Artistic ability and general intelligence.

Abstract

Introduction. In analyses of the relationship between various abilities and general intelligence, certain ones have appeared to be but slightly, if at all, related to ability in general, and to these the designation of special abilities or talents has been applied. Theoretically, artistic ability has been denoted as one of these, since " artistic aptitudes appear to be controlled primarily by special gifts rather than by general ability" (29, p. 505 ).3 Actual evidence in support of this contention exists, however, only for that limited phase of artistic performance which has been designated as representative drawing. Furthermore, statistical data supplying such evidence of a low degree of relationship between general intelligence and ability in representative drawing have been derived, in the main, from investigations dealing with unselected groups, such as those of Ayer (2), Elderton (8), Fischlovitz (9), and Ivanoff (16). These studies have uniformly shown low, positive correlations between measures of the two variables.4Complete agreement with these findings does not appear in the results of studies dealing with subjects selected for superior ability in art as manifested in other activities in addition to representation of single objects. The investigations of Kerschensteiner (17), Kik (18) and Terman (38) indicate that

A study comparing art abilities and general intelligence of college students.

“…These findings would agree with those of Kik, 20 Kerschensteiner, 19 Terman SM ° and others who studied younger children or their 'drawing' ability. The findings of Tiebout and Meier, 31 Peck, 27 and others to the effect that a decided drop in correlation is found beginning with adolescence does not follow here, unless we might decide that art ability and general intelligence again show higher correlations with more mature people. Neither of these studies used college subjects.…”

The Relation of Intelligence to Art Ability

“…Perhaps the most extensive study done at the senior high school level in the 30's was by Tiebout and Meier (28). In conjunction with their study at the elementary level for which Tiebout was mainly responsible, Meier conducted the first careful study at the senior high school level.…”

The role of language handicap in the development of artistic interest.

“…These results would give the impression that artistic interest is marked by low academic intelligence. Meier [14] found that artistic success is marked by high intelligence. Two factors which must be considered in judging the relationship between intelligence and interest are (1) the nature of the interpretation of "intelligence" and the method of its measurement, and (2) the coverage of the sampling.…”