Correspondence Between the General Ability to Discriminate Sensory Stimuli and General Intelligence
Abstract
For more than a century the veracity of Spearman’s postulate that there is a nearly perfect correspondence between general intelligence and general sensory discrimination has remained unresolved. Most studies have found significant albeit small correlations. However, this can be used neither to confirm nor dismiss Spearman’s postulate, a major weakness of previous research being that only single discrimination capacities were considered rather than general discrimination. The present study examines Spearman’s hypothesis with a sample of 1,330 5- to 10-year-old children, using structural equation modeling. The results support Spearman’s hypothesis with a strong correlation (r = .78). Results are discussed in terms of the validity of the general sensory discrimination factor. In addition, age-group-specific analyses explored the age differentiation hypothesis.
References
1911). The measurement of mental ability of backward children. British Journal of Psychology, 4, 268–314.
(2001). Sensory discrimination as related to general intelligence. Intelligence, 29, 263–271.
(2005). AMOS (Version 6.0) [Computer software]. Chicago: SPSS, Inc.
(1936). A study of change in mental organization. Archives of Psychology Columbia University, 195, 30.
(1941). An analysis of the mental factors of various age groups from nine to sixty. Genetic Psychology Monographs, 23, 1191–1234.
(2002). Intelligence and information processing during an auditory discrimination task with backward masking: An event-related potential analysis. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 83, 998–1008.
(1911). Nouvelles recherches sur la mesure du niveau intellectuelle chez les enfants d’école [
(New research on the intelligence assessment of school children ]. L’Année Psychologique, 11, 191–244.1905). Méthodes nouvelles pour le diagnostic du niveau intellectuel des anormaux [
(New measuring methods for the intelligence assessment of abnormal children ]. L’Année Psychologique, 11, 191–244.1979). The ecology of human development: Experiments by nature and design. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
(1998). The ecology of developmental processes. In , Handbook of child psychology: Vol. 1. Theoretical models of human development (5th ed., pp. 535–584). New York: Wiley.
(1954). The differentiation of intellectual abilities. British Journal of Educational Psychology, 24, 76–90.
(2004). Testing for multigroup invariance using AMOS graphics: A road less traveled. Structural Equation Modeling, 11, 272–300.
(1914–1915). Factor in the mental processes of school children. British Journal of Psychology, 7, 453–490.
(1978). The scientific use of factor analysis in behavioral and life sciences. New York: Cambridge University Press.
(1944). Changes in primary mental abilities with age. Archives of Psychology Columbia University, 291, 30.
(1988). Statistical power analysis for the behavioral sciences (2nd ed.). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
(2000). What the nose knows: Olfaction and cognitive abilities. Intelligence, 29, 337–361.
(1994a). Intelligence and auditory discrimination: Separating processing speed and fidelity of stimulus representation. Intelligence, 18, 189–213.
(1994b). Sensory discrimination and intelligence: Postmortem or resurrection? American Journal of Psychology, 107, 95–115.
(2000a). Looking down on human intelligence. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
(2000b). Simple information processing and intelligence. In , Handbook of intelligence (pp. 267–284). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
(2004). Sensory discrimination and intelligence: Testing Spearman’s other hypothesis. American Journal of Psychology, 117, 1–18.
(1989). Visual and auditory inspection time: Their interrelationship and correlations with IQ in high ability subjects. Personality and Individual Differences, 10, 525–533.
(1960). Educational and sex differences in the organization of abilities in technical and academic students in Colombia, South America. Genetic Psychology Monographs, 61, 115–163.
(1883). Inquiries into human faculty and its development. London: Macmillan.
(1946). A developmental theory of intelligence. American Psychologist, 1, 278–372.
(1935). The age factor in mental organization. Archives of Psychology, 176, 1–31.
(2005). Exploring structural dynamics within and between sensory and intellectual functioning in old and very old age: Longitudinal evidence from the Berlin aging study. Intelligence, 33, 555–587.
(2009). Intelligence and Development Scales (IDS). Intelligenz- und Entwicklungsskalen für Kinder von 5–10 Jahren [
(Intelligence and Development Scales for Children Aged 5–10 Years ]. Bern: Huber.2008a). Assessing intellectual giftedness with the WISC-IV and the IDS. Journal of Psychology, 216, 173–180.
(2008b). Intelligenz- und Entwicklungsdiagnostik im deutschen Sprachraum [
(Intelligence and developmental scales in German-speaking countries ]. Kindheit und Entwicklung, 17, 232–242.2008c). WISC-IV and IDS: How do they correlate with educational achievement for a gifted and nongifted sample? Manuscript submitted for publication.
(2006). Temporal information processing and pitch discrimination as predictors of general intelligence. Canadian Journal of Experimental Psychology, 60, 294–306.
(1984). Inspection time and its relation to intelligence. Intelligence, 8, 47–65.
(1998). The g factor: The science of mental ability. Westport, CT: Praeger.
(1972). Der Kramer Test – ein Verfahren zur Prüfung der Intelligenz (4th ed.) [
(The Kramer Scale – a measure for intelligence assessment ]. Göttingen: Hogrefe.2007). Training direction-discrimination sensitivity remediates a wide spectrum of reading skills. Optometry and Vision Development, 38, 37–51.
(1998). From good senses to good sense: A link between tactile information processing and intelligence. Intelligence, 26, 99–122.
(1964). Studies on the factor structure of intelligence in children, adolescents and adults. Vita Humana, 7, 147–163.
(1994). Sensory functioning and intelligence in old age: A strong correlation. Psychology and Aging, 9, 339–355.
(1690). An essay concerning human understanding. London: Printed for Tho. Basset/Sold by Edw. Mory.
(1989). Simple musical tests as measures of Spearman’s g. Personality and Individual Differences, 10, 25–28.
(1996). Current directions in structural factor analysis. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 5, 11–18.
(2007). Overlap between visual inspection time tasks and general intelligence. Learning and Individual Differences, 17, 187–192.
(1954). Age changes in mental organization – A longitudinal study. Journal of Gerontology, 9, 296–302.
(2009). Die Intelligence and Development Scale Sozial-Emotionale Kompetenz (IDS-SEK). Psychometrische Eigenschaften eines Tests zur Erfassung sozial-emotionaler Fähigkeiten [
(The Intelligence and Development Scale of Social-Emotional Competence (IDS-SEK). Psychometric properties of a test for assessing social-emotional abilities ]. Diagnostica, 55, 1–11.1953). Anleitung zur Intelligenzprüfung nach Binet-Bobertag “Binetarium” [
(Manual of the Binet-Bobertag intelligence test “Binetarium” ]. Göttingen: Hogrefe.2008). Hamburg Wechsler Intelligenztest für Kinder-IV [
(Hamburg Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children-IV ]. Bern: Hans Huber.1929). The child’s conception of the world. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.
(1983). Aptitude-related differences in auditory recognition masking. Intelligence, 7, 71–90.
(1987). On sense and senses: Intelligence and auditory information processing. Personality and Individual Differences, 8, 201–210.
(2006). Entwicklungsdiagnostik im Säuglings- und Kleinkindalter. Monatsschrift Kinderheilkunde, 145, 305–313.
(1997). Charting the cognitive sphere: Tactile-kinesthetic performance within the structure of intelligence. Intelligence, 25, 111–148.
(1904). “General intelligence,” objectively determined and measured. American Journal of Psychology, 15, 201–293.
(1926). Some issues in the theory of “G” (including the law of diminishing returns). British Association for the Advancement of Science, 59, 174–181.
(1927). The abilities of man. London: Macmillan.
(1996). Applied multivariate statistics for the social sciences. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
(1918). Correlation between different forms of sensory discrimination. Journal of Applied Psychology, 2, 26–42.
(1960). Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scale: Manual for the third revision form L-M. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
(1909). A note on the accuracy of discrimination of weights and lengths. The Psychological Review, 16, 340–346.
(1909). The relation of accuracy in sensory discrimination to general intelligence. American Journal of Psychology, 20, 364–369.
(2003). Manual of the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children – fourth edition. New York: Psychological Corporation.
(