FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   195   196   197   198   199   200   201   202   203   204   205   206   207   208   209   210   211   212   213   214   215   216   217   218   219  
220   221   222   223   224   225   226   227   228   229   230   231   232   233   234   235   236   237   238   239   240   241   242   243   244   >>   >|  
gy_, 2nd edition, 1920. Another full treatment is that of Titchener, in his _Textbook of Psychology_, 1909, pp. 265-302. On the topic of distraction, see John J. B. Morgan's _Overcoming of Distraction and Other Resistances_, 1916. {271} CHAPTER XII INTELLIGENCE HOW INTELLIGENCE IS MEASURED, WHAT IT CONSISTS IN AND EVIDENCE OF ITS BEING LARGELY A MATTER OF HEREDITY Before leaving the general topic of native traits and passing to the process of learning or acquiring traits, we need to complete our picture of the native mental constitution by adding intelligence to reflex action, instinct, emotion, feeling, sensation and attention. Man is an intelligent animal by nature. The fact that he is the most intelligent of animals is due to his native constitution, as the fact that, among the lower animals, some species are more intelligent than others is due to the native constitution of each species. A rat has more intelligence than a frog, a dog than a rat, a monkey than a dog, and a man than a monkey, because of their native constitutions as members of their respective species. But the different individuals belonging to the same species are not all equal in intelligence, any more than in size or strength or vitality. Some dogs are more intelligent than others, and the same is notably true of men. Now, are these differences between members of the same species due to heredity or environment? This question we can better approach after considering the methods by which psychologists undertake to measure intelligence; and an analysis of these methods may also serve to indicate what is included under the term "intelligence". {272} Intelligence Tests Not far from the year 1900 the school authorities of the city of Paris, desiring to know whether the backwardness of many children in school resulted from inattention, mischievousness and similar difficulties of a moral nature, or from genuine inability to learn, put the problem into the hands of Alfred Binet, a leading psychologist of the day; and within a few years thereafter he and a collaborator brought out the now famous Binet-Simon tests for intelligence. In devising these tests, Binet's plan was to leave school knowledge to one side, and look for information and skill picked up by the child from his elders and playmates in the ordinary experience of life. Further, Binet wisely decided not to seek for any _single_ test for so broad a matter as intelligen
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   195   196   197   198   199   200   201   202   203   204   205   206   207   208   209   210   211   212   213   214   215   216   217   218   219  
220   221   222   223   224   225   226   227   228   229   230   231   232   233   234   235   236   237   238   239   240   241   242   243   244   >>   >|  



Top keywords:

intelligence

 
native
 

species

 

intelligent

 

school

 

constitution

 

monkey

 

animals

 
nature
 
traits

INTELLIGENCE

 

members

 
methods
 

measure

 

undertake

 
psychologists
 

approach

 

desiring

 

analysis

 
authorities

Intelligence

 

included

 
backwardness
 

inability

 

information

 

picked

 

devising

 

knowledge

 
elders
 
playmates

single

 

intelligen

 

matter

 

decided

 

experience

 

ordinary

 

Further

 

wisely

 

question

 

genuine


problem

 

difficulties

 

resulted

 
children
 

inattention

 

mischievousness

 
similar
 
Alfred
 

brought

 

collaborator