5 ms·

From the abstract: " .. In this work, we tested the hypothesis that oral creatine supplementation (5 g/day for six weeks) would enhance intelligence test score

by ulvund 17y ago

From the abstract: " .. In this work, we tested the hypothesis that oral creatine supplementation (5 g/day for six weeks) would enhance intelligence test scores and working memory performance in 45 young adult, vegetarian subjects in a double-blind, placebo-controlled, cross-over design. Creatine supplementation had a significant positive effect (p , 0.0001) on both working memory (backward digit span) and intelligence (Raven’s Advanced Progressive Matrices), both tasks that require speed of processing. These findings underline a dynamic and significant role of brain energy capacity in influencing brain performance."

imurray 17y ago
Statistically significant (subject to the usual caveats of being careful about the results from a single study). Little is said about how worthwhile the change is.
- yungchin 17y ago
  See figure 1. From what I gather in the paper, this RAPM is a speed measure. If I'm interpreting this stuff correctly at all (never read anything in this field before) performing 40% more tasks per unit time is quite worthwhile!
  - imurray 17y ago
    It's a score on some variant of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raven%27s_Progressive_Matrices http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raven%27s_Progressive_Matrices
  - gwern 17y ago
    Actually, Raven's isn't supposed to be speeded if you care about measuring IQ rather than, say, processing speed or WM control. This is one reason why the Jaeggi 2008 study (showing that Dual N-back boosts IQ) is somewhat untrustworthy.
- ulvund 17y ago
  Yes, the significance test shows whether it is likely that the changes happened due to pure coincidence. p < 0.0001 means the changes are very unlikely to be coincidental. Which measure do you propose to test how worthwhile the results are :) ?
  - yummyfajitas 17y ago
    Define a threshold of "worthwhileness" and measure whether the results are statistically significantly larger than that.

by ulvund 17y ago

imurray 17y ago

Statistically significant (subject to the usual caveats of being careful about the results from a single study). Little is said about how worthwhile the change is.

yungchin 17y ago
See figure 1. From what I gather in the paper, this RAPM is a speed measure. If I'm interpreting this stuff correctly at all (never read anything in this field before) performing 40% more tasks per unit time is quite worthwhile!
- imurray 17y ago
  It's a score on some variant of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raven%27s_Progressive_Matrices http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raven%27s_Progressive_Matrices
- gwern 17y ago
  Actually, Raven's isn't supposed to be speeded if you care about measuring IQ rather than, say, processing speed or WM control. This is one reason why the Jaeggi 2008 study (showing that Dual N-back boosts IQ) is somewhat untrustworthy.
ulvund 17y ago
Yes, the significance test shows whether it is likely that the changes happened due to pure coincidence. p < 0.0001 means the changes are very unlikely to be coincidental. Which measure do you propose to test how worthwhile the results are :) ?
- yummyfajitas 17y ago
  Define a threshold of "worthwhileness" and measure whether the results are statistically significantly larger than that.