NATURE OF MENTAL ABILITIES

Presents a theory that organizes mental abilities into four levels-composite tasks, subtasks, information-processing components, and information-processing metacomponents. Composite tasks can be decomposed into subtasks, and subtasks into components. Metacomponents control the use of components in composite tasks and subtasks. The article describes each of these levels of mental abilities, poses the fundamental theoretical questions relevant at each level, and proposes answers to these questions. The role of factors in the theory is described and is shown to be quite different from the role of factors in traditional theories of mental abilities. Full understanding of mental abilities requires understanding of all four levels. (46 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2006 APA, all rights reserved). © 1979 American Psychological Association.