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You certainly have heard people say this person is very intelligence or this one is more intelligent than anyone else. This is usually based on what one can do better than others. But do they really mean the actual nature of intelligence or its apparent image.
Intelligence
can be defined as a set of abilities that a person needs to adapt to different
life situations and survive in a particular culture. Intelligence in this
regard constitutes the ability for one to cope with environment they are living
in and the ability to change their behaviour in order to respond better to the
situations at hand. This involves skill for information processing, problem
solving and adapting to new or changing environments. Therefore, it can be said
that intelligence is the demonstration of the required behaviour in any given
environment that it is determined by one's culture.
9.1.1
STRUCTURES AND PROCESSES
The
structure of intelligence or in other words can be referred to as the different
components or elements of intelligence. These structures and processes
underlying intelligence, according to the triardic theory, developed by
(Sternberg, 1985), are divided into
three different categories: metacomponents, performance components, and
knowledge-acquisition components.
The metacomponents are executive processes used in problem solving and decision making that involve the majority of managing our mind. They tell the mind how to act. Metacomponents are also sometimes referred to as a homunculus. A homunculus is a fictitious or metaphorical "person" inside our head that controls our actions, and which is often seen to invite an infinite regress of homunculi controlling each other (Sternberg, 1985).
Metacomponents have to do with the
high-level management of problem-solving: deciding on the nature of the problem
with which one is confronted, selecting a problem-solving strategy, selecting a
mental representation of the problem, allocating mental resources to the
solution of the problem, monitoring problem-solving progress, and so on.
Studies show that all of these factors are essential to intelligent performance
at practical tasks.
Sternberg's
next set of components, performance
components, are the processes that actually carry out the actions the
metacomponents dictate. These are the basic processes that allow us to do
tasks, such as perceiving problems in our long-term memory, perceiving
relations between objects, and applying relations to another set of terms
(Sternberg, 1997).
Metacomponents
direct the search for solutions; but they do not actually provide answers to
problems. The mental structures which do this are called performance
components. These are of less philosophical interest than metacomponents,
because the human mind probably contains thousands of different special-case
problem-solving algorithms, and there is no reason to suppose that every
intelligent entity must employ the same ones. Most likely, the essential thing
is to have a very wide array of performance components with varying degrees of
specialization.
For
example, consider a standard analogy problem: "lawyer is to client as
doctor is to a) patient b) medicine". Solving this problem is a routine
exercise in induction. Given three entities W, X and Y:
1)
the memory is
searched for two entities W and X,
2)
a relation R(W,X)
between the two entities is inferred from the memory,
3)
the memory is
searched for some Z so that R(Y,Z) holds
It
is not "low-level" in the physiological sense; it requires the
coordination of three difficult tasks: locating entities in memory based on
names, inference of relations between entities, and locating entities in memory
based on abstract properties. But it is clearly on a lower level than the
metacomponents mentioned above.
Neisser
(1983), among others, believes that the number of performance components is
essentially unlimited, with new performance components being generated for
every new context. In this point of view, it is futile to attempt to list the
five or ten or one hundred most important problem solving algorithms; the
important thing is to understand how the mind generates new algorithms. There
is certainly some truth to this view.
The
last set of components, knowledge-acquisition
components, are used in obtaining new information. These components
complete tasks that involve selectively choosing relevant information from a
mix of information, some of it relevant and some of it irrelevant. These
components can also be used to selectively combine the various pieces of
information they have gathered. Gifted individuals are proficient in using
these components because they are able to learn new information at a greater
rate.
The
knowledge acquisition components of intelligence are structures and processes
by which performance components and metacomponents are learned. For example,
three essential knowledge acquisition components are: sifting out relevant from
irrelevant information, detecting significant coincidences, and
fusing various bits of information into a coherent model of a situation.
The importance of effective knowledge acquisition for intelligence is obvious. The ability to speed-read will help one perform "intelligently" on an I.Q. test; and the ability to immediately detect anomalous features of the physical environment will help one perform intelligently as a detective. One might argue that factors such as this do not really affect intelligence, but only the ability to put intelligence to practical use.
However, intelligence
which is not used at all cannot be measured; it is hard to see how it could
even be studied theoretically. The mathematical theory of intelligence to be
given below provides a partial way around this dilemma by admitting that one
part of a mind can be intelligent with respect to another part of the mind even
if it displays no intelligent behaviour with respect to the external
environment.
Whereas
Sternberg explains that the basic information processing components underlying
the three parts of his triarchic theory are the same, different contexts and
different tasks require different kinds of intelligence.
Componential – analytical Intelligence
Sternberg
associated the componential subtheory with analytical giftedness. This is
one of three types of giftedness that Sternberg recognises. Analytical
giftedness is influential in being able to take apart problems and being able
to see solutions not often seen. Unfortunately, individuals with only this type
are not as adept at creating unique ideas of their own. This form of giftedness
is the type that is tested most often (Sternberg, 1997).
Experiential – creative intelligence
Sternberg's
2nd stage of his theory is his experiential subtheory. This stage deals mainly
with how well a task is performed with regard to how familiar it is. Sternberg
splits the role of experience into two parts: novelty and automation.
A novel situation
is one that you have never experienced before. People that are adept at
managing a novel situation can take the task and find new ways of solving it
that the majority of people would not notice (Sternberg, 1997).
A
process that has been automated has been performed multiple times and
can now be done with little or no extra thought. Once a process is automatized,
it can be run in parallel with the same or other processes. The problem with
novelty and automation is that being skilled in one component does not ensure
that you are skilled in the other (Sternberg, 1997).
The
experiential subtheory also correlates with another one of Sternberg's proposed
types of giftedness. Synthetic giftedness is seen in creativity, intuition,
and a study of the arts. People with synthetic giftedness are not often seen
with the highest IQ's because there are not currently any tests that can
sufficiently measure these attributes, but synthetic giftedness is especially
useful in creating new ideas to create and solve new problems. Sternberg also
associated another one of his students, "Barbara", to the synthetic
giftedness. Barbara did not perform as well as Alice on the tests taken to get
into school, but was recommended to Yale University based on her exceptional
creative and intuitive skills. Barbara was later very valuable in creating new
ideas for research.
Practical – contextual intelligence
Sternberg's
third subtheory of intelligence, called practical or contextual, "deals
with the mental activity involved in attaining fit to context" (Sternberg,
1985, p. 45). Through the three processes of adaptation, shaping, and
selection, individuals create an ideal fit between themselves and their
environment. This type of intelligence is often referred to as "street
smarts."
Adaptation occurs
when one makes a change within oneself in order to better adjust to one's
surroundings (Sternberg, 1985). For example, when the weather changes and
temperatures drop, people adapt by wearing extra layers of clothing to remain
warm.
Shaping occurs
when one changes their environment to better suit one's needs (Sternberg,
1985). A teacher may invoke the new rule of raising hands to speak to ensure
that the lesson is taught with least possible disruption.
The
process of selection is undertaken when a completely new alternate
environment is found to replace the previous, unsatisfying environment to meet
the individual's goals (Sternberg, 1985). For instance, immigrants leave their
lives in their homeland countries where they endure economic and social
hardships and go to other countries in search of a better and less strained
life.
The effectiveness with which an individual fits to his or her environment and contends with daily situations reflects degree of intelligence. Sternberg's third type of giftedness, called practical giftedness, involves the ability to apply synthetic and analytic skills to everyday situations. Practically gifted people are superb in their ability to succeed in any setting (Sternberg, 1997).
An example of this type of giftedness is "Celia". Celia did not have
outstanding analytical or synthetic abilities, but she "was highly
successful in figuring out what she needed to do in order to succeed in an
academic environment. She knew what kind of research was valued, how to get
articles into journals, how to impress people at job interviews, and the
like" (Sternberg, 1997, p. 44). Celia's contextual intelligence
allowed her to use these skills to her best advantage.
Sternberg
also acknowledges that an individual is not restricted to having excellence in
only one of these three intelligences. Many people may possess an integration
of all three and have high levels of all three intelligences.
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