Читать книгу The Measurement of Intelligence - Lewis M. Terman - Страница 31

In the second place, the Binet tests differ from most of the earlier attempts in that they are designed to test the higher and more complex mental processes, instead of the simpler and more elementary ones. Hence they set problems for the reasoning powers and ingenuity, provoke judgments about abstract matters, etc., instead of attempting to measure sensory discrimination, mere retentiveness, rapidity of reaction, and the like. Psychologists had generally considered the higher processes too complex to be measured directly, and accordingly sought to get at them indirectly by correlating supposed intelligence with simpler processes which could readily be measured, such as reaction time, rapidity of tapping, discrimination of tones and colors, etc. While they were disputing over their contradictory findings in this line of exploration, Binet went directly to the point and succeeded where they had failed.

It is now generally admitted by psychologists that higher intelligence is little concerned in such elementary processes as those mentioned above. Many of the animals have keen sensory discrimination. Feeble-minded children, unless of very low grade, do not differ very markedly from normal children in sensitivity of the skin, visual acuity, simple reaction time, type of imagery, etc. But in power of comprehension, abstraction, and ability to direct thought, in the nature of the associative processes, in amount of information possessed, and in spontaneity of attention, they differ enormously.