An intelligence quotient (IQ) is a total score derived from a set of standardized tests or subtests designed to assess human intelligence. The abbreviation "IQ" was coined by the psychologist William Stern for the German term Intelligenzquotient, his term for a scoring method for intelligence tests at University of Breslau he advocated in a 1912 book.
Alfred Binet, born Alfredo Binetti, was a French psychologist who invented the first practical IQ test, the Binet–Simon test. In 1905, the French Ministry of Education asked psychologist Alfred Binet to devise a method that would determine which students did not learn effectively from regular classroom instruction so they could be given remedial work. Along with his collaborator Théodore Simon, Binet published revisions of his test in 1908 and 1911, the last of which appeared just before his death.
Psychological testing is the administration of psychological tests. Psychological tests are administered by trained evaluators. A person's responses are evaluated according to carefully prescribed guidelines. Scores are thought to reflect individual differences in the construct the test purports to measure.The science behind psychological testing is psychometrics.
The Stanford–Binet Intelligence Scales is an individually administered intelligence test that was revised from the original Binet–Simon Scale by Lewis Terman, a psychologist at Stanford University. The Stanford–Binet Intelligence Scale is now in its fifth edition (SB5) and was released in 2003. It is a cognitive ability and intelligence test that is used to diagnose developmental or intellectual deficiencies in young children. The test measures five weighted factors and consists of both verbal and nonverbal subtests. The five factors being tested are knowledge, quantitative reasoning, visual-spatial processing, working memory, and fluid reasoning.
The year 1905 in science and technology involved some significant events, particularly in physics, listed below.
Louis Leon Thurstone was a U.S. pioneer in the fields of psychometrics and psychophysics. He conceived the approach to measurement known as the law of comparative judgment, and is well known for his contributions to factor analysis. A Review of General Psychology survey, published in 2002, ranked Thurstone as the 88th most cited psychologist of the 20th century, tied with John Garcia, James J. Gibson, David Rumelhart, Margaret Floy Washburn, and Robert S. Woodworth.
David Wechsler was a Romanian-American psychologist. He developed well-known intelligence scales, such as the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS) and the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children (WISC). A Review of General Psychology survey, published in 2002, ranked Wechsler as the 51st most cited psychologist of the 20th century.
Intelligence has been defined in many ways: the capacity for logic, understanding, self-awareness, learning, emotional knowledge, reasoning, planning, creativity, critical thinking, and problem-solving. More generally, it can be described as the ability to perceive or infer information, and to retain it as knowledge to be applied towards adaptive behaviors within an environment or context.
Today, psychology is defined as "the scientific study of behavior and mental processes." Philosophical interest in the human mind and behavior dates back to the ancient civilizations of Egypt, Persia, Greece, China, and India.
Lewis Madison Terman was an American psychologist and author. He was noted as a pioneer in educational psychology in the early 20th century at the Stanford Graduate School of Education. He is best known for his revision of the Stanford–Binet Intelligence Scales and for initiating the longitudinal study of children with high IQs called the Genetic Studies of Genius. He was a prominent eugenicist and was a member of the Human Betterment Foundation. He also served as president of the American Psychological Association. A Review of General Psychology survey, published in 2002, ranked Terman as the 72nd most cited psychologist of the 20th century, in a tie with G. Stanley Hall.
Pierre Marie Félix Janet was a pioneering French psychologist, physician, philosopher, and psychotherapist in the field of dissociation and traumatic memory.
Samuel Calmin Kohs was an American psychologist who spent his career in clinical and educational psychology. He was awarded a B.A. degree at City College of New York, an M.A. at Clark University. He developed for his doctoral dissertation in 1919 at Stanford University a set of small variously colored blocks that are used to form test patterns in psychodiagnostic examination.
Mental age is a concept related to intelligence. It looks at how a specific individual, at a specific age, performs intellectually, compared to average intellectual performance for that individual's actual chronological age. The intellectual performance is based on performance in tests and live assessments by a psychologist. The score achieved by the individual is compared to the median average scores at various ages, and the mental age is derived such that the individual's score equates to the average score at age x.
IQ classification is the practice by IQ test publishers of labeling IQ score ranges with category names such as "superior" or "average".
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to human intelligence:
Harriet Babcock (1877–1952) was an American psychologist who specialized in abnormal psychology research in addition to developing measures and theories of intelligence. After her doctoral work at Columbia University, she worked primarily in the Department of Psychology at New York University, and acted as a consultant to the New York City Guidance Bureau. Babcock developed multiple intelligence tests evaluating mental deterioration and efficiency.
Jadwiga Abramson was a child psychologist born and raised in Poland, and educated in France.
Howard Andrew Knox was an American medical doctor specializing in heart and rheumatic diseases. Serving as an assistant surgeon at Ellis Island during the early 1900s, he made major contributions to intelligence testing through the methods he devised to screen immigrants for mental deficiencies... However, at the time of his death, he was most well known as a veteran, a general physician, and a contributing member of his community, and his contributions to intelligence testing had become largely forgotten. Although his work in this area has become largely overlooked, his contributions have served as an important link between early intelligence research and present day intelligence testing.
Elizabeth Kite was an American historian specializing in Franco-American history.
