Ninety years ago, Stanford psychologist Lewis Terman began an
ambitious search for the brightest kids in California, administering IQ
tests to several thousand of children across the state. Those scoring
above an IQ of 135 (approximately the top 1 percent of scores) were
tracked for further study. There were two young boys, Luis Alvarez and
William Shockley, who were among the many who took Terman’s tests but
missed the cutoff score. Despite their exclusion from a study of young
“geniuses,” both went on to study physics, earn PhDs, and win the Nobel
prize.
How could these two minds, both with great potential for scientific innovation, slip under the radar of IQ tests? One explanation is that many items on Terman’s Stanford-Binet IQ test, as with many modern assessments, fail to tap into a cognitive ability known as spatial ability. Recent research on cognitive abilities is reinforcing what some psychologists suggested decades ago: spatial ability, also known as spatial visualization, plays a critical role in engineering and scientific disciplines. Yet more verbally-loaded IQ tests, as well as many popular standardized tests used today, do not adequately measure this trait, especially in those who are most gifted with it.
To read the full, original article click on this link: Recognizing Spatial Intelligence: Scientific American
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