Psychology : $b A study of mental lifeWoodworth, Robert Sessions
Science
Psychology : $b A study of mental life
Woodworth, Robert Sessions
Psychology
8. Doing two things at once. Prepare several columns of one-place
numbers, ten digits in a column. Try to add these columns, at the
same time reciting a familiar poem, and notice how you manage it,
and how accurate your work is.
9. Consider what would be the best way to secure sustained
attention to some sort of work from which your mind is apt to wander.
REFERENCES
Walter B. Pillsbury gives a full treatment of the subject in his book
on _Attention_, 1908, and a condensed account of the matter in Chapter
V of his _Essentials of Psychology_, 2nd edition, 1920.
Another full treatment is that of Titchener, in his _Textbook of
Psychology_, 1909, pp. 265-302.
On the topic of distraction, see John J. B. Morgan's _Overcoming of
Distraction and Other Resistances_, 1916.
{271}
CHAPTER XII
INTELLIGENCE
HOW INTELLIGENCE IS MEASURED, WHAT IT CONSISTS IN AND EVIDENCE OF ITS
BEING LARGELY A MATTER OF HEREDITY
Before leaving the general topic of native traits and passing to the
process of learning or acquiring traits, we need to complete our
picture of the native mental constitution by adding intelligence to
reflex action, instinct, emotion, feeling, sensation and attention.
Man is an intelligent animal by nature. The fact that he is the most
intelligent of animals is due to his native constitution, as the fact
that, among the lower animals, some species are more intelligent than
others is due to the native constitution of each species. A rat has
more intelligence than a frog, a dog than a rat, a monkey than a dog,
and a man than a monkey, because of their native constitutions as
members of their respective species.
But the different individuals belonging to the same species are not
all equal in intelligence, any more than in size or strength or
vitality. Some dogs are more intelligent than others, and the same is
notably true of men. Now, are these differences between members of the
same species due to heredity or environment? This question we can
better approach after considering the methods by which psychologists
undertake to measure intelligence; and an analysis of these methods
may also serve to indicate what is included under the term
"intelligence".
{272}
Intelligence Tests
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