Mental Age
Definition
Mental age refers to an individual's level of mental development relative to others. It was originally used in scoring early versions of IQ tests.
Analogy
Imagine your brain is a video game character. Your chronological age would be your character’s level – it increases as time passes no matter what you do. But your mental age? That’s more like your character’s skills or abilities – they can improve faster or slower depending on how much you train them!
Related terms
Chronological Age: This is simply the number of years a person has lived.
Cognitive Development: The process through which human beings learn and grow in their ability to think, solve problems, make decisions etc., often measured against their mental age.
Fluid Intelligence: This term refers to our ability to reason speedily and abstractly; tends to decrease during late adulthood but can be improved, much like increasing one's mental age.
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Practice Questions (2)
- What is the term for an individual's mental age divided by their chronological age, then multiplied by 100?
- Which early psychologist was a pioneer in developing an intelligence scale based on the concept of "mental age"?
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