As cognitive testing is such a broad term, what it evaluates encompasses a wide variety of skills, aptitudes and potentials. These include, as outlined by Thomas G. Plante's book "Contemporary Clinical Psychology," neurophysical functioning, including brain-behavior relationships, general intelligence functioning (such as reasoning and problem solving), pattern recognition, visual-perception skills, academic skills, specific cognitive skills (like visual and auditory memories), finger dexterity and motor function.
Aptitude testing was a term coined by Clark Leonard Hull. Hull, who received his doctorate in psychology, taught a 1928 course in psychological tests and measurements, which he renamed "aptitude testing." In the same year, he wrote a book of the same title describing these tests. Hull was known for believing psychology was a natural science and that its primary laws could be expressed quantitatively through mathematical equations. Even laws for group behavior, said Hull in 1930, were subject to these calculations.
The original purpose of cognitive tests, such as IQ testing, was to help maximize children's education by submitting them to these evaluative tests. Educators could take these results and prepare appropriate porgrams, whether they were for the mentally disabled or for the gifted and talented. They also were used to screen military recruits.
Cognitive tests, such as IQ tests, are still used for their original purposes. However, experts have expanded these purposes to include, as outlined by Plante, vocational planning, examining brain-behavior relationships after a stroke, head injury or other conditions affecting mental function, assessing learning disabilities and determining eligibility for certain programs.
Cognitive tests are not free of controversy. On the contrary, some of the most well-known tests such as IQ tests and the SAT have faced the most controversy over validity, meaning, reliability and usefulness. No standard definition of intelligence has been agreed upon by all experts, for instance, making any results from tests evaluating intelligence up for debate. IQ tests and the SAT also have faced criticism over racial and cultural biases. Even the creator of the IQ test, Alfred Binet, feared it would be misinterpreted. He feared his test would be used to assign a static, innate intelligence ability to the test-taker, which was not what it was designed to do.