The Measurement of Intelligence Part 42

"One hears many judgments about life. Some say it is good, while others say it is bad. But it is really neither of the extremes.

Life is mediocre. We do not have as much good as we desire, nor do we have as much misfortune as others want us to have.

Nevertheless, we have enough good to keep life from being unjust."

"Some people have different views of life from others. Some say it is bad, others say it is good. It is better to cla.s.s life as mediocre, as it is never as good as we wish it, and on the other hand, it might be worse."

"Some people think differently of life. Some think it good, some bad, others mediocre, which is nearest correct. It brings unhappiness to us, but not as much as our enemies want us to have."

_Unsatisfactory._ "Some say life is good, some say it is mediocre. Even though some say it is mediocre they say it is right."

"There are two sides of life. Some say it is good while others say it is bad. To some, life is happy and they get all they can out of life. For others life is not happy and therefore they fail to get all there is in life."

"One hears many different judgments of life. Some call it good, some call it bad. It brings unhappiness and it does not have enough pleasure. It should be better distributed."

"There are different opinions of the value of life. Some say it is good and some say it is bad. Some say it is mediocrity. Some think it brings happiness while others do not."

"Nowadays there is much said about the value of life. Some say it is good, while others say it is bad. A person should not have an ill feeling toward the value of life, and he should not be unjust to any one. Honesty is the best policy. People who are unjust are more likely to be injured by their enemies." (Note invention.)

REMARKS. Contrary to what the subject is led to expect, the test is less a test of memory than of ability to comprehend the drift of an abstract pa.s.sage. A subject who fully grasps the meaning of the selection as it is read is not likely to fail because of poor memory. Mere verbal memory improves but little after the age of 14 or 15 years, as is shown by the fact that our adults do little better than eighth-grade children in repeating sentences of twenty-eight syllables. On the other hand, adult intelligence is vastly superior in the comprehension and retention of a logically presented group of abstract ideas.

There is nothing in which stupid persons cut a poorer figure than in grappling with the abstract. Their thinking clings tenaciously to the concrete; their concepts are vague or inaccurate; the interrelations among their concepts are scanty in the extreme; and such poor mental stores as they have are little available for ready use.

A few critics have objected to the use of tests demanding abstract thinking, on the ground that abstract thought is a very special aspect of intelligence and that facility in it depends almost entirely on occupational habits and the accidents of education. Some have even gone so far as to say that we are not justified, on the basis of any number of such tests, in p.r.o.nouncing a subject backward or defective. It is supposed that a subject who has no capacity in the use of abstract ideas may nevertheless have excellent intelligence "along other lines." In such cases, it is said, we should not penalize the subject for his failures in handling abstractions, but subst.i.tute, instead, tests requiring motor coordination and the manipulation of things, tests in which the supposedly dull child often succeeds fairly well.

From the psychological point of view, such a proposal is navely unpsychological. It is in the very essence of the higher thought processes to be conceptual and abstract. What the above proposal amounts to is, that if the subject is not capable of the more complex and strictly human type of thinking, we should ignore this fact and estimate his intelligence entirely on the ability he displays to carry on mental operations of a more simple and primitive kind. This would be like asking the physician to ignore the diseased parts of his patient's body and to base his diagnosis on an examination of the organs which are sound!

The present test throws light in an interesting way on the integrity of the critical faculty. Some subjects are unwilling to extend the report in the least beyond what they know to be approximately correct, while others with defective powers of auto-criticism manufacture a report which draws heavily on the imagination, perhaps continuing in garrulous fas.h.i.+on as long as they can think of anything having the remotest connection with any thought in the selection. We have included, for each selection, one ill.u.s.tration of this type in the sample failures given above.

The worst fault of the test is its susceptibility to the influence of schooling. Our uneducated adults of even "superior adult" intelligence often fail, while about two thirds of high-school pupils succeed. The unschooled adults have a marked tendency either to give a summary which is inadequate because of its extreme brevity, or else to give a criticism of the thought which the pa.s.sage contains.

This test first appeared in Binet's 1911 revision, in the adult group.

Binet used only selection (b), and in a slightly more difficult form than we have given above. G.o.ddard gives the test like Binet and retains it in the adult group. Kuhlmann locates it in year XV, using only selection (a). On the basis of over 300 tests of adults we find the test too difficult for the "average adult" level, even on the basis of only one success in two trials and when scored on the rather liberal standard above set forth.

SUPERIOR ADULT, 5: REPEATING SEVEN DIGITS REVERSED

PROCEDURE and SCORING, the same as in previous tests of this kind. The series are: 4-1-6-2-5-9-3; 3-8-2-6-4-7-5; and 9-4-5-2-8-3-7.

We have collected fewer data on this test than on any of the others, as it was added later to the test series. As far as we have used it we have found few "average adults" who pa.s.s, while about half the "superior adults" do so.

SUPERIOR ADULT, 6: INGENUITY TEST

PROCEDURE. Problem _a_ is stated as follows:--

_A mother sent her boy to the river and told him to bring back exactly 7 pints of water. She gave him a 3-pint vessel and a 5-pint vessel. Show me how the boy can measure out exactly 7 pints of water, using nothing but these two vessels and not guessing at the amount. You should begin by filling the 5-pint vessel first. Remember, you have a 3-pint vessel and a 5-pint vessel and you must bring back exactly 7 pints._

The problem is given orally, but may be repeated if necessary.

The subject is not allowed pencil or paper and is requested to give his solution orally as he works it out. It is then possible to make a complete record of the method employed.

The subject is likely to resort to some such method as to "fill the 3-pint vessel two thirds full," or, "I would mark the inside of the 5-pint vessel so as to show where 4 pints come to," etc. We inform the subject that such a method is not allowable; that this would be guessing, since he could not be sure when the 3-pint vessel was two thirds full (or whether he had marked off his 5-pint vessel accurately).

Tell him he must _measure_ out the water without any guesswork. Explain also, that it is a fair problem, not a "catch."

Say nothing about pouring from one vessel to another, but if the subject asks whether this is permissible the answer is "yes."

The time limit for each problem is 5 minutes. If the subject fails on the first problem, we explain the solution in full and then proceed to the next.

The second problem is like the first, except that a 5-pint vessel and a 7-pint vessel are given, to get 8 pints, the subject being told to begin by filling the 5-pint vessel.

In the third problem 4 and 9 are given, to get 7, the instruction being to "begin by filling the 4-pint vessel."

Note that in each problem we instruct the subject how to begin. This is necessary in order to secure uniformity of conditions. It is possible to solve all of the problems by beginning with either of the two vessels, but the solution is made very much more difficult if we begin in the direction opposite from that recommended.

Give no further aid. It is necessary to refrain from comment of every kind.

SCORING. _Two of the three_ problems must be solved correctly within the 5 minutes allotted to each.

REMARKS. We have called this a test of ingenuity. The subject who is given the problem finds himself involved in a difficulty from which he must extricate himself. Means must be found to overcome an obstacle.

This requires practical judgement and a certain amount of inventive ingenuity. Various possibilities must be explored and either accepted for trial or rejected. If the amount of invention called for seems to the reader inconsiderable, let it be remembered that the important inventions of history have not as a rule had a Minerva birth, but instead have developed by successive stages, each involving but a small step in advance.

It is unnecessary to emphasize at length the function of invention in the higher thought processes. In one form or another it is present in all intellectual activity; in the creation and use of language, in art, in social adjustments, in religion, and in philosophy, as truly as in the domains of science and practical affairs. Certainly this is true if we accept Mason's broad definition of invention as including "every change in human activity made designedly and systematically."[78] From the psychological point of view, perhaps, Mason is justified in looking upon the great inventor as "an epitome of the genius of the world." To develop a Krag-Joergensen from a bow and arrow, a "velvet-tipped"

lucifer match from the primitive fire-stick, or a modern piano from the first crude, stringed, musical instrument has involved much the same intellectual processes as have been operative in transforming fetis.h.i.+sm and magic into religion and philosophy, or scattered fragments of knowledge into science.

[78] Otis T. Mason: _The Origins of Inventions_. (London, 1902.)

Psychologically, invention depends upon the constructive imagination; that is, upon the ability to abstract from what is immediately present to the senses and to picture new situations with their possibilities and consequences. Images are united in order to form new combinations.

As we have several times emphasized, the decisive intellectual differences among human beings are not greatly dependent upon mere sense discrimination or native retentiveness. Far more important than the raw ma.s.s of sense data is the correct shooting together of the sense elements in memory and imagination. This is but another name for invention. It is the synthetic, or apperceptive, activity of the mind that gives the "seven-league boots" to genius. It is, however, a kind of ability which is possessed by all minds to a greater or less degree. Any test has its value which gives a clue, as this test does, to the subject's ability in this direction.

The test was devised by the writer and used in 1905 in a study of the intellectual processes of bright and dull boys, but it was not at that time standardized. It has been found to belong at a much higher mental level than was at first supposed. Only an insignificant number pa.s.s the test below the mental age of 14 years, and about two thirds of "average adults" fail. Of our "superior adults" somewhat more than 75 per cent succeed. Formal education influences the test little or not at all, the unschooled business men making a somewhat better showing than the high-school students.

SELECTED REFERENCES

The following cla.s.sified lists include only the most important references under each topic. So many investigations have been made with the Binet-Simon tests in the last few years, and so many articles have been written in evaluation of the method, that a complete bibliography of the subject would require thirty or forty pages. Those who desire to make a more thorough study of the literature are referred to the admirable annotated bibliography compiled by Samuel C. Kohs, and published by Warwick & York, Baltimore. Kohs's Bibliography contains 254 references, and is complete to January 1, 1914.

BINET-SIMON TESTS OF NORMAL CHILDREN

1. Binet, A., _et_ Simon, Th. "Le developpement de l'intelligence chez les enfants"; in _Annee psychologique_ (1908), vol. 14, pp. 1-94.

Exposition of the original 1908 scale with results.

2. Binet, A. "Nouvelles recherches sur la mesure du niveau intellectuel chez les enfants d'ecole"; in _Annee psychologique_ (1911), vol. 17, pp. 145-201.