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Usually when you learn a topic, you pick up skills in the process that are useful outside of that specific domain. For example, as a software engineer, I have r

Usually when you learn a topic, you pick up skills in the process that are useful outside of that specific domain. For example, as a software engineer, I have refined the skill of being able to break down a problem into smaller, workable parts. Even if that problem isn't specifically related to software. I am also much better at reading documentation for products that I am unfamiliar with and learning how to do things myself. These are not things that I ever specifically practiced. They are just things that I had to practice in the process of learning to be effective in my job. If you learn Chess, it will likely have the benefits on your memory, reasoning, and ability to hold more information in your head at once. So, overall I believe that pretty much every topic you learn will have a positive impact on various meta-topic skills and that's how most people generally improve those skills.

mettamage 7y ago
I would agree as you can see in my final paragraph. I'm simply saying it's not optimal. Moreover, knowledge transfer is tougher than you think. I have seen software engineers fail to use their logic they've learned with software engineering and apply it to other domains on a consistent basis. But the reason I'm staring it is because the current opinion in academia is that knowledge transfer is tough. Edit: in me finding sources, I found something that counteracted my claim [1]. I suppose it's back to the drawing board for me. I remember from serious game research that expanding general cognitive abilities through games were hard (I'd need to search for the sources). So I figured if this is true for dual n back (DNB), then it is most likely to be true for a lot of things. But it wasn't true for DNB. [1] https://www.gwern.net/DNB-meta-analysis#paymentextrinsic-motivation https://www.gwern.net/DNB-meta-analysis#paymentextrinsic-mot...

mettamage 7y ago

I would agree as you can see in my final paragraph. I'm simply saying it's not optimal. Moreover, knowledge transfer is tougher than you think. I have seen software engineers fail to use their logic they've learned with software engineering and apply it to other domains on a consistent basis. But the reason I'm staring it is because the current opinion in academia is that knowledge transfer is tough. Edit: in me finding sources, I found something that counteracted my claim [1]. I suppose it's back to the drawing board for me. I remember from serious game research that expanding general cognitive abilities through games were hard (I'd need to search for the sources). So I figured if this is true for dual n back (DNB), then it is most likely to be true for a lot of things. But it wasn't true for DNB. [1] https://www.gwern.net/DNB-meta-analysis#paymentextrinsic-motivation https://www.gwern.net/DNB-meta-analysis#paymentextrinsic-mot...