cognitive-skill

Testing and training cognitive ability: Key Neurotech Patent #16

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training cognitive ability
– Illus­tra­tive image from U.S. Patent No. 6,632,174

Today we are fea­tur­ing a key 2003 patent assigned to Cog­nifit ltd — fas­ci­nat­ing to reflect how the brain train­ing field has evolved in 14 years! (As men­tioned, we are fea­tur­ing a foun­da­tion­al Per­va­sive Neu­rotech patent a day, from old­er to new­er by issue date)

U.S. Patent No. 6,632,174: Method and Appa­ra­tus for test­ing and train­ing cog­ni­tive ability

  • Assignee(s): Cog­nifit ltd
  • Inventor(s): Shlo­mo Breznitz
  • Tech­nol­o­gy Cat­e­go­ry: Neu­rocog­ni­tive Training
  • Issue Date: Octo­ber 14, 2003

SharpBrains’ Take:

The Detailed Descrip­tion of the ‘174 patent accu­rate­ly con­tex­tu­alis­es the teach­ings of the patent when it recites “the present inven­tion uti­lizes analy­sis, men­tal exer­cise and inter­ven­tion in an attempt to increase cog­ni­tive abil­i­ties, improve speed of reac­tion, and train both func­tion­al cog­ni­tive atten­tion­al, per­cep­tu­al, and lin­guis­tic abil­i­ties and var­i­ous aspects of mem­o­ry.” [Read more…] about Test­ing and train­ing cog­ni­tive abil­i­ty: Key Neu­rotech Patent #16

Test your concentration and mental self-rotation skills with this quick brainteaser

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map-reading

What is men­tal self-rotation?

It is the cog­ni­tive skill to imag­ine your­self in dif­fer­ent loca­tions in space and to imag­ine your­self mov­ing accord­ing­ly. We need that skill in every­day activ­i­ties such as read­ing a map or find­ing our car in the park­ing lot. [Read more…] about Test your con­cen­tra­tion and men­tal self-rota­tion skills with this quick brainteaser

Study finds n‑back cognitive training can increase fluid intelligence (especially outside the USA)

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workingmemoryImprov­ing flu­id intel­li­gence with train­ing on work­ing mem­o­ry: a meta-analy­sis (Psy­cho­nom­ic Bul­letin & Review):

“…due to the broad inter­est in cog­ni­tive train­ing, lab­o­ra­to­ries around the world are inves­ti­gat­ing the effects of train­ing and trans­fer. In fact, the first study of n‑back train­ing on Gf (flu­id intel­li­gence) was con­duct­ed in Switzerland…and from our own expe­ri­ences con­duct­ing research both inter­na­tion­al­ly and in the U.S., we have anec­do­tal­ly observed [Read more…] about Study finds n‑back cog­ni­tive train­ing can increase flu­id intel­li­gence (espe­cial­ly out­side the USA)

Study: Music Training Can Enhance Verbal Intelligence and Executive Function

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Very inter­est­ing new study pub­lished in Psy­cho­log­i­cal Sci­ence: Short-Term Music Train­ing Enhances Ver­bal Intel­li­gence and Exec­u­tive Func­tion.

Abstract: Researchers have designed train­ing meth­ods that can be used to improve men­tal health and to test the effi­ca­cy of edu­ca­tion pro­grams. How­ev­er, few stud­ies have demon­strat­ed broad trans­fer from such train­ing to per­for­mance on untrained cog­ni­tive activ­i­ties. Here we report the effects of two inter­ac­tive com­put­er­ized train­ing pro­grams devel­oped for preschool chil­dren: one for music and one for visu­al art. After only 20 days of train­ing, [Read more…] about Study: Music Train­ing Can Enhance Ver­bal Intel­li­gence and Exec­u­tive Function

Executive Functions, Education and Alzheimer’s Disease

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I just read a very inter­est­ing arti­cle in Newsweek: Exec­u­tive Func­tions: The School Skill That May Mat­ter More Than IQ. A few quotes:

- “But recent advances in psy­chol­o­gy and brain sci­ence are now sug­gest­ing that a child’s abil­i­ty to inhib­it dis­tract­ing thoughts and stay focused may be a fun­da­men­tal cog­ni­tive skill, one that plays a big part in aca­d­e­m­ic suc­cess from The Executive Brain by Elkhonon Goldbergpreschool on. Indeed, this and close­ly relat­ed skills may be more impor­tant than tra­di­tion­al IQ in pre­dict­ing a child’s school performance.”

- “EF (exec­u­tive func­tions) com­pris­es not only effort­ful con­trol and cog­ni­tive focus but also work­ing mem­o­ry and men­tal flex­i­bil­i­ty the abil­i­ty to adjust to change, to think out­side the box.”

- “When the teacher holds up a cir­cle they clap, with a tri­an­gle they hop, and so forth. The kids are taught to talk them­selves through the men­tal exer­cise: “OK, now clap.” “Twirl now.” This has been shown to flex and enhance the brain’s abil­i­ty to switch gears, to sup­press one piece of infor­ma­tion and sub in a new one. It takes dis­ci­pline; it’s the ele­men­tary school equiv­a­lent of say­ing “I real­ly need stop think­ing about next week’s vaca­tion and focus on this report.”

The main points: exec­u­tive func­tions are cru­cial for suc­cess in life, AND they can be trained. I could­n’t agree more with the arti­cle in that cog­ni­tive train­ing should be part of the edu­ca­tion cur­ricu­lum and receive more research dol­lars to deter­mine exact­ly how to best do so.

I read anoth­er very inter­est­ing arti­cle on Alzheimer’s Dis­ease. Which may look like a com­plete­ly dif­fer­ent top­ic than the one above…but please bear with me. [Read more…] about Exec­u­tive Func­tions, Edu­ca­tion and Alzheimer’s Disease

Medicine 2.0 in action (blog carnival)

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Beautiful flowers-DavidWel­come to the August 19, 2007 edi­tion of med­i­cine 2.0.

Med­i­cine 2.0? Yes, some pio­neers are already mak­ing good use of Web 2.0 tools to improve Med­i­cine in a new, col­lab­o­ra­tive way. This blog car­ni­val seems to me to be, in itself, liv­ing proof.

Let’s see.

You may won­der, what exact­ly is “Med­i­cine 2.0”? well, Con­struc­tive Med­i­cine takes a stab at it, show­ing how it may be much old­er than we thought.

You want an exam­ple? see a blog­ger (Berta­lan) chron­i­cle an amaz­ing med­ical sim­u­la­tion in Sec­ond Life.

Some blog­gers pro­vide great overview posts:

  • A Begin­ner’s Guide to Read­ing Med­ical Blogs (Vitum Med­i­ci­nus) pro­vides a fan­tas­tic resource cov­er­ing every­thing you need to know about med­ical blogs and blogs in gen­er­al, includ­ing why to sub­scribe to RSS feeds (for How, keep reading).
  • Nurs­ing and Web 2.0 (Uni­ver­sal Health) is a thought­ful post on the gap between nurs­ing research and prac­tice and how blog­ging and 2.0 can help.
  • Essay on the effect of Web 2.0 on the future of med­ical prac­tice and edu­ca­tion (Med­ical Jour­nal of Aus­tralia), that pro­vides a great overview of med­i­cine 2.0, defin­ing and list­ing blogs, wikis, pod­casts and more.
  • Social sci­ence as infec­tious dis­ease (Min­ing Drug Space) is an essay on how blogs are con­tribut­ing to knowl­edge cre­ation and exchange, and includes the writer’s reflec­tions on blogging.

…while oth­ers are already address­ing some of the impor­tant points raised: