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| intelligence test | a method for assessing an individual’s mental aptitudes and comparing them with those of others, using numerical scores. |
| intelligence | mental quality consisting of the ability to learn from experience, solve problems, and use knowledge to adapt to new situations. |
| general intelligence | an overall cognitive ability that, according to Spearman and others, underlies specific mental abilities and is therefore measured by every task on an intelligence test. |
| factor analysis | a statistical procedure that identifies clusters of related items on a test; used to identify different dimensions of performance that underlie a person’s total score. |
| savant syndrome | a condition in which a person otherwise limited in mental ability has an exceptional specific skill, such as in computation or drawing. |
| emotional intelligence | the ability to perceive, understand, manage, and use emotions. |
| mental age | measure of intelligence test performance devised by Binet; the chronological age that most typically corresponds to a given level of performance. |
| Stanford-Binet | the widely used American revision of the original intelligence test. |
| intelligence quotient (IQ) | defined originally as the ratio of mental age (ma) to chronological age (ca) multiplied by 100 (thus, IQ = ma/ca × 100). On contemporary intelligence tests, the average performance for a given age is assigned a score of 100 |
| achievement tests | tests designed to assess what a person has learned. |
| aptitude tests | tests designed to predict a person’s future performance |
| Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS) | the most widely used intelligence test; contains verbal and performance (nonverbal) subtests. |
| standardization | defining meaningful scores by comparison with the performance of a pretested group. |
| normal curve | a symmetrical, bell-shaped graph that describes the distribution of many types of data; most scores fall near the mean (68 percent fall within one standard deviation of it) and fewer and fewer near the extremes. |
| reliability | the extent to which a test yields consistent results, as assessed by the consistency of scores on two halves of the test, or on retesting. |
| validity | the extent to which a test measures or predicts what it is supposed to. |
| content validity | the extent to which a test samples the behavior that is of interest. |
| predictive validity | the success with which a test forecasts the behavior it is designed to forecast; it is assessed by computing the correlation between test scores and the criterion behavior. |
| intellectual disability | (formerly referred to as mental retardation) a condition of limited mental ability, indicated by an intelligence score of 70 or below and difficulty in adapting to the demands of life; varies from mild to profound. |
| Down syndrome | a condition of intellectual disability and associated physical disorders caused by an extra copy of chromosome 21. |
| stereotype threat | a self-confirming concern that one will be evaluated based on a negative condition |
