3 ms·

That's curious to know, so I thank you for the reference, yet I don't care much as it made and makes a huge difference for me personally. Perhaps that's because

That's curious to know, so I thank you for the reference, yet I don't care much as it made and makes a huge difference for me personally. Perhaps that's because it may be really effective for just a portion of people with specific conditions in specific circumstances (e.g. I have ADHD and I also take nootropics which are meant to increase neuroplasiticy, neurogenesis and cerebral blood flow so the result is synergetic, nootropics alone don't give a boost so profound) or maybe what gets improved is not the working memory but something else playing important role in cognition. By the way it seemingly has also improved my emotional intelligence, not just analytical one - I didn't expect that.

kranner 7y ago
Fair point, but may I ask if you feel there is an improvement intuitively, or if you also measure it in some way (other than the game score itself).
- qwerty456127 7y ago
  I don't really measure but I also wouldn't label it "an intuitive feeling" - it's an observation (not just a feeling like when you're stoned and feel genius), although not scientifically credible. I have a well-developed self-observation skill and can always tell when my cognition is less (for an extreme example - avoid sleeping for some 36 hours, drink some booze and try to be smart - you'll notice it's hard and you don't really do well, no need to measure digitally) or more efficient. I believe I could measure if I knew a good way [to measure fluid intelligence] and was interested enough but that's not the case. So, I recommend everybody to try n-back exercises for some time [and see if it helps them] and I usually mention that's kind of proven to help scientifically (at least in some papers) and empirically but avoid saying its efficiency is anything close to an unquestionable fact. As a result people (including very smart and educated already) immediately report feelings like stains have been removed from their brains and their mental gears got greased.
  - kranner 7y ago
    > I usually mention that's kind of proven to help scientifically (at least in some papers) and empirically but avoid saying its efficiency is a strict fact. All good but I must disagree with “kind of proven”. Things can be either proven or not proven, and this is not proven.
    - qwerty456127 7y ago
      I've read the original paper by Jaeggi et. al., one paper replicating it successfully and one paper proving the results transfer to different tasks. At this point wasn't it logically correct to say that's scientifically proven? Now we know there are papers which prove those proofs questionable. That's what I mean. If only we had a bullet-proof test to measure fluid intelligence (classic IQ tests have quite a well-known number of problems, solving math problems and puzzles is known to be much more of a skill, working memory is working memory - not intelligence itself) objectively...
      - kranner 7y ago
        > At this point wasn't it logically correct to say that's scientifically proven? Ah, I see. Yes, at that point it would have been correct to claim that it was proven.
    - gwd 7y ago
      > Things can be either proven or not proven, and this is not proven. On the contrary, nothing in science is ever proven, only disproven. We can have less or more confidence in a particular model; and whether you should use a particular model depends on the cost/benefit analysis. In this case, there is some evidence that it might be helpful, although somewhat disputed; but playing the game certainly doesn't hurt, and doesn't cost much, so it might make sense to give it a try.
      - kranner 7y ago
        > On the contrary, nothing in science is ever proven, only disproven. Sure, but science is a specific case and I was talking about the all-or-nothing nature of the meaning of 'proven' itself.

kranner 7y ago

Fair point, but may I ask if you feel there is an improvement intuitively, or if you also measure it in some way (other than the game score itself).

qwerty456127 7y ago
I don't really measure but I also wouldn't label it "an intuitive feeling" - it's an observation (not just a feeling like when you're stoned and feel genius), although not scientifically credible. I have a well-developed self-observation skill and can always tell when my cognition is less (for an extreme example - avoid sleeping for some 36 hours, drink some booze and try to be smart - you'll notice it's hard and you don't really do well, no need to measure digitally) or more efficient. I believe I could measure if I knew a good way [to measure fluid intelligence] and was interested enough but that's not the case. So, I recommend everybody to try n-back exercises for some time [and see if it helps them] and I usually mention that's kind of proven to help scientifically (at least in some papers) and empirically but avoid saying its efficiency is anything close to an unquestionable fact. As a result people (including very smart and educated already) immediately report feelings like stains have been removed from their brains and their mental gears got greased.
- kranner 7y ago
  > I usually mention that's kind of proven to help scientifically (at least in some papers) and empirically but avoid saying its efficiency is a strict fact. All good but I must disagree with “kind of proven”. Things can be either proven or not proven, and this is not proven.
  - qwerty456127 7y ago
    I've read the original paper by Jaeggi et. al., one paper replicating it successfully and one paper proving the results transfer to different tasks. At this point wasn't it logically correct to say that's scientifically proven? Now we know there are papers which prove those proofs questionable. That's what I mean. If only we had a bullet-proof test to measure fluid intelligence (classic IQ tests have quite a well-known number of problems, solving math problems and puzzles is known to be much more of a skill, working memory is working memory - not intelligence itself) objectively...
    - kranner 7y ago
      > At this point wasn't it logically correct to say that's scientifically proven? Ah, I see. Yes, at that point it would have been correct to claim that it was proven.
  - gwd 7y ago
    > Things can be either proven or not proven, and this is not proven. On the contrary, nothing in science is ever proven, only disproven. We can have less or more confidence in a particular model; and whether you should use a particular model depends on the cost/benefit analysis. In this case, there is some evidence that it might be helpful, although somewhat disputed; but playing the game certainly doesn't hurt, and doesn't cost much, so it might make sense to give it a try.
    - kranner 7y ago
      > On the contrary, nothing in science is ever proven, only disproven. Sure, but science is a specific case and I was talking about the all-or-nothing nature of the meaning of 'proven' itself.