Nowadays we live in a world of modern technologies that are being developed and implemented into practice and everyday life each day, sometimes one cannot even track the newly invented technology because of the great speed they are being produced. This particular issue will be discussed in the following article.
"Intelligence" was traditionally defined as "the global capacity to act purposefully, to think rationally, and to deal effectively with his environment". However, Gardner defined it as "the capacity to solve problems or to fashion products that are valued in one or more cultural setting". More precisely, he used the method of factor analysis to term intelligence. There were multiple intelligences: verbal linguistic, mathematical/logical, visual/spatial, bodily/kinaesthetic, musical intelligence, interpersonal intelligence, and intrapersonal intelligence. This approach was widely accepted, though, is it a realistic and useful approach to the understanding of intelligence? Firstly, the role of some of these intelligences was obscured such as musical intelligence. Gardner termed musical intelligence as the ability to produce and appreciate rhythm, pitch and timbre; and appreciate the forms of musical expressiveness. It could be interpreted as a passive experience that requires no knowledge about music, or development of identifiable musical skills. The real meaning of musical intelligence was hard to be identified, so there would be difficulties in measuring and evaluating behaviour. It was also suspected that to what extent the musical intelligence could reflect the general intelligence. Although there were studies suggested that the importance of music in primary education as well as in musical education, the statistic that supported it was rare. Therefore, the validity of musical intelligence was unsure.
In addition, Gardner's approach of intelligence might not be completed. He ignored some factor such as memory ability which was important for academic achievement especially. In contrast, Thurstone included memory as one factor in his "primary mental abilities". Next, Colin Cooper raise a question in his book "intelligence and abilities": why sexual performance was not a factor of intelligence. Cooper found that sexual performance was highly regarded within some cultures. According to Gardner's principle, intelligence as a "capacity are valued in one or more culture setting", sexual performance could be a factor of measuring intelligence. Moreover, aptitude and optimism that suggested by Seligman were interested. The optimistic people were found to cope the pressure of working easier than less optimistic staff. The issue of intelligence might cover even more abilities except memory ability, sexual ability, and optimistic level.
Thirdly, the independence of each factor was obscured. It was proposed that there was a causal link between music and spatial intelligence. So the performance of musical intelligence and spatial intelligence were related. The statistic analyses of the self-report measure of the seven intelligences from the second year psychology student in JMU also supported this statement. The correlation coefficient between musical and spatial intelligences was 0.23, P<0.01, it was significant. Furthermore, the data analysing indicated there was not significant correlation between maths and three other factors (musical, interpersonal, and intrapersonal intelligence).
Intrapersonal intelligence did not correlate with kinaesthetic and interpersonal intelligence significantly either. The rest of correlations between two factors were significant. As the result, correlation coefficients between16 pairs of factors were significant and 5 sets were non-significant or non-correlation. Therefore, most of these factors were significantly correlation coefficient with each other. If each factor was not independent completely, there might be a general intelligence instead of seven intelligences. Spearman raised an idea of general intelligence. Spearman found that a child who performed well on one of tests tended to be good on other ability tests, and whose score was on an average level was unlikely to shine on any others. Consequently, Spearman concluded that there was a general factor influenced the intelligence.
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