Theory Of Intelligence

Intelligence is commonly thought to decline as we get older, however this is a flawed belief. Some may argue that there are various cognitive processes that are associated with changes in the brain that do deteriorate with time, however there are also other brain areas that increase their activity in older age. I believe a person’s ability to perform certain tasks may become slower as they get older, but this doesn’t automatically mean that they are cognitively getting less intelligent. There are numerous ways in which intelligence can be defined, although it is commonly defined as general cognitive skills, this means that it is a mental ability involved in the capacity of learning, reasoning, perceiving relationships and analogies, understanding, facts, meanings, etc. (Dictionary definition). However as Raymond Cattell (1963) described ‘intelligence does not generally consist of only cognitive performance’. Cattell and Horns theory (1966) emphasises that intelligence is composed of a number of different abilities that interrelate to form the broad term of intelligence. The main two factors are fluid and crystallised intelligence.

According to Cattell (1963) and concurred by Horn and Cattell (1966), the evidence that initiates this type of thinking is based on the difference between fluid and crystallised intelligence. In today’s world as a person gets older their fluid intelligence skills slow down and lead to the development of such assumptions. However like this gap from young to old, crystallised intelligence works in much the same way except in reverse with older generation having more crystallised intelligence than younger people.

Fluid intelligence refers to the ability to think and reason theoretically. This also include...

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...me but due to factors such as the inappropriate retrieval cue can makes memoires difficult to remember. (Need reference) In saying this there are factors that can contribute to a decline in intelligence such as medication you might put on, an accident such as a car crash (may cause amnesia) or a disease (eg. Dementia).

Dementia is a term to describe a variety of symptoms of a large group of illnesses or neurodegenerative diseases that cause a progressive decline in a person’s mental functioning. Dementia can cause a serious loss of mental capacity, including memory loss, a decline in intellectual ability, poor judgement, poor social skills and abnormal emotional reactions. Although it may be more common with older people this is not a normal part of the ageing process and many people do not develop this disease (Australian institute of health and well-being, 2013).