For adults (those above 18 years of age) there is a common test for IQ, the most popular of which is the WAIS (Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale). Wechsler’s departure from a single measure of intelligence offered by the Stanford-Binet test evolved from his recognition that intelligence may have more than one dimension.
Growing recognition of these multiple dimensions led to subsequent revisions of the Wechsler tests to include measures of verbal comprehension, perceptional reasoning, working memory, and processing speed. WAIS-IV, the fourth edition of the Wechsler tests, released by Pearson in 2008, has 10 subtests and 5 supplemental tests that summarize intelligence with two measures–a final IQ score and a General Ability Index, along with scores on the four scales described above It is the most widely-used test for adolescents and adults.
The WAIS is age-normed across age-groups up to and including 70–74 years. The WAIS manual enables a psychometrician to convert an absolute score on the WAIS to an age-related score to adjust for the gradual cognitive decline that occurs with age.
The kinds of test items measuring of each of the four scales (or indices) of WAIS IV are given below:
• verbal comprehension: vocabulary, information, identifying similarities, comprehension
• perceptional reasoning: picture completion, block design, matrix reasoning
• working memory: arithmetic, digit span, letter-number reasoning
• processing speed: digit symbol coding, symbol search
More details are provided in the book, Intelligence, IQ & Perception.
The verbal comprehension and working memory scales are a measure of “verbal IQ” while the perceptional reasoning and processing speed scales are usually considered to measure reasoning power or mental acuity. Of course, it’s important to remember that IQ tests, although offering the best measure of intelligence that we have, are unable to measure imagination, creativity or long-term problem solving ability. Hence, they should be interpreted as only one rough estimate of your total intelligence. For more information, visit: What are the best tests for measuring your IQ? – Intelligence and IQ
