualitative method which can determine general capability, and can predict how well you might cope with other tasks, but like IQ tests it only evaluates intelligence in a restricted sense.

Finally there have been a few criticisms of Piaget’s theory. It underestimates the ability of infants to keep out-of-sight objects in mind. Experiments involving infants watching something unexpected happen seem to show that they are still paying attention. For example, an infant watches a train running along some tracks. Then a block is placed across the tracks, which should stop the train. A board is placed in front of the block so that the infant can’t see the block, but can still see the tracks before and after. The block is removed, but without the infant being able to see, so if we were in the infant’s place, we would think the block was still there. Then the train runs along the tracks again and the infant’s reaction is observed when it sees that the train doesn’t hit the block. Reactions of surprise, even in young infants, seems to show that the infant still thinks the block is there, even though he can’t see it.

Another criticism applies to the concept of conservation. The criticism is that children may be capable of operational thinking even at the preoperational stage, but lack of understanding of certain words may confuse them. For example a child might think there’s “more” liquid in a tall glass because they think you’re asking about height, rather than volume.

Beyond Piaget

Given the criticisms, and not to mention the constant progress towards greater understanding, other theories have been proposed which account for more than Piaget did. Though that is understandable since he was mainly dealing with children when he came up with his theories.

Michael Commons and his colleagues have developed a model of hierarchical complexity (page 1). It’s a little easier to digest via wikipedia. Noteworthy are the stages beyond formal thinking.

Pascual-Leone suggested an information-processing approach, in which problem solving depends on mental power/capacity, and that mental power increases with age as a result of neurological development. Ability to solve problems is also related to the number and type of mental representations a person has of ways of interacting with concrete and abstract concepts.

Onwards

As with most abstract concepts, the argument over the definition of intelligence will probably continue long after we’re all gone. But what we learn by studying it will stick around, and what our understanding allows us to do is useful even right now.

Next up is the socio-cultural perspective. While the social-emotional perspective touched on the influence of society on our development, it did so by considering immediate social interaction such as with parents. The socio-cultural perspective takes a wider view of the influence of the community and beyond.

Related entries:

• Introduction to Human Development: Psychoanalytic/Psychosocial Perspective
• Introduction to Human Development: Biological Perspective
• Introduction to Human Development: Social-Emotional Perspective - Part 1
• Introduction to Human Development: Social-Emotional Perspective - Part 2
• If you want to learn, embrace uncertainty
• Introduction to Human Development: Socio-cultural Perspective

If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!

This entry was posted on Thursday, October 25th, 2007 at 7:17 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.