Welcome Message on WAIS vis-a-Vis NSCI workshop, 4-8.12.17

Good morning

Respected Professor Manoranjan Pal,Acting Professor-in- charge of the Social Sciences

Division, Dr.Sujit Pal, Guest of Honour and Distinguished delegates coming from

different parts of the country, Dr.Himani Bhattacharya,my colleague. Due to unavoidable

cicumstances, our Director Prof. Sanghamitra Bandyopadhyay and the Head of the Unit

Professor Amita Majumdar could not attend.


Professor P.C.Mahalanobish, the founder of this Institute published his research on

Intelligence in Sankhya, the National Journal of Statistics edited by P.C.Mahalanobish.

It is published regularly from this Institute. In its first publication, the first

article was about Intelligence based on his own empirical research. Please find his

research in the souvenir. It was favourably received all over the world. Professor

assumed that statistics is represents a fundamental method of analysis of data in the

mass which is applicable to any science of observation, and to emphasize the essential

unity in the methodology of statistics. Sir, Psychology Research unit of ISI with its

limited resources carries forward his vision of statistics. In this workshop, besides

theory of Intelligence testing, knowledge will be disseminated on several basic and

multivariate statistics through very advanced computer programming software like SPSS

and R-Programming.

Sir, we are grateful to you for your support to all our endeavour. We are grateful to our Director for her support in revival of our unit by adding one faculty. 

With our limited man power and financial resources, we organize this workshop. In

selection, we have given priority on advanced trained persons and professionals who will

spread the knowledge in future. For the same, there are two stages in selection.

Besides, we will conduct online examination. I am sorry to say that I can not accept

many aspirants for this workshop.

Sir, this workshop is integrated systematically and well designed. Participants will

learn the history, theory, methods of test construction and various application in the

industry, health and School.


Sir, as convener, I was careful in selection of resource persons. In selection, the

inclusion criteria are (a)teaching to PG students on WAIS, (b)application of Non-social

cognition issues, (c)having knowledge of statistics and (d)innovative contributions.

In the inauguration, we get Dr.Sujit Pal. Dr. Pal is Deputy DPI (Training)
Department of Higher Education,Science and Technology and Biotechnology and OSD,
The West Bengal University of Teachers' Training, Education, Planning and

Administration,Kolkata. Sir, Despite your busy schedule, you are with us. I am thankful

to you for accepting our invitation. Sir, As convener of the Eastern Region of the

Indian Psychology Association, I am requesting you to think of the introduction of

school psychologists or psychologists in the state run schools. CBSE has started it but

ICSE board and state run schools are behind.

Both social and non-social cognition issues are important for child development. Some

children have very high social intelligence and receive high social acceptance. But

there are some children having high non-social intelligence and low social intelligence,

they are mistreated by the parents and schools that lead to depression. We are losing

huge good man-power for the same. In clinical psychology, we have observed that some

types of schizophrenic disorders like paranoid schizophrenia  are very high in non-

social cognition and poor in social cognition. Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale is

highly reliable and valid psychological instrument that gauges several cognitive

faculties. For the same, WAIS test is selected for this workshop.

Many distinguished resource persons are coming from North and South india. Dr.Alok

Mishra, Dr. Meena Mishra and Dr. Subodh Kumar are doing researches on 4-D mapping that

includes brain,DNA,Physiological and Cognive functions in Delhi. They will enlighten

their innovative research works with demonstration on 7th December. From South, DDr.

Lalitha Subramanian, Lecturer, Department of Clinical Psychology, Sri Ramchandra

University is coming to talk on application of WAIS in school Psychology. Professor Dibyagopal Mukherjee, very Senior Psychiatrist, HOD, Department of Psychiatry, R G Kar Medical College, Kolkata will chair the session.

Many people are not aware of the application of WAIS in the industry.From IIT.,

Kharagpur, our Ex-student Dr.Susmita Mukhopadhyay will be coming to enlighten us

application of WAIS in the Industry.

Today's WAIS has long history. It has many revisions. Dr. Sreemoyee
Tarafder, Head, Department of Psychology, West Bengal State University will talk about

the historical development of WAIS besides basic understanding about cognitive ability.

WAIS is often assumed as test of Intelligence, but this is not true. Scatter analysis of

WAIS subtests provides diagnostic information of psychiatric disorders. Professor Pritha
Mukhopadhyay, Professor, Department of Psychology, University of Calcutta will talk

about Working memory and scatter analysis. Mr. Prasanta Kumar Roy, Assistant

Professor,Psychiatry-Centre of Excellence, Kolkata (IOP-COE, Kolkata) will enlighten us

about clinical significance of WAIS.

WAIS is not like Binet's intelligence test. It has many subtests. The administration of

subtest, scoring and interpretation for each subtest is different. Dr. Usri

Banerjee,Professor, Department of Applied Psychology, University of Calcutta will train

us structure and content of WAIS,administration of WAIS and VCI.

It is misnomer to assume that there is no change in the factor structure of intelligence

subtests. Dr. Susmita Chatterjee, Assistant Professor, Department of Economics, Maharaja

Manindra Chandra College and Smt Ananya Mondal, Research Scholar, Department of

Psychology, University of Calcutta will talk on confirmatory factor structure of WAIS. 

My colleague Dr. Garga Chatterjee, my students Ms.Sumona Datta, sabornee Karmakar and me

will talk on Flynn effect,PCI, STANDARDIZATION AND NORMS respectively.

Professor S.P. Mukherjee  (Centenary Professor of Statistics at the University of

Calcutta, Prof P V Sukhatme Awardee for Senior Statisticians and P C Mahalanobis Birth

Centenary Awardee, Mentor of the indian association for Productivity, Quality &

Reliability has been kindly agreed to enlighten us through valedictory address.

This five days workshop includes 20 technical sessions in the names of significant
contributions of  scientists in the area of Non-Social Cognition or Intelligence – Alfred Binet
(1857-1911), David Wechsler(1896-1981), Prasanta Chandra Mahalanobis (1893-
1972),Raymond Cattell(1905-1998),John B.Caroll(1916-2003),John L. Horn (1928-2006),
Alan Baddeley(1934-),Plato(Circa 428 B.C.E.-Circa 348 B.C.E.), Guilford J.P.(1897-
1987),Karl Gustav Jöreskog(1935-),Carl Friedrich Gauss (1777-1855),  Gestalt School ( Max
Wertheimer, Fritz Perls, Kurt Koffka, Wolfgang Köhler, 1886 Onwards), Ed Diener(1946-),
Joseph Tiffin (1905-1989),Ernest J. Mccormick (1911), Paul Broca (1824-1880),Howard
Gardner (1943-),Hans Berger(1873-1941),Robert Sternberg(1949-),Flynn(1934- ).

This 5-day training programme includes three breaks everyday- tea, lunch and coffee break. Food will be provided at the respective places. One evaluation based certificate will be given to you on the last day during the valedictory session. Evaluation will be based on multiple choice questions. 50% is the cutoff marks to get evaluation based certificates I deeply acknowledge the academic contribution of invited speakers, resource persons and the dignitaries of the training programme. Hope there will be more fruitful discussion between the resource persons and the participants to make the workshop a success. Finally, I welcome all of you to this August gathering.