The Plasticity of “Intelligence” At Different Levels of Analysis

Abstract

Training and structured learning can undoubtedly enhance achievement in the form of knowledge and skills. Training effects will fade at the higher levels of the hierarchy—the primary factors and the general factor. Current information processing models of intelligence view a number of elementary cognitive processes (ECP) and metaprocesses (MP) as the basic underpinnings of intellectual achievement. One central question in this line of research concerns the trainability of the ECPs and MPs and the plasticity of individual differences therein. Different MPs are intercorrelated because they share certain elementary processes in common and also because the experiential factors that inculcate MP are correlated in the educational and cultural environment. It is probably at the level of MP that cultural differences have their primary impact. Various processes can also be identified by the use of partial correlations or by a factor analysis of a combination of various tasks intended to tap different processes.