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, only chil­dren in the music (but not the visual art) group exhib­ited enhanced per­for­mance on a mea­sure of ver­bal intel­li­gence, with 90% of the sam­ple show­ing this improve­ment.

The children who participated in the study were between the ages of 4 and 6. The results clearly connect IQ improvement.

“These results are dra­matic not only because they clearly con­nect cog­ni­tive improve­ment to musi­cal train­ing, but also because the improve­ments in lan­guage and atten­tion are found in com­pletely dif­fer­ent domains than the one used for train­ing. This has enor­mous impli­ca­tions for devel­op­ment and education.”

York Uni­ver­sity psy­chol­o­gist Ellen Bia­lystok, one of the paper’s co-authors.

The music program “included training in rhythm, pitch, melody, voice and basic musical concepts”. All received the training in a classroom in groups led by a teacher – one hour per day, five days per week for four weeks.

This finding is consistent with a recent study of second-graders, that found the reading skills of those who had musical training were superior to those of their peers.

In addition, earlier research has shown that music training is far greater than computer instruction in improving children’s abstract reasoning skills (link).

These studies show that cutting music education to concentrate on “the basics” is based on a misunderstanding of the way the brain works.

Related posts:

1. Do Music Lessons For Your Kids Make Them Smarter?
2. IQ Increase for Children With N-Back Training: 5 IQ Points In 1 Month
3. Spatial intelligence and the ‘Mozart effect’: Does listening to Mozart make you smarter?

The Experiment

In a study published in the prestigious Journal of Cognitive Psychology, graduate student Carlos Salas and his colleagues had students try to memorize 30 words. Half of the students (randomly chosen) went for a 10 minute walk before being given the world list to learn.  They were told to walk briskly but without feelings of anxiety. The remaining students  spent the same time sitting, looking at natural landscapes.

It was found that the students who went for a walk before the study period remembered 25% more words compared to those who simply sat still. That’s a big advantage.

Before Study or Before the Exam?

So an energizing walk before study helps the learning process. What about a walk before the test – after the study period? Would that help? The research team also looked at this, and found in this case a brisk walk before the memory test didn’t help. The effect of light exercise here was confined to just BEFORE study, not just before the test.

Why Does It Work?

Why does a brisk walk help? The researchers asked the students to report their levels of arousal after the 10 minute stints of walking or sitting, and arousal was higher after walking, as you’d expect. Increased arousal is known from previous research to be important in forming robust memories. ‘Consolidating’ memories from short term memory to long term memory depends on a part of the brain in the temporal lobe called the hippocampus.  Stress hormones related to emotional arousal are crucial for enhanced hippocampal-dependent memory consolidation of an experience.

The researchers conclude:

Overall, these results suggest that individuals can gain a memory advantage from a ten-minute walk before studying. Given [these] positive results … and [their] potentially important practical applications, we hope that researchers will continue to explore the relationship between walking [and] memory.

Reference

Salas, C., Minakata, K., and Kelemen, W. (2011). Walking before study enhances free recall but not judgement-of-learning magnitude. Journal of Cognitive Psychology, 23 (4), 507-513 DOI: 10.1080/20445911.2011.532207

Related posts:

1. Dreaming Boosts Fluid Problem Solving
2. ‘Nothing really worth having comes quickly and easily.’ Will power and working memory mindhack.
3. Working memory capacity enhances piano sight reading performance

In a six-week study, funded by the BBC, experts found people who played online games designed to improve their cognitive skills didn’t get any smarter.

Researchers recruited participants from viewers of the BBC’s science show “Bang Goes the Theory.” The largest ever ‘brain training’ study, recruited 11,430 people, aged 18 to 60. They were asked to play online brain games designed by the researchers to improve their memory, reasoning and other skills for at least 10 minutes a day, three times a week. These brain games are typical of the types of games offered by companies such as Nintendo and Lumosity.

Results showed clearly that while players got progressively better at the games, the gains did not transfer to general intelligence, the journal Nature reports.

Players gained nothing in terms of general reasoning, memory, planning or visuospatial abilities, experts found. Tests before and after the training showed none of the interventions boosted people’s ability to do everyday thinking tasks, although they did get better at playing the individual games and the specific cognitive tasks these involved.

Dr Adrian Owen, a neuroscientist at the Medical Research Council, said: “The results are clear. “Statistically, there are no significant differences between the improvements seen in participants who played our brain training games, and those who just went on the internet for the same length of time.”

Leading game maker Nintendo said their Dr Kawashima brain training games did not claim to be scientifically proven to improve cognitive function. In a statement Nintendo stated: “In this way it is like a workout for the brain and the challenges in the game can help stimulate the player’s brain.”

Why does High IQ Pro’s working memory training work, while other brain training games do not?

A detailed answer to this is given in this article. In over 40 years of scientific studies, this software is the only known brain training exercise that has been scientifically demonstrated to improve intelligence. And it works regardless of your starting intelligence level.

The brain training software works by exercising your ‘working memory’ -a short term memory system used to hold in mind a few items of information for a brief time and process this information in order to reason and solve problems while ignoring distracting information. There are different working memory stores for spatial and verbal information. We use working memory when we reason, plan and problem solve. In High IQ Pro you train both your spatial and verbal working memory, and as you increase your working memory capacity, your intelligence improves. Other brain training exercises do not target working memory mechanisms like High IQ Pro software does.

This doesn’t happen overnight. It takes 20 days of training, 25-30 minutes a day – a level of commitment much higher than in the BBC study, and a level of commitment higher than is needed for other commercial brain training exercises on the market.

Most brain training in the large brain training industry is designed to be low-effort, fun and brief. But this latest study, published in Nature, demonstrates this kind of brain training – although it feels like it has a benefit – in fact has no impact on your ‘brain power’ or intelligence.  Improving your intelligence takes some work! High IQ Pro is designed to not only target the right cognitive mechanism (working memory) to be effective, but also provide enough training time to be effective. Both components to effective brain training are essential.

Related posts:

1. i3: The Most Sophisticated Brain Training Software That Exists
2. 8 Evidence Based Study Methods
3. Replication Of Original Jaeggi Dual N-Back Increase IQ Study

In recent decades, scientists have accumulated increasing evidence that our intelligence, at least as measured by the IQ test, is sharply constrained by genetics. Although estimates vary, most studies place the heritability of intelligence at somewhere between 50% and 80%. It’s an uncomfortable fact, but not all brains are created equal. …Which is why there’s so much buzz about a forthcoming study that complicates this assumption. Researchers at the University of Michigan found that it’s possible to boost a core feature of human intelligence through a simple mental training exercise.

In this study a simpler version of the training exercise used in High IQ Pro®, involving pictures instead of squares and a single modality, was tested out over a period of 4 weeks on elementary- and middle-school children from the Detroit area. They did the exercise for 15 minutes a day, and most showed gains on a widely used IQ test for fluid intelligence.

Scientists typically describe intelligence as consisting of two distinct components: fluid intelligence and crystallized intelligence. Fluid intelligence refers to the general ability to solve new problems and recognize unfamiliar patterns. Crystallized intelligence, by contrast, consists of particular kinds of knowledge.  When children learn to count, for instance, they show gains on crystallized intelligence, even as their fluid intelligence remains constant. Scientists have typically regarded fluid intelligence as the aspect of our thinking that is most determined by genetics, since it can’t be easily taught.

Impressively, these gains in fluid intelligence persisted through to a three months follow up test, even though the kids had stopped training after the first 4 weeks. The IQ brain training had resulted in long term neuroplasticity changes, and enduring gains in IQ for the children.

How did the training exercise increase IQ? The crucial element is attention control. After repeatedly playing the n-back game, the children were better able to focus on the essential information, and waste less of their short term memory on irrelevant detail. The children “got better at separating the wheat from the chaff across a variety of different tasks,” according to John Jonides, one of the research team, and senior author of the PNAS paper.

In his Frontal Cortex articleon the same study, Lehrer also points out that the mental skills improved by the n-back task (e.g. High IQ Pro®) improves not just IQ, but also self-control.

While we used to assume that self-control was about gritting our teeth, outlasting that damn temptation, we now know that self-control is really about “the strategic allocation of attention.” If you’re thinking about the ice cream in the fridge, you’re going to eat the ice cream, which is why you need to think about something else. (Our willpower is so weak that the only way we can resist anything is by finding a way to forget about it, directing the spotlight elsewhere.) So I’m curious if the n-back test might also improve measurements of self-control.

In fact, a study published in February this year has shown just this – with 27 adults in treatment for stimulant use.

This kind of gain in self-control is important for children because Angela Duckworth has shown that the only variable that’s more important than IQ scores when it comes to predicting academic success is self-control.

Related posts:

1. Music Training for Children Increases their Verbal Intelligence
2. Replication Of Original Jaeggi Dual N-Back Increase IQ Study
3. Latest Scientific Study Shows That Most Brain Training Software Does Not Work

Many scientific studies demonstrate that we perceive physically attractive individuals to be more intelligent than those who are not attractive. Beauty and brains are associated in our minds. How are we to understand this association – as a “bias” or “stereotype”, or because beautiful people are more intelligent?

According to Kanazawa and Kova the conclusion that beautiful people are more intelligent – that high iqs are typically attractive - follows from four assumptions.

• (1) Men who have high IQs are more likely to attain higher status than men who are less intelligent.
• (2) Higher-status men are more likely to mate with more beautiful women than lower-status men.
• (3) Intelligence is inherited (heritable).
• (4) Beauty is heritable.

If all four assumptions are empirically true, then the conclusion that beautiful people are more intelligent with higher IQs  is, they argue, “logically true, making it a proven theorem”. Kanazawa and Kova then provide solid scientific evidence for each of the four assumptions above, supporting their conclusion. Beauty and brains go together: they are not in opposition.

They call their line of reasoning for the link between beauty and brains an ‘evolutionary psychological explanation’.

They also argue that this kind of explanation can account for correlations between physical attractiveness and any other heritable trait that helps men attain higher status such as being aggressive or having social skills. They argue that any trait x (whether a high IQ or social skills) that pushes men up the status ladder gives them bigger chances with beautiful women. The genes for beauty in the women are then passed on to the children (whether male or female), along with the genes for the trait x (e.g. high IQ). This explains why status traits (e.g. high IQ) and beauty are correlated.

How convinced are we of this reasoning?

And how much of an effect does this evolutionary process have in explaining the beauty and brains link, compared to other effects such as biases to feel positive about attractive people?

No related posts.

A lower IQ is related to higher mortality risk. This is well established, even when taking into account health and other social factors such as income and education.

General intelligence is made up of two underlying abilities or ‘subfactors’: fluid intelligence and crystallized intelligence. Fluid intelligence is our on-the-spot reasoning and problem solving ability: our ability to deal with problems in new situations that we have no experience or practice with. This type of intelligence is fluid, capable of being applied flexibly to anything. It is closely related to short-term, working memory, and is improved with High IQ Pro dual n-back and brain-teaser training. Crystallized intelligence is our general knowledge and expertise, acquired through familiarity, practice or training. This component of intelligence has become crystallized and stored in long term memory.  

A recent study published in the journal Intelligence investigated which component of intelligence – fluid or crystallized – had a stronger link with mortality risk later in life. The researchers, led by Dr. Philip Batterham at the Centre for Mental Health Research, The Australian National University, recruited  nearly 900 Australians aged between 70 – 97, both males and females,  for the study. They continued monitoring these individuals for 17 years. There were 687 deaths during the follow-up period.

They measured both fluid intelligence and crystallized intelligence scores for each individual. There was a clear statistical relationship between lower mortality risk and fluid intelligence, even after taking out the effects of health status, health behaviors and socio-economic status.  But the link between crystallized intelligence and mortality was found to be largely due to socioeconomic status, and health.

The take-home from this study is that fluid intelligence is the component of intelligence that is most valuable in reducing mortality risk in later life. Information about intelligence testing and a comparative measure of your fluid intelligence specifically is provided here.

We can make a prediction that can be tested experimentally: Improving fluid intelligence in the later years will lower mortality risk, and lengthen life.

Journal article reference with abstract here.

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The great philosopher Bertrand Russell, completed his well known autobiography at 97 years of age.

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1. IQ Predicts Academic Achievement
2. Smokers Have Lower IQs Than Non-Smokers – Latest Research
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i^3® Software

i3 (pronounced ‘i cubed’) is the most sophisticated brain training software that exists. It has been released today, and we are very excited about it. Over a decade of research by cognitive psychologists and psychometricians have gone into its development. It combines a type of dual n-back training (with different speed settings, letter vs number, and error feedback options), with more than 50 screens of fun brain-teasers, targeting the five factors of your IQ. There are also four different language options – English, Italian, German and Spanish.

This software is much more advanced than the standard scientifically established dual-n-back training.

This advanced software application systematically trains the five factors of general intelligence – or ‘G’ – as measured by valid IQ tests:

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knowledge base

• Gc: Crystallized intelligence – general knowledge, verbal ability.

thinking skills

• Gf: Fluid intelligence – reasoning and novel problem solving ability.
• Gv: Visual intelligence – the ability to manipulate mental visual images to solve problems.

cognitive efficiency

Gs: Processing speed – the speed at which basic cognitive processes are executed.
• Gsm: Short term / working memory – the amount of information that can be integrated and processed at the same time.

i³ Software Specifications:

• Dual n-back training – the original algorithm
• Different speed settings
• Letter or numbers for auditory mode
• Error feedback option
• 4 different language options: English, Italian, German and Spanish

Additional targeted brain-teaser training (with more than 40 pages of puzzles) of:

• Processing speed (Gs)
• Crystallized intelligence (Gc)
• Fluid intelligence (Gf)
• Visual intelligence (Gv)
• Quantitative intelligence (Gq)
• General intelligence (G)

Additional features:

• Online resources for follow up training of all the above factors.
• Money back guarantee for a 10-20 point IQ test increase on any professionally administered IQ test.

_______________________

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Order your instant i³ download here:

Single User License: $44.99

(Windows, Mac & Linux compatible)

Pay by PayPal or Credit Card here 

In purchasing your copy of this software you are agreeing to
IQ Mindware’s terms and conditions. [click here].

If you have already purchased High IQ Pro®, you can purchase a copy for only $14.99.

E-mail us for details.

________________________

I³® Mindware application runs on Adobe AIR and has the following system requirements.

WINDOWS

• Intel® Pentium® III 1GHz or faster processor, 512MB of RAM
• Recommended: Pentium 4 2GHZ or faster, 1GB RAM
• Windows 7, Windows Vista® Home Premium, Business, Ultimate, or Enterprise including 64 bit editions, Windows Vista SP1, Windows XP Tablet PC Edition SP2 and SP3, Windows XP SP2 and SP3, Windows 2000 SP4, Windows 2003 Server

MAC OS X

• Intel Core™ Duo 1.83GHz or faster processor; PowerPC® G4 1GHz or faster processor
• Mac OS X 10.4.11 or Mac OS X 10.5.4, 10.5.5, and 10.6
• 512MB of RAM

LINUX

• Intel® Pentium® III 1GHz or faster processor, 512MB of RAM
• Recommended: Pentium 4 2GHZ or faster, 1GB RAM
• Fedora 8 and later, Ubuntu 7.10 and later, OpenSuse 10.3 and later
• xterm should be present on the system

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“It is easier to act yourself into a new way of feeling rather than feel your way into a new way of acting.”
-  G. D. Morgan

“Nothing really worth having comes quickly and easily.  If it did, I doubt that we would ever grow.”
-  Eknath Easwaran

“Determination that just won’t quit — that’s what it takes.”
-   A. J. Foyt

“Nothing stops the man who desires to achieve. Every obstacle is 
simply a course to develop his achievement muscle.  It’s a strengthening 
of his powers of accomplishment.”
-   Eric Butterworth

We all have the ability to exert self-control to overcome our inclinations – to sleep, to eat chocolate, to watch TV, to veg out. Our self-control is vital to our success, our ability to maintain balance and composure, and ultimately our ability to attain our potential. Our desires and impulses can work against our goals and our ability to uphold maturity in our relationships. Those with chronic low self-control are at risk of overeating, addictions and underachievement – as well as failed relationships.

Self-control, like intelligence and conscientiousness, is a valuable psychological resource with widespread effects on our lives.

What do we, as psychologists, know about self control and willpower scientifically, that we may improve it?

Self-control depends on effort or willpower and many studies have shown that willpower a limited resource – easily drained – like muscle power. Exercising self-control, like exercising a muscle, results in less self-control subsequently, in situations that are unrelated. Resisting the temptation to eat a chocolate bar can reduce your resistance to the temptation of watching TV rather than doing something you ought to be doing just moments later. Self-control is like battery power, and if the battery is not recharged – e.g. after a few hours rest or a good night’s sleep – there’s only so much self-control we exert until we’re drained.  This has been called ego depletion.

Self-control and working memory

How can we increase our store of will-power? How can we improve our self-control, and be less likely to give up and veg out?

A recent post in PsyBlog summarizes ten scientifically based self-control/will power strategies. We will return to these in our next blog. For now we will focus on some recent research by Siegfried Dewitte and his colleagues at K.U. Leuven university that shows us how we can mindhack our own willpower system and increase its energy store.

Dewitte and colleagues have given the world yet more operational knowledge about our core cognitive systems by showing experimentally that self-control relies on working memory capacity, and that ego depletion is actually due to working memory depletion. Their article can be downloaded here.

“Working memory is those mechanisms and processes that are involved in the control,  regulation, and active maintenance of  task-relevant information in the service of complex  cognition, including novel as well as familiar skilled tasks.” (Miyake and Shah)

Working memory capacity is how much – the bandwidth – of the task-relevant information you can hold in mind to attain your goals – whether to solve a problem, learn a new skill, keep level headed in a dispute, read an article or complete a project.

Dewitte and colleagues showed that

• working memory use causes self-control  deficits and vice versa

This shows that:

•  self-control and working memory tap the same resource pool

The relevance of working memory to willpower and self-control lies in the ‘active maintenance of task-relevant information’ in the definition above. ‘Task relevant information’ implies a goal, and sticking to goals lies behind the self-control effort.  Sticking to goals, when there are distractions and automatic responses that need to be suppressed, is HARD – it takes will power. It is tiring, and can drain the tank.

By implication, if we strengthen our working memory,  increasing its capacity and efficiency, we can increase our will-power, adding a measure to the common cognitive resource they share.

High IQ Pro ’s dual n-back working memory exercise (shown above) improves working memory capacity or ‘bandwidth’ substantially – by 60% or more in laboratory tests.

This will translate into greater reserves for self-control, and more capacity to ‘dig deep’ in pursuit of your goals.

For more great willpower quotes click here.

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2. Mindfulness, Working Memory Capacity & Emotional Intelligence
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The confirmation bias (also called myside bias) is a tendency for people to seek out and pay attention to information that confirms their preconceptions or hypotheses, neglecting information that would disconfirm it.  This may become institutionalized in preferences for media outlets that support one’s political beliefs. For example:

Maria Young and her colleagues recently showed that feeling anger can help counter the confirmation bias, enabling people to select information that works against their own preconceptions or preferences.

The experiment worked as follows. Participants were preselected  for believing that hands-free mobile kits were safer than hand held phones. They then were led through the experiment. In the first phase, one group were asked to recall and write about a time they had been very angry. This exercise is known to evoke real feelings of anger. The other group were asked to write about a time that made them sad, or non-emotional events. In the second phase, they were presented with one-sentence summaries of 8 articles, either for or against the idea that hands-free kits made driving safer. They were asked to choose 5 of them to read in full. Which did they choose – the articles that supported their original view, or articles that were contrary to it? It was found that those who had been made to feel angry chose more against? In other words, anger helped counter the confirmation bias.

What is the explanation? One idea is that anger creates a ‘moving against’ attitude, and this can be applied to the self. It may be a similar effect to that obtained by distancing oneself from one’s own perspective to improve problem solving.

How can this help us think more intelligently and make better decisions? First, harness one’s anger intelligently by focusing on an issue that requires searching for information. It should help you overcome the confirmation bias. One aspect of emotional intelligence is the ability to make use of your emotional states for productive ends. Here is one such use. Second, in a group situation, someone who is angery may be the best placed person to play the devil’s advocate on behalf of the group.

Young, M., Tiedens, L., Jung, H., and Tsai, M. (2011). Mad enough to see the other side: Anger and the search for disconfirming information. Cognition and Emotion, 25 (1), 10-21 DOI: 10.1080/02699930903534105

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The original Susanne Jaeggi study with the dual n-back  training demonstrates very impressive gains on fluid intelligence as a result of the working memory training. And this is the first time that intelligence gains have been shown to result from brain training. So if it’s this historical and significant, why hasn’t the study been repeated (‘replicated’ in technical jargon)? Replications are essential to the scientific process. Each replication greatly increases the scientific community’s confidence in any given experimental result.

Well there IS now a replication that has just been published in the journal Intelligence - demonstrating the same results, the same improvement in intelligence from training on the dual n-back (as well as the single n-back) – both of which you get in our HighIQPro platform.

Here is a summary of that study.

Related posts:

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3. IQ Increase for Children With N-Back Training: 5 IQ Points In 1 Month