Greetings. We continue to study the 'Psychodiagnostics and Psychological Assessment' course. I hope that you have done the test successfully. Now we start the third theme. It will be dedicated to psychodiagnostics of intelligence, and I want to remind you that the intelligence and the person are separated in classical psychodiagnostics. From one side, they are considered as connecting units in theory. But from another side, they are considered as separated in practice. Definitively and indisputably. And I also want to remark that psychodiagnostics, as a science and as a practice, has begun with psychodiagnostics of cognitive abilities. The ability is an individual psychological feature of a person, which promotes to the success in any kind of activity. So, the level of activity success is a criterion of abilities severity. It implies comparing a person with another people in order to understand this level value. For example, we need to compare rapidity r value of expenditure of energy or something else. There are specific mental abilities and general abilities. A specific mental ability involve understanding the outside world. They also involve processing outside information and reasoning with it through representation in the mind. A specific mental ability is connected with high mental process. When we try to measure a specific mental ability in psychodiagnostics, we use motor ability tests at first. In this case, we test a precision in movement, speed of arm movements, visual coordination of movement, kinesthetic coordination of movement, finger dexterity, reaction time, tremor, and so on. Each of specific mental abilities is very particular, so results obtained in different tests are not correlated. Thus, we can conclude that higher level of one specific ability, for example, an absolute ear for music, does not affect other people's qualities. We need special devices for most of motor abilities tests. They can be relatively simple. For example, a plate with drilled holes in which the testee has to insert metal or wooden rods in a limited amount of time. But there is a special device printed to computer. It can be a special button which you need to click as fast as possible with the appearance of a luminal signal or a special sound, etc. High level of motor abilities training complicates the development of reliable methods. Sensory motor ability testing appeared in the experimental research of perception. We applied tests to measure visual acuity, discrimination sensitivity, color discrimination, depth perception, and eye muscle balance by studying the visual ability. And we applied this to measure hearing acuity, signal-noise discrimination, an adequate response to the increased sounds, tone, pitch sounds by studying the aural perception. In fact, there are psychophysiological and physiological methods. All of us have been faced with them at least a few times in our life at the doctor. Well, I would like to pay special attention to Bender's Visual Motor Gestalt Test at the end of today's lecture. It is the first of the techniques which is part of the world's top 10 most popular and most used psychological tests. That test is used to evaluate visual motor maturity, to screen developmental disorders, or to assess neurological function or brain damage. The original test consist of nine figures. The psychologist shows each figure to a testee, and asks to copy it into a piece of blank paper. The test typically takes from seven to 10 minutes, after which the results are scored based on accuracy and other characteristics. It measures perceptual motor skills, perceptual motor development, and gives an indication of neurological intactness. It has been used as a personality test, and a test of emotional problems. That's all there is to it. At the end of the lecture, you will find home assignment. I offer you to find, on the Internet, the description of any specific mental abilities tests, and to share it with other students of the course. Bye.
