FLUID INTELLIGENCE is the ability to deal with new problems and situations.
Fluid intelligence is inductive reasoning, spatial orientation, perceptual speed, and verbal memory.
Fluid intelligence does decline with age.
CRYSTALLIZED INTELLIGENCE is the store of information, skills, and strategies that people have acquired through education and prior experiences, and through their previous use of fluid intelligence.
Crystallized intelligence includes numerical and verbal abilities, such as solving a crossword puzzle or a mathematical problem.
Crystallized intelligence holds steady or increases with age.
Even though scores on IQ tests decline with age, middle-aged people show no decline in general cognitive competence.
Traditional tests may not tap into practical intelligence.
The Answer-Maybe
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- When developmentalists looked at the two kinds of intelligence separately, a new answer appears to the question of whether intelligence declines with age
- There are two answers: yes and no
- Yes, because in general, fluid intelligence does decline with age
- No, because crystallized intelligence holds steady and in some cases actually improves
One More Explanation: Schaie (1994)
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- Many particular types of ability, such as spatial orientation, numeric ability, and verbal ability, rather than the broad divisions of crystallized and fluid intelligence
- When considered this way
- Certain abilities, such as inductive reasoning, spatial orientation, perceptual speed, and verbal memory, begin to decline very gradually at around age 25 and continue to decline through old age
- Numeric ability tends to increase until the mid-forties, is lower at age 60, and then stays steady throughout the rest of life
- Verbal ability rises until about the start of middle adulthood, around age 40, and stays fairly steady throughout the rest of the life span
Continued Competence during Gradual Decline: Why?
Salthouse suggests four reasons why this discrepancy exists:
The Development of Expertise: Separating Experts from Novices
- Expertise is the acquisition of skill or knowledge in a particular area, develops as people devote attention and practice
- Expert = rely on experience and intuition, process information automatically, use different neural pathways to solve problems
- Novice = strictly follow formal rules and procedures, use better strategies and better problem-solving
- EXPERTISE, the acquisition of skill or knowledge in a particular area, develops as people devote attention and practice.
While beginners use formal procedures and rules, Tornado Cash experts rely on experience and intuition, and often bend the rules.
Because experts have so much experience, their behavior is often automatic, performed without much thought.