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Human Intelligence
This book is a comprehensive survey of our scientific knowledge about human intelligence, written by a researcher who has spent more than 30 years studying the field. It takes a non-ideological view of a topic in which, too often, writings are dominated by a single theory or social viewpoint. The book discusses the conceptual status of intelligence as a collection of cognitive skills that include, but also go beyond, those skills evaluated by conventional tests; intelligence tests and their analysis; contemporary theories of intelligence; biological and social causes of intelligence; the importance of intelligence in social, industrial, and educational spheres; the role of intelligence in determining success in life, both inside and outside educational settings; and the nature and causes of variations in intelligence across age, gender, and racial and ethnic groups.
524 pages, Paperback
First published November 22, 2010
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
November 16, 2016
Better than expected, but not good. It's okay.
In general, Hunt is overly demanding of evidence for areas he doesn't like. He dislikes Jensen's method on the basis of Dolan's arguments, but doesn't seem to understand the method. Jensen's method is an effect size measure about the degree to which variation in factor scores can be attributed to the underlying factor. He likes instead MGCFA methods which do not actually provide any effect sizes. These are essentially model comparisons. They suffer from the usual problems of low power and uninterpretable results.
For group differences, Hunt misunderstands the point of invoking brain size. He does the math and shows that it can't account for all the group differences. No one proposed that! He repeatedly criticizes proponents for not using better methods or better data, when reality is that the mainstream academics block the collection of such data. Estimating genomic admixture has been possible for more than 10 years, but still we do not see many large scale studies of race and intelligence using individual level data. Not because hereditarians don't want to, but because they are being systematically refused access to such data or people refuse to gather it.
I could go on.
At least Hunt believed studying such things was okay, and he rejects Nisbett's 100% environmentalism view. Baby steps.
In general, Hunt is overly demanding of evidence for areas he doesn't like. He dislikes Jensen's method on the basis of Dolan's arguments, but doesn't seem to understand the method. Jensen's method is an effect size measure about the degree to which variation in factor scores can be attributed to the underlying factor. He likes instead MGCFA methods which do not actually provide any effect sizes. These are essentially model comparisons. They suffer from the usual problems of low power and uninterpretable results.
For group differences, Hunt misunderstands the point of invoking brain size. He does the math and shows that it can't account for all the group differences. No one proposed that! He repeatedly criticizes proponents for not using better methods or better data, when reality is that the mainstream academics block the collection of such data. Estimating genomic admixture has been possible for more than 10 years, but still we do not see many large scale studies of race and intelligence using individual level data. Not because hereditarians don't want to, but because they are being systematically refused access to such data or people refuse to gather it.
I could go on.
At least Hunt believed studying such things was okay, and he rejects Nisbett's 100% environmentalism view. Baby steps.
December 4, 2021
This textbook contains a wealth of information--just not the information I had hoped it would contain.
Rather than a book that shows the current state of our understanding of how human intelligence works, this is a book that explores the current state of the field of analyzing and measuring human intelligence, in all its gory detail.
Perhaps it is a bum rap to criticize a book for what it does not contain, rather than what it does.
That said, this book is well written and does contain some tidbits that are compelling:
It explored the well-known concept of "g", or a measurement of general human intelligence which, itself, is broken down into:
Gf (Fluid intelligence, or the ability to cope with and solve new problems, including
deductive reasoning--The ability to reason from established principles or facts
inductive reasoning--The ability to detect patterns in observations
quantitative reasoning--The ability to reason using numerical and mathematical arguments)
Gc (Crystalized intelligence, or the ability to apply previously acquired knowledge of current problems, including
linguistic development--The ability to follow an argument in one's native language
lexical knowledge--The extent of one's native-language vocabulary
information about culture--Knowledge of the facts about one's own culture)
Gkn (General domain-specific knowledge, including
geographic knowledge
mechanical knowledge
other tests of knowledge within various domains)
Gv (Visual-spatial ability, or the ability to deal with structured visual stimuli, including
visualization--The ability to recognize and match visual stimuli
spatial relations--The ability to manipulate visual stimuli "in the mind's eye"
Closure speed--The speed at which familiar visual stimuli can be recognized when obscured or hidden in other stimuli.)
Gsm (Short-term memory, the ability to apprehend and store information about the current situation, including
memory span--The ability to repeat back, verbatim, information just presented
working memory--The ability to execute cognitive processes on information held in short-term memory and to store the results.
Glr (Long-term storage and retrieval, the ability to store information for long periods of time and to retrieve it, including
associative memory--The ability to recall a complex piece of information given a previously learned association to it
meaningful memory--The ability to store, retain, and recall meaningful pieces of information, especially biographical memory
free recall--The ability to recall, without cues, a long list of previously presented pieces of information, where each piece is unrelated to the others.
Gs (Cognitive processing speed--the ability to execute easy, highly over-learned cognitive tasks, including
pattern recognition--Quick recognition of familiar perceptual patterns
numerical facility--The ability to execute simple arithmetic operations quickly)
Gt (Decision speed--speed of responding in simple decision situations, including
choice reaction time--Choosing which of a small number of pre-defined signals has been presented
semantic processing speed--Deciding whether a string of letters is or is not a word, e.g., CAT vs. TAC
mental comparison speed--Time required to compare two familiar stimuli on some attribute, e.g., decided whether 'A' and 'a' name the same letter).
From the chapter "The Mechanics of Intelligence", we see:
"Any computing device much more complicated than a light switch has to be able to do three things:
1. Sense the Environment (Perception)
2. Classify the Environment into states relevant to the device (Categorization)
3. Relate these classifications to previously stored information (memory retrieval).
The result of these computations is an INTERNAL REPRESENTATION of the current situation as interpreted in the light of memory of past situations.... Information from the environment is sensed, and then classified into progressively higher-order categories, through arousal of related information in long-term memory..."
"... paragraph comprehension is staggeringly complex. It involves aspects of visual form identification (occipital and temporal lobes), control of eye movements (parietal lobes), retrieval of lexical information (left temporal lobe), retrieval of syntactic rules (left temporal lobe), execution of syntax rules for sentence comprehension (left frontal lobe) and maintenance of attention on the topic (left frontal lobe, anterior cingulate cortex). It takes all of this, and more to read "The Cat in the Hat".
This is an interesting book and worth the read, but know what you're getting into.
Rather than a book that shows the current state of our understanding of how human intelligence works, this is a book that explores the current state of the field of analyzing and measuring human intelligence, in all its gory detail.
Perhaps it is a bum rap to criticize a book for what it does not contain, rather than what it does.
That said, this book is well written and does contain some tidbits that are compelling:
It explored the well-known concept of "g", or a measurement of general human intelligence which, itself, is broken down into:
Gf (Fluid intelligence, or the ability to cope with and solve new problems, including
deductive reasoning--The ability to reason from established principles or facts
inductive reasoning--The ability to detect patterns in observations
quantitative reasoning--The ability to reason using numerical and mathematical arguments)
Gc (Crystalized intelligence, or the ability to apply previously acquired knowledge of current problems, including
linguistic development--The ability to follow an argument in one's native language
lexical knowledge--The extent of one's native-language vocabulary
information about culture--Knowledge of the facts about one's own culture)
Gkn (General domain-specific knowledge, including
geographic knowledge
mechanical knowledge
other tests of knowledge within various domains)
Gv (Visual-spatial ability, or the ability to deal with structured visual stimuli, including
visualization--The ability to recognize and match visual stimuli
spatial relations--The ability to manipulate visual stimuli "in the mind's eye"
Closure speed--The speed at which familiar visual stimuli can be recognized when obscured or hidden in other stimuli.)
Gsm (Short-term memory, the ability to apprehend and store information about the current situation, including
memory span--The ability to repeat back, verbatim, information just presented
working memory--The ability to execute cognitive processes on information held in short-term memory and to store the results.
Glr (Long-term storage and retrieval, the ability to store information for long periods of time and to retrieve it, including
associative memory--The ability to recall a complex piece of information given a previously learned association to it
meaningful memory--The ability to store, retain, and recall meaningful pieces of information, especially biographical memory
free recall--The ability to recall, without cues, a long list of previously presented pieces of information, where each piece is unrelated to the others.
Gs (Cognitive processing speed--the ability to execute easy, highly over-learned cognitive tasks, including
pattern recognition--Quick recognition of familiar perceptual patterns
numerical facility--The ability to execute simple arithmetic operations quickly)
Gt (Decision speed--speed of responding in simple decision situations, including
choice reaction time--Choosing which of a small number of pre-defined signals has been presented
semantic processing speed--Deciding whether a string of letters is or is not a word, e.g., CAT vs. TAC
mental comparison speed--Time required to compare two familiar stimuli on some attribute, e.g., decided whether 'A' and 'a' name the same letter).
From the chapter "The Mechanics of Intelligence", we see:
"Any computing device much more complicated than a light switch has to be able to do three things:
1. Sense the Environment (Perception)
2. Classify the Environment into states relevant to the device (Categorization)
3. Relate these classifications to previously stored information (memory retrieval).
The result of these computations is an INTERNAL REPRESENTATION of the current situation as interpreted in the light of memory of past situations.... Information from the environment is sensed, and then classified into progressively higher-order categories, through arousal of related information in long-term memory..."
"... paragraph comprehension is staggeringly complex. It involves aspects of visual form identification (occipital and temporal lobes), control of eye movements (parietal lobes), retrieval of lexical information (left temporal lobe), retrieval of syntactic rules (left temporal lobe), execution of syntax rules for sentence comprehension (left frontal lobe) and maintenance of attention on the topic (left frontal lobe, anterior cingulate cortex). It takes all of this, and more to read "The Cat in the Hat".
This is an interesting book and worth the read, but know what you're getting into.
February 13, 2018
4.[a lot] stars
I started reading this book shortly after reading Intelligence: All That Matters to delve more deeply into certain topics. It has taken me a long time to finish it but at last I have done it.
Psychology and neuroscience are not my fields of expertise and as such I am not able to judge the accuracy of the facts presented in the book. Nonetheless every assertion is backed up by a reference thus with enough time one should be able to verify each claim.
I skipped chapter 7 (Intelligence and the Brain) and part of chapter 8 (The Genetic Basis of Intelligence) since they dealt with topics I'm less interested in. The author provides with summaries about the main points on each section so it's easy to skip some part if you are just not that interested. The rest of the book was excellent, thorough and really informative. I learnt a lot, not just about intelligence but about psychometrics and study design (maybe partly because I didn't know that much about them to start with).
Overall I think the book is excellent and you can read (after reading chapter 4) you can read just the bits that you are interested in without reading the whole thing.
I started reading this book shortly after reading Intelligence: All That Matters to delve more deeply into certain topics. It has taken me a long time to finish it but at last I have done it.
Psychology and neuroscience are not my fields of expertise and as such I am not able to judge the accuracy of the facts presented in the book. Nonetheless every assertion is backed up by a reference thus with enough time one should be able to verify each claim.
I skipped chapter 7 (Intelligence and the Brain) and part of chapter 8 (The Genetic Basis of Intelligence) since they dealt with topics I'm less interested in. The author provides with summaries about the main points on each section so it's easy to skip some part if you are just not that interested. The rest of the book was excellent, thorough and really informative. I learnt a lot, not just about intelligence but about psychometrics and study design (maybe partly because I didn't know that much about them to start with).
Overall I think the book is excellent and you can read (after reading chapter 4) you can read just the bits that you are interested in without reading the whole thing.
January 24, 2023
I still don't think "general intelligence" is a real thing. Nor do I think, contra the description for this book, that Hunt is at all "non-ideological" here.
April 22, 2020
Earl Hunt has done a profound service to anyone who is confused about human intelligence. So much of the information that circulates in public discourse, whether in newspapers, TV or social media, is riddled with distortions of scientific evidence, half-truths and inaccuracies - especially on the many highly sensitive questions surrounding intelligence, IQ and genetics. He approaches the explosive implications of these research frontiers with steady and cheerful intellectual and narrative rigour. And as he does so he reveals a far more interesting picture than it would have been possible for me to imagine.
I've been reading it on and off for a couple of years now, which is the best way to reflect on the far-reaching implications that often emanate from a chapter. At nearly 500 pages, the book can be heavy-going in places, but well worth it.
I've been reading it on and off for a couple of years now, which is the best way to reflect on the far-reaching implications that often emanate from a chapter. At nearly 500 pages, the book can be heavy-going in places, but well worth it.
May 31, 2016
mejor libro especializado de referencia para el tema que existe
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews