22 October 2016

Intelligence, defined strictly, is qualified as educational intelligence, but this is a definition I don’t necessarily accept.  From my father and a shelterless man named Uriel, whom I met decades ago, I learned clearly that education is not a sign of intelligence.  My father is an immigrant whose original language is not English and Uriel was completely illiterate. But beyond a dictionary definition, the referenced readings explore several types of intelligence, including emotional and cultural.

However, Brody (2000) does not explore those additional intelligences that we all possess.  Instead, intelligence quotients (IQ) are explored a little more in depth, but thankfully differences that affect it are explored.  General concepts of IQs are not questioned throughout the utilizing a description of averages throughout the population without acknowledging allowing for cultural differences amongst individuals.  Like many other articles I have read recently, I find this to be the unspoken bias of the author.  Additionally, Brody states that generational intelligence has increased, citing an example of a 20-year-old in 1900 and a 20-year-old in 1970, the latter having more intelligence than the former.  Again, I question what Brody (2000) is defining as intellectual intelligence that is never defined other than an IQ test standard.

Torff (2000) explores multiple intelligences, not just general intellectual intelligence, in fact questioning general intelligence on the grounds that one person in Tibet will have a different general intelligence than someone in New York who will have a different general intelligence than someone in in rural Georgia, ad infinitum.  What is powerful here is the inclusion of “eight intelligences” that include, linguistic, logical/mathematical, spatial, musical, kinesthetic, interpersonal, intrapersonal, and naturalist supported by a variety of evidential studies that goes beyond standardized tests that measure so-called educational intelligence.

Murray (2012) was not an article that I was able to extract any valuable insights from. However, I noted that the article only mentioned mechanisms of forgetting, overstimulation, verbal memory, and visual memory but no other types of memory.  In this instance, the only ones that I recall the article missing is, olfactory, and auditory memory through music and smells of childhood.  These were never mentioned.  On the other hand, Neath (2000) mentions memory being inherently cue driven. Given auditory and olfactory memory, this is a logical inference, yet, the author only implies this and does not mention either.

Mølbak (2007) begins to fascinatingly explore the elusive memories that we all have but cannot always readily grasp, our first memories of childhood, that may be different now than when we were children.  But what may be key here is the idea that memories are not just verbal, that visual memory loses its potency when moving from visual to auditory memory (Tarde, 2010).  So engaging the children with exercises of visual memory is more visceral than just a simple conversation.  But this according to the author is more related to “world time,” rather than “clock time,” made up of a network of relations that in some way are perceived as a series of objects (Mølbak (2007).  What is intriguing in this article (in this limited space to explore) is the intersection of humanistic psychology, memory, and the metaphysical concept of time (i.e. physics).

 

References:

Brody, N. (2000). Intelligence. In A. E. Kazdin (Ed.), Encyclopedia of psychology (Vol. 4; pp. 318-324). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association. DOI 10.1037/10519-128.

Mølbak, R. L. (2007). Meaning and memory: A Heideggerian analysis of children’s first memories. The Humanistic Psychologist, 35, 175-190.

Murray, D. J. (2012). Theories of memory, history of. In R. W. Rieber (Ed.), Encyclopedia of the history of psychological theories (pp. 1105-1128). New York, NY: Springer. DOI 10.1007/978-1-4419-0463-8_14.

Neath, I. (2000). Learning and memory: In humans. In A. E. Kazdin (Ed.), Encyclopedia of psychology (Vol. 5; pp. 16-19). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.

Tarde, G. (2010). Gabriel Tarde on communication and social influence: Selected papers. University of Chicago Press.

Torff, B. (2000). Multiple intelligences. In A. E. Kazdin (Ed.), Encyclopedia of psychology (Vol. 5; pp. 345-350). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association. DOI 10.1037/10520-146.