Thinking, Intelligence and Creativity Questions and Answers

Answer: C

According to Skinner, the tact functions as a verbal operant in naming objects, animals and people. A tact is a response that names or describes something in the environment, and it is reinforced by social approval, as when a child says 'dog' on seeing a dog.

A mand is a demand or request, like asking for water, controlled by the need of the speaker. Signs and symbols are not Skinner's verbal operants. So the tact is the one that fits binding names to forms.

Answer: C

The correct matching is p-4, q-2, r-1, s-3. The mixed model is the model of emotional intelligence, regression is linked with Type I and Type II intelligence, elaboration is a creativity component, and divergent thinking belongs to the structure of intellect of Guilford.

The other codes give creativity to the mixed model or the structure of intellect to elaboration, which is not so. So 4 2 1 3 is the answer.

Answer: A

In Guilford's structure of intellect model creativity is explained by the dimension of operations, in which divergent production is the operation behind creative thought. So only (i) is the dimension for the concept of creativity.

Contents (figural, symbolic, semantic, behavioural) and products (units, classes, relations, systems, transformations, implications) describe what the thinking is about and what it yields, and are not the dimension that explains creativity.

Answer: A

Age related changes in intelligence are best explained by Cattell's theory of fluid and crystallised intelligence. Fluid intelligence, the ability to reason in new situations, peaks in early adulthood and declines, while crystallised intelligence, knowledge and skills gained by experience, goes on increasing through much of life.

Jensen's theory deals with levels I and II and heredity, Sternberg's with triarchic components, and Guilford's with the structure of intellect, so none of them is mainly about change with age.

Answer: A

Both statements are true, and (R) is the correct explanation of (A). In Jensen's view the sons of fathers of very high intelligence tend to be lower, and the sons of fathers of very low intelligence tend to be higher, as the scores regress towards the mean of the group.

This regression explains why the group differences in the scores persist even though the fathers and sons differ, so (R) explains (A). The options which call either statement false or deny the explanation are wrong.

Answer: B

When we try to solve a problem by applying a technique that worked in a similar situation in the past, we are using analogy: the structure of an earlier solved problem is mapped onto the new one. Trial and error means trying responses at random until one works, with no reference to past cases. An algorithm is a step-by-step procedure that guarantees a solution if followed, and a heuristic is a rule of thumb for narrowing the search, not a transfer from a particular earlier case.

Answer: D

Spearman's tetrad equation says that the tetrad difference is zero when a single general factor accounts for the correlations among the four tests. The three possible pairings give equivalent equations: r12 times r34 equals r13 times r24, r12 times r34 equals r14 times r23, and r13 times r24 equals r14 times r23. The options given are forms of these, equal to each other in the single factor case, so each of the three represents the equation and the answer is 'all of these'.

Answer: D

A problem space in the information processing approach of Newell and Simon is made up of an initial state, a goal state and a set of operations (operators) that move the solver from one state to the other. Because all three are part of the definition, 'all three' is the answer. The options with two of them are incomplete: without operators there is no way to move from the initial to the goal state, and without a goal state there is no problem to solve.

Answer: C

A generalized picture or model of an object or event, learned in the past and stored in memory, is a prototype, the best or most typical example of a category. Perceptual constancy is the tendency to see objects as having constant size and shape under changing conditions, a memory trace is the physical change thought to represent a memory, and a cognitive map is an internal representation of spatial layout, so none of these is the generalised model of a category.

Answer: A

Natural concepts, such as bird or furniture, are based on prototypes: we judge membership by resemblance to a typical example (Rosch), and the category has fuzzy boundaries. Artificial concepts are defined by a set of rules or properties, like a triangle, and schemas and propositions are other forms of knowledge organisation and not the basis of natural categories. So prototypes is the answer, and the option with rules or properties describes artificial concepts.