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It is generally and rightly considered a virtue in a teacher to observe accurately the differences in ability among his pupils, and to discover the direction in which the nature of each particularly inclines him. There is an incredible amount of variability in talent, and the forms of minds are no less varied than the forms of bodies Quintilian (70 A. D. ) There are many good books on Intelligence, such as Cattell's (1971) monumen tal and original contribution, or Matarazzo's (1972) careful and scholarly analy sis, or Butchers (1968) excellent introduction. Other outstanding contributions are mentioned in the course of this volume. This suggests that an author must have a good reason for venturing to offer another tome where so much is already available to satisfy even the most discriminating customer. There is indeed a powerful reason why the time may be ripe for another book on intelli is a very simple one: much has happened in recent years to gence. This reason alter our views on many issues which at one time looked like being closed. Hardly any of these advances have found a place in the books now available, and it seemed desirable to incorporate them in a new text which would be as up to-date as it is possible to be considering the inevitable delays in writing and publishing a textbook.
The history of testing mental abilities has seen the dominance of two contrasting approaches, psychometrics and neuropsychology. These two traditions have different theories and methodologies, but overlap considerably in the tests they use. Historically, psychometrics has emphasized the primacy of a general factor, while neuropsychology has emphasized specific abilities that are dissociable. This issue about the nature of human mental abilities is important for many practical concerns. Questions such as gender, ethnic, and age-related differences in mental abilities are relatively easy to address if they are due to a single dominant trait. Presumably such a trait can be measured with any collection of complex cognitive tests. If there are many specific mental abilities, these would be much harder to measure and associated social issues would be more difficult to resolve. The relative importance of general and specific abilities also has implications for educational practices. This book includes the diverse opinions of experts from several fields including psychometrics, neuropsychology, speech language and hearing, and applied psychology.