A paper published in Nature finds that brain training games do not boost general problem solving abilities.
In the study of more than 11,400 healthy adults, those who played brain-training games did get better at the specific tasks involved in the games, such as solving mathematical problems, but these improvements did not transfer into any other general mental abilities.
You have to be born smart - at least until gene therapies and cell therapies enable you to boost your general intelligence.
A review of the research literature also didn't find a big benefit.
Peter Snyder, a professor of neurology at Brown University’s Alpert Medical School and vice president of research at Lifespan Hospitals in Rhode Island, published a review last year of the existing literature on brain training games, concluding it was both sparse and inconsistent, as this Globe story said.
Snyder makes some salient comments about this latest study. Click thru and read his critical points. One point: The brain training study was rather short. A more intensive brain training program would be needed to try to detect general improvements in intelligence.
A lot of people want to think of the brain as akin to a muscle which you can make stronger by exercising it. Brains can learn and develop useful skills for processing information. But brains can't exercise there way to greater intellectual capacity.
| Share | | Randall Parker, 2010 April 20 10:58 PM Brain Performance |
improving fluid intelligence with training on working memory — PNAS
http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2008/04/25/0801268105.abstract
"improving intelligence is possible after all"
http://www.pnas.org/content/105/19/6791.full
If you dig deep enough into Jaeggi's paper, their may be a problem with her methodology. I am going to find out.
oops, sorry for the double post but this group has the scoop:
http://groups.google.com/group/brain-training/browse_thread/thread/5c7247e00fe9bca9
Randall,
I would also think - even if raw IQ cannot be significantly boosted - possibly because it is tied to specific structural capacities of the brain - that - at the very least - critical thinking skills would be positively developed.
Of course - that is likely just due to the interactive nature of the medium (just like surfing the net) - but it's a heck of a lot more productive than the passive entertainment that so many citizens - particularly in western countries - are constantly entranced by.
I'd rather be surrounded by Densans who at least have the intellectual curiosity (and attention span) to at least listen to my explanations - even if they can't fully grasp some of the deeper concepts behind them.
(i.e. amongst friends/co-workers of similar intelligence - I've found those who play video games, read regularly, or multi task on the net - to be far more aware then those who are obsessed with watching sports programs or infotainment TV - the latter of which simply shuts down when exposed to unfamiliar information)
We have to think why the muscles respond to training. The muscles don't get stronger because they are used. Muscles are designed to have a range of ability where they tradeoff an optimization between strength and low maintenance requirements. If the brain had such a range in its design, we would need to observe an advantage for it to optimize for the 'dumber' side of that range. I'm not sure that metabolic requirements of the brain can be changed much.
I don't think that most people are doing brain training to improve their IQ (or whatever) - I think that they are doing it to maintain congitive abilities that they feel are slipping away from them. Keeping their brain active and exercised.
medications certainly work. NRIs like strattera and substances like ritalin.
theres these two rangas at my school and they suck eachothers dick for money is this normal?
If you train on a thing, being it with your brain or a muscle you, well ahh, will get better at it.
But yea, obviously if you train your brain to do better at math it doesn't mean you are going to understand the heisenberg principle any faster. Guess I don't see the relevance of this study at all.
If I play first person shooters I am going to able to analyze my environment in the real World with more finesse than someone who doesn't, because I've trained my brain to better analyze 3 dimensional scenes. I see a difference when I go hiking and work with topographic maps in this respect.
It's a no brainer...
There is a big difference between serious brain training programs based on peer reviewed research and casual brain games that have no scientific validation. Frankly, the market hasn't done a very good job of explaining what a real brain training program is, including the need for scheduled blocks of training time. Here is a site that helps to separate validated brain training programs from casual brain games : http://www.braingamereview.com
What about n-back training? Supposedly MIT, if my fact are correct, has shown an increase in fluid intelligence and short term memory from the use of this type of training software.