Memory Training and Fluid Intelligence

Quick update: 2 very inter­est­ing news, 2 excel­lent blog carnivals.

1) For­get Brain Age: Researchers Devel­op Soft­ware That Makes You Smarter (Wired). Thanks Senia!

- “In a lim­it­ed tri­al, he and his team were able to make 34 test sub­jects sig­nif­i­cant­ly bet­ter at answer­ing IQ test ques­tions after train­ing them on a com­plete­ly sep­a­rate mem­o­ry task”

-“These are intrigu­ing results,” Geary said. How­ev­er, Geary not­ed that to claim actu­al increas­es in flu­id intel­li­gence, the sub­jects would have to show the per­for­mance gains over a long-term peri­od — or even permanently.

-The Michi­gan researchers are now engaged in study­ing the long-term effects of train­ing. They are also work­ing to increase the amount of train­ing that users under­go. In the exper­i­ment report­ed in PNAS, the researchers did not find the upper-lim­it for improve­ment, sug­gest­ing that more train­ing could yield even bet­ter men­tal per­for­mance gains.

-“The improve­ment seems to be dosage depen­dent,” Buschkuehl said. “We saw a lin­ear increase in per­for­mance with increase in train­ing time.”

See paper pub­lished at Pro­ceed­ings of the Nation­al Acad­e­my of Sciences

Com­ment: very inter­est­ing research study show­ing the ben­e­fits of com­put­er­ized cog­ni­tive train­ing, or “brain train­ing”, as a form of well-direct­ed and intense men­tal exercise.

2) Now, Would you like to remem­ber every day of your life (Orange Coun­ty Reg­is­ter). Thanks Tom!

-“Most have called it a gift,” she wrote to McGaugh. “But I call it a bur­den. I run my entire life through my head every day and it dri­ves me crazy!”

Com­ment: believe it or not, we should be hap­py that our mem­o­ries are not perfect…(still, some train­ing is prob­a­bly good for most of us who are not exact­ly there).

3) And 2 great blog carnivals:

Encephalon: best of neu­ro­science and psy­chol­o­gy blog posts

Grand Rounds: best of health and med­ical blog posts