| achievement tests | Tests that measure what a person has learned or the skills that a person has mastered. p. 291
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| algorithms | Strategies that guarantee a solution to a problem. p. 275
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| aptitude tests | Tests that predict an individual's ability to learn. p. 291
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| cognition | The way in which information is processed and manipulated in remembering, thinking, and knowing. p. 271
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| concepts | Mental categories that are used to group objects, events, and characteristics. p. 272
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| convergent thinking | Thinking that produces one correct answer; characteristic of the type of thinking required on traditional intelligence tests. p. 300
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| creativity | The ability to think about something in novel and unusual ways and come up with unconventional solutions to problems. p. 300
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| deductive reasoning | Reasoning from the general to the specific. p. 277
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| divergent thinking | Thinking that produces many answers to the same question; characteristic of creativity. p. 300
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| emotional intelligence | The ability to monitor one's own and others' emotions and feelings, to discriminate among them, and to use this information to guide one's thinking and actions. p. 296
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| fixation | Involves using a prior problem-solving strategy and failing to look at a problem from a new perspective. p. 275
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| functional fixedness | A type of fixation in which individuals fail to solve a problem because they are fixated on a thing's usual functions. p. 275
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| gifted | Individuals who have an IQ of 120 or higher and/or superior talent in a particular domain. p. 298
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| heritability | The fraction of the variance in IQ in a population that is attributed to genetics. p. 303
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| heuristics | Strategies or guidelines that suggest, but do not guarantee, a solution to a problem. p. 275
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| inductive reasoning | Reasoning from the specific to the general. p. 277
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| intelligence | Problem-solving skills and the ability to adapt to and learn from life's everyday experiences. p. 287
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| intelligent quotient (IQ) | Consists of an individual's mental age divided by chronological age multiplied by 100. p. 289
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| language | A form of communication, whether spoken, written, or signed, that is based on a system of symbols. p. 280
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| mental age (MA) | An individual's level of mental development relative to that of others. p. 289
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| mental retardation | A condition of limited mental ability in which the individual has a low IQ, usually below 70, has difficulty adapting to everyday life, and has an onset of these characteristics in the so-called developmental period. p. 298
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| mental set | A type of fixation in which an individual tries to solve a problem in a particular way that has worked in the past. p. 277
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| normal distribution | A symmetrical, bell-shaped curve with a majority of the scores falling in the middle of the possible range and few scores appearing toward the extremes of the range. p. 289
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| reliability | The extent to which a test yields a consistent, reproducible measure of performance. p. 291
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| standardization | Involves developing uniform procedures for administering and scoring a test, as well as creating norms for the test. p. 292
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| thinking | Manipulating information, as when we form concepts, solve problems, think critically, reason, and make decisions. p. 272
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| triarchic theory | Sternberg's theory that there are three main types of intelligence: analytical, creative, and practical. p. 295
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| validity | The extent to which a test measures what it is intended to measure. p. 291
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