Aging and Intelligence
Uploaded by yijung on Apr 26, 2005
Aging and Intelligence
Introduction
There are many myths regarding seniors and their intelligence. Supposedly, the old can't do their work as well as the young, and neither can they learn new things (Kart & Kinney, 2001). There are many facts that point to the idea of gerontophobia; "a fear of and negative attitude toward the aged" (Kart & Kinney, 2001). There are general disapproval of the old and job discrimination as a result ("Social", 1984). It is essential, especially at this point where the population of the elderly (65+ of age) is hitting a peak of over 35 million and growing rapidly (Kart & Kinney, 2001), to quickly debunk these myths and start facing the facts of aging and intelligence.
Intelligence
As more and more people became aware that the generally observed intellectual debilitation with age was not inevitable, gerontologists have been trying to designate a clear definition to the word "intelligence" so as to be able to clearly measure and study intelligence in association with aging. Spearman's G factor, Thurston's PMA, and Cattel's fluid mechanics vs. crystallized pragmatics theories are three prominent theories which have shaped the field of gerontology and aging.
Spearman's G factor
Spearman's discovery of the "g factor," now somewhat obsolete, was the basis for any study of intelligence in the early 1900's. Spearman, through numerous tests and gathering empirical data, observed a correlation between each person's various test results which seemed to be able to determine the intellectual level of the person: he dubbed the reason for the correlation, an unknown factor, the "g factor" (Jansen, 1999).
Spearman credited every human's intelligence with his/her unique g factor. However, as later experiments proved more than one factor was responsible for a person's intelligence, he proposed the idea of "groupfactors", where factors other then g were attributed to intelligence (Jansen, 1999). Spearman's theory on intelligence was based mostly on the biological and physical structure of the "human engine"; the brain. He hoped for a discovery which would link his g factor to specific physical properties of the brain (Jansen, 1999), which would then enable him to explain the apparent intellectual debilitation in the elderly with concrete factors such as "brain size, brain evoked potentials, nerve conduction velocity, and the brain's glucose metabolic rate during cognitive activity" (Jansen, 1999).
Thurston's Primary Mental AbilitiesInnumerable numbers of scientific research on intelligence was performed with Spearman's g factor as the basis. In 1938, Thurston, unwilling...