Intelligence Test Are Not Biased Peer Reviewed Articles

By Emily Young

In the early on 1900s, psychologist Charles Spearman noticed that children who did well in one subject in school were likely to do well in other subjects as well, and those who did poorly in one subject were likely to do poorly across all subjects. He ended that in that location is a factor, chiliad, which correlates with testing functioning (Spearman 1904). The m factor is defined as the measure of the variance of testing performance between individuals and is sometimes chosen "general intelligence".

After on, psychologist Raymond Cattell determined that there are two subsets of k, chosen fluid intelligence (denoted Gf) and crystallized intelligence (denoted Gc). Fluid intelligence is defined as abstract reasoning or logic; information technology is an individual's power to solve a novel problem or puzzle. Crystalized intelligence is more knowledge based, and is defined every bit the ability to use one'due south learned skills, knowledge, and experience (Cattell 1987). It is of import to annotation that while crystallized intelligence relies on cognition, it is non a measure of knowledge just rather a measure of the power to use one's noesis.

The first standardized intelligence test was created in 1905 past French Psychologist Albert Binet, every bit a method to screen for mental retardation in French schoolboys. The exam measured intelligence past comparing an individual'due south score to the average score of children his ain age (Binet 1905). The examination was later revised by Lewis Terman of Stanford University and named the Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scales. The Stanford-Binet is now in its 5th edition and includes five sections: fluid reasoning, cognition, quantitative reasoning, visual-spatial processing, and working memory.

Since the Stanford-Binet, many other standardized intelligence scales take been adult. One of the most pop modern intelligence tests is the Raven's Progressive Matrices (RPM) exam (Raven, 2003). The test gives individuals a serial of boxes, each containing shapes that change from box to box, and a box that is empty. The test taker must recognize the pattern that is shown and correctly identify the shape that should go in the empty box from a collection of options. Unlike the Stanford-Binet, RPM is entirely visual; the test taker does non accept to reply written questions, meaning the measured IQ is not dependent on reading comprehension. This allows for ameliorate testing that eliminates variables such as native language, age, and possible reading inability.

A general case of the questions on the Raven'south Progessive Matrices test.

So what exactly are these IQ tests measuring? The Stanford-Binet measures g through tasks that measure both Gf and Gc. Because RPM is entirely non-exact and puzzle based, information technology nigh exclusively measures Gf.

Which brings us to the next question; are these tests effectively measuring grand?

Since their creation, modern Western intelligence testing has shown a divergence in average intelligence, varying from group to group; whites score higher than blacks, the rich score college than the poor. In some tests, women and men score differently from task to task. Are these differences due to heritable differences in intelligence between race, gender, and socioeconomic status? Or are surround, schooling, and stigma to arraign? Or, are the tests themselves flawed?

While intelligence tests claim to be culture-fair, none of the tests created so far are i hundred percent unbiased. Every bit Serpell (1979) found, when asked to reproduce figures from using wire, pencil and paper, and clay, Zambian children performed meliorate in the wire task, while English children performed better in the pencil and paper task. Each group did better in the medium to which they were more accustomed. Pencil and paper IQ tests may be intrinsically biased towards Western civilization.

Furthermore, while African-Americans accept historically scored lower than white Americans on intelligence testing, this gap as been lessening in contempo years (Dickens and Flynn 2006). This could be the result of one of two things; the outset possibility is that average intelligence is increasing in the blackness community at a higher charge per unit than in the white community (measured intelligence has been steadily increasing beyond all groups due to the Flynn upshot). Withal, it seems more likely that post-segregation, white and black cultures take been merging, and schools have been integrated, pregnant that white and black children have a better take a chance of receiving the same instruction. If this is the case, IQ tests are either measuring knowledge more than the examination creators think they do, or the tests are extremely culturally biased, but this bias is lessening due to assimilation of white and black civilization in America.

Not but are intelligence tests culturally biased, simply they too seem to be biased in favor of neurotypical individuals. For case, while typically developing individuals generally perform similarly on RPM and the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS), individuals with Autism typically score higher on RPM than on WAIS (Bolte et al. 2009, Mottron 2004). This is because while RPM is a visual task, WAIS is almost entirely verbal. Individuals with autism seem to use visual strategies to solve tasks and therefore have difficulty on tasks that can simply be solved verbally (Kunda and Goel 2010). While this phenomenon is typically seen every bit a cognitive deficit, it is of import to note that autistic individuals outperform neurotypical individuals on some visual tasks.

Therefore, by but measuring one specific office of intelligence, some IQ tests portray autistic individuals every bit having a cognitive deficit. What if some disorders, such as autism, are non actually disorders, but simply a fashion of thinking that differs from what is considered "normal"?

For example, Dr. Temple Grandin, an autistic adult female with a PhD in Animate being Sciences, uses her incredible visual working retention to blueprint cattle equipment that is much more humane and far less feet-inducing than previous models. Grandin says her autism allows her to see the world in pictures; her inner thoughts are entirely devoid of language, she merely thinks in extremely detailed movies. She says her visual memory and sensitivity to details has allowed her to be so good at designing things, considering details that neurotypical people gloss over are extremely important to her and end upwards making a huge difference in the efficiency of the concluding product.

Temple Grandin utilized her incredible working memory to design humane cattle-holding equipment for the agriculture industry.

Autism may not be the only example of a disorder being mischaracterized. Studies accept shown that children with ADHD on average have lower IQs than neurotypical children (Kuntsi, 2003). All the same, in his TEDx talk, Stephen Tonti, a senior at Carnegie Mellon, discusses why he believes ADHD is not a disorder, simply but a difference in cognition. Tonti argues that by viewing ADHD as a disorder implies that information technology needs to be fixed. He states that his ADHD makes him better at some tasks than neurotypical individuals, and that the world needs a diverseness of cognition in lodge to run smoothly.

Therefore, while IQ tests are intended to mensurate intelligence, they often only measure one blazon of intelligence, and are therefore biased against certain groups of people. By trying to fit cognition into a box, IQ testing disvalues cognitive multifariousness. This may be causing negative impacts. By telling an individual that their intelligence is low when in fact information technology is simply dissimilar, we could non simply exist property people back, but we might also exist depriving the globe of a diverse grouping of thinkers that could solve issues from a dissimilar perspective.

Fifty-fifty if electric current IQ tests are not fair across all groups, the future of intelligence testing may exist brighter; as discussed previously on the Neuroethics Blog, fMRI intelligence testing could eliminate biases in intelligence testing. Past observing testers' thought processes in activeness, researchers would be able to see which brain pathways a subject area recruits to solve a test, and whether he or she uses a visual or verbal approach to the question, thereby observing fluid and crystal intelligence in activeness.

References

Binet, Alfred. (1905) L'Annee Psychologique, 12,191-244.

Bölte, Southward., Dziobek, I., & Poustka, F. "Cursory report: The level and nature of autistic intelligence revisited". Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders 39 (2009): 678–682.

Cattell, Raymond B., and Raymond B. Cattell. "The Discovery of Fluid and Crystallized General Intelligence." Intelligence: Its Structure, Growth, and Action. Amsterdam: Northward-Holland, 1987. 87-120. Print.

Dickens, William T., and James R. Flynn. "Black Americans Reduce the Racial IQ Gap: Prove from Standardization Samples." Psychological Science 17.10 (2006): 913-20. Spider web.

Kunda, Maithilee, and Ashok Chiliad. Goel. "Thinking in Pictures every bit a Cognitive Account of Autism." Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders 41.9 (2011): 1157-177. Print.

Kuntsi, J., T.C. Eley, A. Taylor, C. Hughes, P. Asherson, A. Caspi, and T.E. Moffitt. "Co-occurrence of ADHD and Low IQ Has Genetic Origins." American Journal of Medical Genetics 124B.i (2004): 41-47. Print.

Mottron, Laurent, Michelle Dawson, Isabelle Soulières, Benedicte Hubert, and Jake Burack. "Enhanced Perceptual Functioning in Autism: An Update, and Viii Principles of Autistic Perception." Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders 36.ane (2006): 27-43. Print.

Raven, J., J. C. Raven, and J. Court. Manual for Raven's Progressive Matrices and Vocabulary Scales, Department I: General Overview. San Antonio: Harcourt Cess, 2003. Impress.

Serpell, Robert. "How Specific Are Perceptual Skills? A Cross-cultural Study of Pattern Reproduction." British Periodical of Psychology 70.3 (1979): 365-80. Impress.

Spearman, Charles Due east. "'Full general Intelligence', Objectively Adamant And Measured." American Periodical of Psychology 15 (1904): 201-93. Spider web.

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Young, E. (2013). Intelligence Testing: Accurate, or Extremely Biased? Retrieved on , from http://www.theneuroethicsblog.com/2013/09/intelligence-testing-authentic-or.html

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