Individual Differences

Abstract

The publication of four new textbooks in the general field of mental testing makes information about all types of psychological measuring instru ments more readily available than it has been heretofore. These books by Mursell (1), Cronbach (2), Goodenough (3), and Freeman (4) include discus sions of the projective techniques as well as the traditional types of tests, and all place considerable emphasis on the interp r etation of test results. Mursell, Goodenough, and Freeman have chapters which summarize the principal research findings in individual differences. A new French text in differential psychology by Pieron (5) is also available. NEW TESTS AND TECHNIQUESLundin (6) has developed a new set of music tests based on musical tasks more complex than those called for by the Seashore battery. They include such performances as interval discrimination, melodic transposition, mode discrimination, melodic sequences, and rhythmic sequences. He reports re liabilities of .85 or higher and a correlation of .69 with theory grades. It is not clear, however, that the validity coefficient would be that high had the students taken the test before undergoing the theory training. These tests illustrate one of the main trends in recent work in that they make no pre tense of identifying native, unlearned talents.Listening ability, or the ability to comprehend orally presented verbal material, has been investigated by Brown (7). His test includes such mate rials as oral directions, grasping word meanings through contextual cues, getting details and central ideas, etc. The fact that scores on the test show only low correlations with intelligence, reading comprehension, and high school achievement would seem to indicate that some new variable is repre sented in the listening situation, but its nature is not apparent.An important series of studies by Witkin (8,9) and by Witkin & Wapner (10) has been concerned with the way in which people perceive the upright position when visual and kinesthetic cues are varied. They find that there are marked individual differences in the ability to maintain correct spatial orien-1 The period covered by this review extends from June, 1949 through May, 1950, but a few papers with earlier dates have been included if they seemed important and had not been previously reviewed. There are undoubtedly a number of omissions. Not quite all of the British and almost none of the Continental publications were available to the author. On the whole, the coverage is probably fairly adequate for the British and American work, but does not extend beyond it. 95 Annu. Rev. Psychol. 1951.2:95-112. Downloaded from www.annualreviews.org Access provided by University of California -San Diego on 02/02/15. For personal use only. Quick links to online content Further ANNUAL REVIEWS

Spatial ability: A neglected dimension in talent searches for intellectually precocious youth.

“…E. Snow et al, 1996;Tyler, 1974;Williamson, 1965). Although the latter clearly influence the educational-vocational niches that people self-select into (approach), the niches that people select out of (avoid) are influenced by the former (Gottfredson, 2003;Lubinski, 2004;Scarr, 1996;Scarr & McCartney, 1983).…”

Mathematically facile adolescents with math-science aspirations: New perspectives on their educational and vocational development.

“…We cannot afford to ignore the impact that individual differences have on influencing the immediate decision-making processes of individuals or on structuring their subsequent long-term development. As Tyler (1974) emphasized, "a complex society cannot regard its members as identical interchangeable parts of a social machine" (p. 5). Although individual difference assessments are critical for the study of educational-vocational choice and performance after choice, how we choose to apply that knowledge is not a scientific question; it is a question of values.…”

“…In addition, interest patterns show that, from an early age, men more exclusively focus on investigative and theoretical pursuits, whereas women are more equally divided among these areas and artistic and social domains (Achter, Lubinski, & Benbow, 1996;Lubinski & Humphreys, 1990;Schmidt et al, 1998). Collectively, ability and interest patterns are among the most important types of information to consider for educationalϪvocational counseling (Dawis, 1992;Tyler, 1974).…”