Mind Cracked

Modern psychology leans to the theory that the human mind is a piece of machinery, which can be measured by the way it acts on raw material. Thus the psychologists feed into the machine a set of questions called an intelligence test, lump the answers together as one product and weigh it, labeling the weight the I. Q. But one school of psychologists, believing the I. Q. is too crude a measure (like lumping apples, oranges and bananas all together and calling them fruit), has been trying to break up the mind into its separate parts. Last week the most eminent investigator in this field reported some significant findings.*

Big-eared, sandy-haired Dr. Louis Leon Thurstone is a mathematician as well as a psychologist. Scorning the vague, wordy theories of most psychologists, he likes to reduce psychology to mathematical formulae. Once Thomas Edison's assistant, he devised trade tests for the U. S. Army during the War, taught engineering at the University of Minnesota and psychology at Carnegie Institute until 1923. Since then he has been at the University of Chicago and last week he was made head of its famed psychology department. He has been president of the American Psychological Association, his intelligence tests are used in many a U. S. school, but though his name is widely known, few people, even on the Chicago campus, have ever seen Professor Thurstone. With his dark-haired wife, Thelma, who collaborates in his research, he works constantly in his narrow office and his laboratory, hopes his three boys will all be scientists.

For six years Dr. Thurstone, like a biochemist isolating vitamins, has been cracking up the human mind into its primary functions. He started with a tentative list of about half-a-dozen theoretical functions, created a set of 56 tests to probe them. Samples: P: Synonyms, anagrams--to test ability in the use of words. P: Disarranged true & false sentences: "large is an beast ant a"--to test perception. P: Tests of verbal reasoning: All pigs can fly, and all elephants are pigs, therefore all elephants can fly. Answer: The argument is correct.

Some radishes are rumble-seats, and some rumble-seats sing soprano; therefore some radishes sing soprano. Answer: False (because the rumble-seats that sing soprano may not be radishes).

Dr. Thurstone gave his 56 tests to 240 students whose I. Q.'s were above average. But when the students had answered the questions, Dr. Thurstone's work had only begun. He proceeded to compare, analyze and plot the scores, to sift out, with exceedingly complex mathematical formulae of his own invention, the separate mental abilities he had measured. He found seven: ability in 1) numbers, 2) words, 3) visual imagery, 4) memory, 5) perception, 6) induction (finding a rule governing a set of facts), 7) verbal reasoning. Dr. Thurstone also isolated two additional factors that he was unable to identify definitely but tentatively called deduction and problem solving. The fact that his findings did not quite agree with his original theories seemed to Dr. Thurstone proof of the validity of his tests. He had expected to find only one verbal factor, actually discovered two--word fluency and verbal reasoning.

Dr. Thurstone's tests furnished scientific evidence that, while people who rank high in one mental ability are likely to score well in the others, frequently an individual may be strong in one faculty, weak in another. Thus people of superior intellect sometimes have poor memory. An individual may have a good memory for faces and a poor one for names, or vice versa. In the one case he ranks low in ability with words; in the other, he is deficient in visual imagery.

Significant was Dr. Thurstone's discovery that the work people like to do is likely to correspond with their particular mental abilities. One of his students who ranked high in verbal abilities planned to go into advertising and writing, while a student who scored high in perception but low in solving problems wanted to be an actor. Dr. Thurstone concluded that his findings not only made the general intelligence test obsolete but had two profound implications for education: 1) His tests will make it easier to find the occupation for which an individual is fitted; 2) It may be possible to train and improve the particular mental abilities in which an individual is weak.

*Primary Mental Abilities, by Louis Leon Thurstone (University of Chicago Press).

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