The abilities of man : their nature and measurement / by C. Spearman.

  • Charles Spearman
Date:
1927
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The abilities of man : their nature and measurement / by C. Spearman. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    179/474 page 167
    This third form of process, although just as abundant in ordinary life as the preceding one, seems hitherto to have in strange degree escaped psychological notice. But this time there is perhaps more excuse ; for here the analysis often does encounter very great difficulty. Nevertheless, several highly important theorems have now been established about it; overtopping all else is the discovery that this process supplements the two preceding ones, so that together the three make up absolutely all the cognition (other than purely reproductive) of which the human mind is ever in any circumstances capable. With regard to mapping out the region supplied by this third law, the same may be said as above in respect of the second. We have only to go through the several classes of relations and the possible kinds of fundaments. DETECTION OF G WITH ALL TEN RELATIONS Procedure. Our next course, then, is to examine each class of relation to see whether the eductive processes characterized by it do or do not involve the general factor g. To prove that they do involve it, we have to show that they are among the abilities where—on duly eliminating manifest overlap—every tetrad of correlations satisfies the tetrad equation to just the extent that should be expected from the errors of sampling.1 1 A further resource is conveniently at our disposal. When the presence of g in any ability cannot be proved by showing this ability to satisfy the tetrad equation, it may sometimes still be provable by the indirect method of showing the ability to correlate with some further one that does satisfy this criterion. For the preceding chapter has indicated that all correlation (other than spurious) either derives from g or else is due to overlap. Con¬ sequently, then, whenever overlap cannot be suspected, any correlation that makes its appearance must be taken as due to the presence of g.
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