Abstract
Raven’s Progressive Matrices is a widely used test for assessing intelligence and reasoning ability (Raven, Court, & Raven, 1998). Since the test is nonverbal, it can be applied to many different populations and has been used all over the world (Court & Raven, 1995). However, relatively few matrices are in the sets developed by Raven, which limits their use in experiments requiring large numbers of stimuli. For the present study, we analyzed the types of relations that appear in Raven’s original Standard Progressive Matrices (SPMs) and created a software tool that can combine the same types of relations according to parameters chosen by the experimenter, to produce very large numbers of matrix problems with specific properties. We then conducted a norming study in which the matrices we generated were compared with the actual SPMs. This study showed that the generated matrices both covered and expanded on the range of problem difficulties provided by the SPMs.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Arendasy, M., & Sommer, M. (2005). The effect of different types of perceptual manipulations on the dimensionality of automatically generated figural matrices. Intelligence, 33, 307–324. doi:10.1016/j.intell.2005.02.002
Carpenter, P. A., Just, M. A., & Shell, P. (1990). What one intelligence test measures: A theoretical account of the processing in the Raven Progressive Matrices Test. Psychological Review, 97, 404–431. doi:10.1037/0033-295X.97.3.404
Cattell, R. B. (1963). Theory of fluid and crystallized intelligence: A critical experiment. Journal of Educational Psychology, 54, 1–22. doi:10.1037/h0046743
Christoff, K., Prabhakaran, V., Dorfman, J., Zhao, Z., Kroger, J. K., Holyoak, K. J., & Gabrieli, J. D. E. (2001). Rostrolateral prefrontal cortex involvement in relational integration during reasoning. NeuroImage, 14, 1136–1149. doi:10.1006/nimg.2001.0922
Court, J. H., & Raven, J. (1995). Manual for Raven’s progressive matrices and vocabulary scales: Section 7, Research and references. San Antonio: Harcourt Assessment.
Crone, E. A., Wendelken, C., van Leijenhorst, L., Honomichl, R. D., Christoff, K., & Bunge, S. A. (2009). Neurocognitive development of relational reasoning. Developmental Science, 12, 55–66. doi:10.1111/j.1467-7687.2008.00743.x
Green, K. E., & Kluever, R. C. (1992). Components of item difficulty of Raven’s matrices. Journal of General Psychology, 119, 189–199.
Halford, G. S., Wilson, W. H., & Phillips, S. (1998). Processing capacity defined by relational complexity: Implications for comparative, developmental, and cognitive psychology. Behavioral & Brain Sciences, 21, 803–831. doi:10.1017/S0140525X98001769
Meo, M., Roberts, M. J., & Marucci, F. S. (2007). Element salience as a predictor of item difficulty for Raven’s Progressive Matrices. Intelligence, 35, 359–368. doi:10.1016/j.intell.2006.10.001
Primi, R. (2002). Complexity of geometric inductive reasoning tasks: Contribution to the understanding of fluid intelligence. Intelligence, 30, 41–70. doi:10.1016/S0160-2896(01)00067-8
Raven, J. C., Court, J. H., & Raven, J. (1998). Raven’s progressive matrices. Oxford: Oxford Psychologists Press.
Roberts, M. J., Welfare, H., Livermore, D. P., & Theadom, A. M. (2000). Context, visual salience, and inductive reasoning. Thinking & Reasoning, 6, 349–374. doi:10.1080/135467800750038175
Waltz, J. A., Knowlton, B. J., Holyoak, K. J., Boone, K. B., Mishkin, F. S., de Menezes Santoa, M., et al. (1999). A system for relational reasoning in human prefrontal cortex. Psychological Science, 10, 119–125. doi:10.1111/1467-9280.00118
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Additional information
This work was supported by the Laboratory Directed Research and Development program at Sandia National Laboratories. Sandia is a multiprogram laboratory operated by Sandia Corporation, a Lockheed Martin Company, for the United States Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration under Contract DE-AC04-94AL85000.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Matzen, L.E., Benz, Z.O., Dixon, K.R. et al. Recreating Raven’s: Software for systematically generating large numbers of Raven-like matrix problems with normed properties. Behavior Research Methods 42, 525–541 (2010). https://doi.org/10.3758/BRM.42.2.525
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/BRM.42.2.525