4 Most Important Attributes or Aspects of Intelligence

There are 4 attributes or aspects of intelligence viz., (a) Level, (b) Range, (c) Area, (d) Speed.

(a) Level:

This refers to the degree of difficulty of a task to be solved. If we think of all tasks as varying in difficulty from easy to hard and if they are arranged on a ladder or scale of difficulty, then the height that we can attain on this ladder is the level or altitude.

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(b) Range of width:

Refers to number of tasks at any given degree of difficulty that we can solve. The number of tasks which an individual can solve at a given degree will represent the range of intelligence for that intelligence at that level.

Higher levels of attitude possess greater range.

(c) Area:

Means the total number of situations at each level to which the individual is able to respond. So it is summation of all the ranges at each level of intelligence possessed by an intelligence.

The levels of intellect of rural and urban children may be the same, but the area of the former will be less than that of the latter.

(d) Speed:

Is the rapidity with which we can respond to situation? Speed shows a +ve corre­lation with level.

Different tests emphasize different attributes. Binet’s test emphasise level and range and minimised speed.

The Thorndike C.A.V.D. emphasised altitudes and pays practically no attention to speed.

Thorndike divides intelligence into 4 classes:

(i) C i.e., verbal completion.

(ii) A i.e., intelligence in arithmetical situ­ation

(iii) V i.e., intelligence with respect to voca­bulary

(iv) D i.e., intelligence with respect to verbal direction.

Thurstone classifies as:

1. Number (N);

2. Verbal (V);

3. Spatial (S);

4. Word-fluency (W);

5. Reasoning (R);

6. Memory (M);

7. Perceptual (P).