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Mark Ashton Smith, Ph.D

About Mark Ashton Smith, Ph.D

I am a cognitive scientist with a joint Ph.D in cognitive psychology and neuroscience from the Center of the Neural Basis of Cognition (Carnegie Mellon/Pittsburgh). At IQ Mindware we develop brain training interventions to increase IQ, critical thinking, decision making, creativity and executive functioning.

Mindware Strategies for Creative Problem Solving

The following tutorial is directly taken from one of the HighIQPro Desktop brain training app tutorials:   The 9-dots problem. Without lifting your pencil, draw four straight lines that connect all 9 dots. . The answer to this problem is found at the bottom of this tutorial. Solving these problems requires approaching solutions indirectly and creatively. What is creativity? Definition of creativity Creativity is the process of producing something that is both original and worthwhile. When someone comes up with creative

The Framing Effect Bias: Improving Decision Making Skills For Cognitive Misers

A Cornell University study  reveals that U.S. intelligence agents are more likely to make irrational life-death decisions than college students, basing their decisions on the superficial wording of the information rather than the real facts and probabilities. It’s not just intelligence agents that make irrational decisions, it’s everyone to a greater or lesser degree. In critical situations our decision making skills can be very shaky, no matter how high we

Matrix IQ Brain Teasers

Matrix Reasoning problems are one of the best ways to measure our fluid intelligence. The famous ‘Ravens Matrices’ IQ tests – which Mensa accepts as an IQ test – are made up of ONLY matrix reasoning problems.

What Is Intelligence? What Is IQ?

What Is General Intelligence? While people have different cognitive strengths and weaknesses, psychologists have found that there is a common component  called ‘general intelligence’ or ‘G‘. General intelligence  has been defined in many ways depending on the theoretical framework and context. I define intelligence as: Your general intelligence is your ability to reason, problem solve, decide, learn & act efficiently & successfully

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