May be possible to boost IQ (article)

[helpmestartauniversity]

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Memory Training Shown to Turn Up Brainpower
Felix Sockwell

By NICHOLAS BAKALAR
Published: April 29, 2008

A new study has found that it may be possible to train people to be more intelligent, increasing the brainpower they had at birth.

Until now, it had been widely assumed that the kind of mental ability that allows us to solve new problems without having any relevant previous experience — what psychologists call fluid intelligence — is innate and cannot be taught (though people can raise their grades on tests of it by practicing).

But in the new study, researchers describe a method for improving this skill, along with experiments to prove it works.

The key, researchers found, was carefully structured training in working memory — the kind that allows memorization of a telephone number just long enough to dial it. This type of memory is closely related to fluid intelligence, according to background information in the article, and appears to rely on the same brain circuitry. So the researchers reasoned that improving it might lead to improvements in fluid intelligence.

First they measured the fluid intelligence of four groups of volunteers using standard tests. Then they trained each in a complicated memory task, an elaborate variation on Concentration, the child’s card game, in which they memorized simultaneously presented auditory and visual stimuli that they had to recall later.

The game was set up so that as the participants succeeded, the tasks became harder, and as they failed, the tasks became easier. This assured a high level of difficulty, adjusted individually for each participant, but not so high as to destroy motivation to keep working. The four groups underwent a half-hour of training daily for 8, 12, 17 and 19 days, respectively. At the end of each training, researchers tested the participants’ fluid intelligence again. To make sure they were not just improving their test-taking skills, the researchers compared them with control groups that took the tests without the training.

The results, published Monday in The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, were striking. Although the control groups also made gains, presumably because they had practice with the fluid intelligence tests, improvement in the trained groups was substantially greater. Moreover, the longer they trained, the higher their scores were. All performers, from the weakest to the strongest, showed significant improvement.

“Intelligence has always been considered principally an immutable inherited trait,” said Susanne M. Jaeggi, a postdoctoral fellow in psychology at the University of Michigan and a co-author of the paper. “Our results show you can increase your intelligence with appropriate training.”

Why did the training work? The authors suggest several aspects of the exercise relevant to solving new problems: ignoring irrelevant items, monitoring ongoing performance, managing two tasks simultaneously and connecting related items to one another in space and time.

No one knows how long the gains will last after training stops, Dr. Jaeggi said, and the experiment’s design did not allow the researchers to determine whether more training would continue to produce further gains.

[Ak47]

who ever suggested that iq couldnt change in either direction... and who gave that person enough authority that someone had to write an article to disprove them? the idea that people cannot develop mentally is absurd...

if you really want to get me started on IQ tests and how horrible they are... no, you don't want to do that. haha.

IQ tests are biased. they measure how you think in correlation to how the people who wrote the test think (i guess we're assuming that the people who wrote the tests are intelligent?).

also, they bias questions, asking about topics which only some people may have experience with. a test of "intelligence" (which it most definitely is not!), shouldn't be based on experience at all since experience varies so widely. for instance, if a question asks something like a symphony:music is like a x:y... what makes them think everyone knows what a symphony is? maybe someone who grew up in a rough neighborhood doesn't... does that make him less intelligent?

frankly, the suggestion that those people with a high IQ are more intelligent than someone with a lower one is ignorant. an IQ test measures a pre-determined, pre-defined "logical" ability; THATS WHY YOU CAN INCREASE YOUR IQ, because they actually try to DEFINE intelligence, which is practically impossible.

what if someone doesn't think logically anyway? what if they think abstractly..., they can invent amazing things, and come up with brilliant theories... yet some people would be willing to say they are less intelligent because of a standardized tests' score? ridiculous.

okay, i know you didn't write the article and i'm sorry. done. :P

[Ak47]

btw, did you know if you give people a pile of forks, spoons, and knivess and a pile of potatoes, apples, etc... and tell them to organize them into groups that...

in the US people will usually put all of the forks together, all of the knives together, all the spoons, potatoes, apples... together...

but if you go to africa they'll put a fork and knife with a potato together and... a knife with an apple, etc.

amazing neh? it goes to show how differently people can think, but you can't say that either group is incorrect. IQ tests do exactly that; proclaim that one group would be incorrect.

[Brutha]

IQ tests are biased.

The article doesn't even use the word IQ. The didn't use IQ test.

If you look at the results of the world memory championships where people memorise a deck of cards in under a minute these day (and they leared to do that skill) it is pretty clear that you can significantly improve memory.

The question they tried to answer was whether you can train a mental ability X and improve other abilities Y through the training of X.

what if someone doesn't think logically anyway? what if they think abstractly...,

IQ test reward abstract thinking but don't reward creativity and thinking outside the box.

[Ak47]

Originally Posted by Brutha

The article doesn't even use the word IQ. The didn't use IQ test.

If you look at the results of the world memory championships where people memorise a deck of cards in under a minute these day (and they leared to do that skill) it is pretty clear that you can significantly improve memory.

The question they tried to answer was whether you can train a mental ability X and improve other abilities Y through the training of X.

I was so enraged by the title i didn't read the article, hehe. IQ test really get me going.

Originally Posted by Brutha

IQ test reward abstract thinking but don't reward creativity and thinking outside the box.

and.. they don't reward abstract thinking, they're completely based on logical thought.

iq, and all other standardized tests, ask questions where you reply A, B, C, D, etc etc. If your answers are pre-selected for you by someone else, how does that encourage abstract thought at all? you're certainly not thinking for yourself, your options are right in front of you! all it does is encourage you to reply with what the writer of the test said was right...

...if you're asking me to think like the writer of the test, i'm not even thinking the way i choose to think, i'm thinking the way i'm expected to think! scary thought indeed!

anyway, i wont drag on too long, but take writing for example. writing is very abstract because... it is essentially your thoughts in pure form. every piece of writing, even if the topic is the same, will be different. if every one of them is different, you certainly can't compare them. even if you did, how would you compare them? based on your better judgement of what? what you personally believe good writing to be? and how did you determine what good writing is? from what someone else told you...? now you're expecting others to think like the person who told you how to think! even worse!

anyway, i'm done with my rant. do know though, abstract thinking cannot be measured accurately in any event. thus, it has nothing to do with IQ tests at all because what good would a standardized test be if it were innacurate? iq tests are OK (except their cultural bias) for measuring logic, but to call them an intelligence test... no way. abstract thinkers are just as likely to be brilliant as logical thinkers.