12 ms·

You can increase your intelligence

259 points by jwdunne 13y ago

moocowduckquack 13y ago
I've always been surprised people thought any different, given the content of IQ tests. Is basically just puzzles and you usually get much better at puzzles if you do them all the time.
- cliveowen 13y ago
  True, but since virtually no one takes IQ tests on a daily basis, the IQ test is still a valid measure of one's intelligence (or potential, I don't really know what IQ is supposed to measure).
  - gohrt 13y ago
    People who score high on IQ tests do take IQ tests (or similar puzles on a daily basis). > I don't really know what IQ is supposed to measure Neither does anyone else.
    - clarkm 13y ago
      They attempt to measure the theoretical concept of generalized intelligence, known by psychometricians as g. They're obviously not perfect, but they're better than anything else we have.
    - Tehnix 13y ago
      >People who score high on IQ tests do take IQ tests (or similar puzles on a daily basis). not necessarily, on an official test, I scored 140 (which I'd consider high), and I don't do any puzzles or similar at all. that said, obviously an IQ test is not perfect, but, I'd argue a high score is a good indication that a person is relatively intelligent. Middle scores and below can be attributed to a lot of other things (distractions, etc etc), but, the high score is still indicative of your brains capabilities. If that made sense?
- gojomo 13y ago
  Increasing your score on an IQ test is one thing; getting the benefits expected from more "intelligence" may be another. In such matters, keep in mind Goodhart's Law: "When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure." In the domain of IQ, we might observe a very high correlation between higher-IQ and certain desirable results, like a longer/healthier life, lower rates of victimization, higher incomes, and so forth. And we might have a strong case that the test is, at least at the outset, measuring some sort of "general intelligence", and that there is a causal link from "general intelligence" to the other correlated beneficial outcomes. But, then you start aiming to increase "general intelligence", and your only measure is the IQ test, so your target for evaluating all interventions is the IQ score. Now you are quite likely finding interventions that only raise the IQ score, and perhaps skip any "general intelligence" benefits. Even if your IQ score goes up, you might not get the other benefits. Meanwhile, others still researching the correlation/causation questions may see the original correlations start to weaken, or the case that IQ measures "general intelligence" weaken. And in fact the originally-valid ideas are weakening! Motivated action around that target has started to thwart whatever signal it once offered. The problem is universal - in regulation, in education, in investment, in semantics. It's why a lot of high-performing organizations keep their true 'measures' secret... to slow their dilution through motivated optimizations.
  - moocowduckquack 13y ago
    The other thing with optimising as a strategy is while it likes small changes, it really hates structural ones as they make it very hard to compare what you have now with what went before, so anything that is hard to measure is resisted. But usefulness and ease of measurement are not always particularly aligned.
- jessriedel 13y ago
  IQ tests are very robust. The correlation between scores is greater than 0.9. These working memory results are usually good for just a few extra IQ points (as in, literally 2 or 3), and they are far and away the largest boosts people have been able to induce through training.
cliveowen 13y ago
This may seem very good and useful at first sight but it actually doesn't mean anything. The classical stance is that intelligence it's something fixed and can't be improved, so the smart guy will outsmart the average guy. Now they say that intelligence can actually improve so it's possible for the average guy to outsmart the smart guy. Well, not at all. If intelligence can improve this means that the average guy can achieve an intelligence on par with that of the smart guy, but the smart guy can also, so the gap still remains. Maybe I'm missing the point but I don't really know what make of the whole article.
- itsybitsycoder 13y ago
  It means that effort becomes more of a factor. OK, if you hold effort constant, maybe the gap remains, but not everyone is equally hard-working.
- ekm2 13y ago
  Are you suggesting that if both weak and strong people go to the gym regularly then the differences between them will remain?
  - csomar 13y ago
    Not weak and strong, but rather big and small. If someone is 1.6m and another one is 1.8m; the second guy obviously has an advantage (being a bigger guy). Sure the 1.6m can beat him. (exercise often, learn fighting techniques...) but if they both exercise in the same amount, the difference will remain.
    - deleted 13y ago
      [deleted]
    - joyeuse6701 13y ago
      I was going to counter this with gymnasts, since size past a point becomes a problem that can't be overcome by the larger man (it is better to be smaller), and then I realized that the idea still holds, there are certain limitations of which we cannot overcome no matter how hard we try.
tokenadult 13y ago
The article kindly submitted here is from 2011. There is a new article, from today, http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/beautiful-minds/2013/10/09/new-cognitive-training-study-takes-on-the-critics/ http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/beautiful-minds/2013/10/... that follows up on recent cognitive training research. The research conclusions are becoming more and more nuanced, and thus are better and better guides to practical things you can do for your own intelligence boosting.
- mathattack 13y ago
  Thanks for the update! I do believe that there may be diminishing returns to focusing on intellectual improvement (a genius that can't get a date won't be happy) but it's clear that our minds are indeed malleable.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
- mikevm 13y ago
  It appears that the new study is as flawed as Jaeggi's previous one: http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/beautiful-minds/2013/10/09/new-cognitive-training-study-takes-on-the-critics/#comment-357 http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/beautiful-minds/2013/10/... (comment by this guy: http://www.uncg.edu/~mjkane/ http://www.uncg.edu/~mjkane/)
coryfklein 13y ago
But will I get dumber by wasting my intellectual capacity?
ukoki 13y ago
Interesting! If anyone wants to give it a go, I just made a quick Dual-N-back app a couple of days ago, after reading Gwern's (who else?) excellent FAQ on the subject. My web app: http://nnback.ukoki.com http://nnback.ukoki.com Gwern's FAQ: http://www.gwern.net/DNB%20FAQ http://www.gwern.net/DNB%20FAQ
- jerf 13y ago
  Incidentally, if this is intended as some sort of response to gwern's other post [1] as if he's never heard of dual n-back... please do read that FAQ. All 124 pages of it, according to my Firefox print preview. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6521885 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6521885
  - gwern 13y ago
    Or if you're lazy, just check the latest version of my n-back meta-analysis (http://www.gwern.net/DNB%20meta-analysis#control-groups http://www.gwern.net/DNB%20meta-analysis#control-groups): looks like the current point estimate for n-back's increase of IQ is 0.15 (so, 2 IQ points), and is not statistically-significant (p=0.14). A few of the researchers in the area have encouraged me to clean this up for publication, which would be nice. (Not that the rest of OP is much better than the n-back material. 'I worked with autistic kids and I can cherrypick a few examples of improvement!' As if he had never heard of regression to the mean or selection effects.)
- Flip-per 13y ago
  The instructions of the webapp are incorrect, isn't LEFT and RIGHT mixed up? At least for 1n and 2n, I didn't try more. update yep, the instruction text doesn't match the keyboard shortcut list
  - ukoki 13y ago
    oops thanks. Updating the instructions now.
auctiontheory 13y ago
Most of us on HN have enough intelligence. Other qualities (focus, dedication, ambition, sociability) will have much greater impact on our success in life.
- arrfscarf 13y ago
  Focus! Here I am wasting time/procrastinating. There certain days, that no matter what I do, consistent concentration is impossible.
  - nostromo 13y ago
    I wish my brain had a switch. Monday: follow crazy ideas, absorb everything, novelty hunting. Tuesday - Friday: focus.
    - networked 13y ago
      >I wish my brain had a switch. We might be able to develop one by using non-invasive brain stimulation: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/06/110615123647.htm http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/06/110615123647.ht....
    - sitkack 13y ago
      Right now that switch is ADD medication, meditation, exercise (in order of increasing effectiveness and access).
  - larrys 13y ago
    "Here I am wasting time/procrastinating." Interesting though that there is no data with regards to how much time people spend on HN and whether it results in success or not. Or just adds to entertainment, knowledge, or enjoyment. Even anecdotal although I do know there are some outliers like tpatcek and patio11 that have benefited. But we don't know how that compares to time that they spent.
  - arkitaip 13y ago
    Hear, hear. I'm getting kinda desperate in my non existing pursuit of being able to focus / getting things done. I am considering meditation but I'm not sure there's actual evidence that it actually makes it easier to focus.
BigChiefSmokem 13y ago
Couple of points: 1) Use it or lose it, neurons act just like muscle fiber in this regard. I'd be more interest if someone can prove that deep thought and learning can lower the chances of cognitive disabilities like age-related dementia. 2) If you want to have a high IQ just retake the IQ test until you do. Maybe one day someone will make a test that will indeed measure intellect across a wide range of contexts, including social and abstract thinking.
coldcode 13y ago
I'm happy with mine, I want to improve other people's. I'm sure you can think of a couple places where that might be handy today.
gaelow 13y ago
Of course I can. If I manage to stop drinking.
- buckbova 13y ago
  Drinking excessively makes one smarter. Consider it culling the herd. The weaker slower brain cells die off, leaving the stronger faster brain cells to propell your brain power to peak levels.
  - gaelow 13y ago
    I don't know. But for the fifteen years I've been doing it, every weekend when I go out with my friends I can feel my IQ dropping down with every drink. And don't even ask me to solve the simplest crossword puzzle on a Sunday morning. Not necessarily bad, though. It's fun and releases a lot of stress...
  - frozenport 13y ago
    Exactly my point, it also does wonders for my liver by killing the old cells so that new ones can take their place - eventually, if I stop drinking. Perhaps even a new liver!
xntrk 13y ago
I had to stop reading when I got to the part about GPS where the author says he almost lost his job, due to tardiness, becuase he refused to use GPS.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
hownottowrite 13y ago
The question is... Can you make yourself less intelligent by indulging in the antithesis of the authors five principles? (viz. Seek Novelty; Challenge Yourself; Think Creatively; Do Things The Hard Way; Network)
- zxcdw 13y ago
  I think brain can be thought to behave like a muscle and skeleton. If you put it under stress(learning) and let it recover(sleeping) it improves and grows stronger. Similarly if you let it idle, atrophy hits and it weakens. Just like muscles and bones do. Both can be trained with consistent and proper effort.
- namenotrequired 13y ago
  Let's see... Avoid novelty; Only take on easy things; Don't think creatively; Do things the most convenient way; Don't network. ...in other words, live a stationary life, do the same things you always did in the same way with the same people. I don't know if any research exists to support this but it seems pretty likely, to me, that this will make one less intelligent.
pmelendez 13y ago
From the article: >"One of my first clients was a little boy w/ PDD-NOS (Pervasive Developmental Delays-Not Otherwise Specified), a mild form of autism. When we began therapy, his IQ was tested and scored in the low 80s—which is considered borderline mental retardation. After I worked with him for about three years— one on one, teaching in areas such as communication, reading, math, social functioning, play skills, leisure activities—using multimodal techniques [pdf] —he was retested. His IQ score was well over 100 (with 100 considered "average", as compared to the general population). That’s a 20 point increase, more than one standard deviation improvement, by a child with an autism spectrum disorder!" As a parent of a PDDNOS child this put a lot of noise in my mind. When my son got his diagnostics, the psychologist couldn't finish the IQ test because he couldn't focus on the questions. Now three years later, all people who know the case agreed that he is a brilliant boy. So was that a huge increase on his IQ? or Was just a noisy measure of the IQ at the beginning?
fersho311 13y ago
Every day, I train my memory by memorizing a pack of cards. I started because I had lousy memory and I wanted to improve it. I have been going at it for a few weeks now, memorizing and shuffling a deck of cards (twice a day). I can now memorize a deck of cards in just a little over 3 minutes (I started at a painful 19 minutes). Have I noticed am improvement in my memory? Yes, and much much more. What I've come to realize is that memorizing a deck of cards trains so much more than your memory. The way I memorize is to associate every card with an object and its corresponding action, and memorizing the deck of cards is a matter of creating a sequence of events that corresponds to the sequence of cards. So by memorizing a deck of cards I'm actually training different parts of my mind: recalling the item that is associated with the card, coming up with creative stories on the fly when I see a card, and holding the story in my mind as I add 52 objects into the story one by one. Each of these steps was painfully difficult in the beginning, but now I'm starting to see the fruits of my training. I almost never misplace my things (keys, wallet, etc) anymore. Mind blocks like, "what was the company's name? I used to know it...", happens less frequently and I can recollect facts much faster. Most importantly though, I have seen a dramatic improvement in the speed I learn and understand things. I'm not 100% sure, but I think that the rapid association of cards to objects and creatively creating a story have somehow improved my ability to comprehend and grasp new knowledge. I whole heartedly believe that the brain is a muscle that can be strengthened through exercise.
- JakeSc 13y ago
  How did you decide to embark on this challenge? Do you have any online resources that you can link to so we can learn more?
  - fersho311 13y ago
    I started with this 10k memory competition, did really poorly, and decided to continue after the competition because it seemed to me helping me alot. http://www.memrise.com/course/44056/the-10k-memory-competition/ http://www.memrise.com/course/44056/the-10k-memory-competiti...
    - 13y ago
l0c0b0x 13y ago
Andrea Kuszewski is awesome! I recall reading this when it published, have been following her on twitter ever since.
piyush_soni 13y ago
It amuses me that even in today's times we believe that IQ = intelligence. Not true. All it requires is some practice. That doesn't make you intelligent. I mean "Einstein intelligent" :). Every few days I read the news anyway "This child has an IQ more than that of Einstein". Oh well. No wonder. He used his mind at better places than solving some puzzles "fast" enough.
akandiah 13y ago
If you are interested in how people learn, you may be interested in this comprehensive review published by the National Academy of Sciences: http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?isbn=0309070368 http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?isbn=0309070368
quanticle 13y ago
As gwern points out in his meta-analysis of Dual N-Back [1], and his Dual N-Back FAQ [2], the results of Dual N-Back have been very mixed. Some studies show massive improvement. Other studies show minor improvement, while some studies show no improvement at all. It is by no means clear in the literature that Dual N-Back actually helps more than an active placebo. This is very damaging to the case that dual n-back increases IQ. Not only do the better studies find a drastically smaller effect, they are not sufficiently powered to find such a small effect at all, even aggregated in a meta-analysis, with a power of ~11%, which is dismal indeed when compared to the usual benchmark of 80%, and leads to worries that even that is too high an estimate and that the active control studies are aberrant somehow in being subject to a winner’s curse or subject to other biases. (Because most studies used convenient passive control groups and the passive effect size is 3x larger, they in aggregate are very well-powered: 94%; however, we already know how they are skewed upwards, so we don’t care if we can detect a biased effect or not.) In particular, Boot et al 2013 argues that active control groups do not suffice to identify the true causal effect because the subjects in the active control group can still have different expectations than the experimental group, and the group’ differing awareness & expectations can cause differing performance on tests; they suggest recording expectancies (somewhat similar to Redick et al 2013), checking for a dose-response relationship (see the following section for whether dose-response exists for dual n-back/IQ), and using different experimental designs which actively manipulate subject expectations to identify how much effects are inflated by remaining placebo/expectancy effects. That said, there isn't any evidence of harm, either, so at worst, you'll waste your time if it doesn't work out for you. [1] http://www.gwern.net/DNB%20meta-analysis http://www.gwern.net/DNB%20meta-analysis [2] http://www.gwern.net/DNB%20FAQ http://www.gwern.net/DNB%20FAQ
aidenn0 13y ago
The author says roughly "I helped many kids raise their IQ"; there is nothing novel about that, it is well established that intervention has large effects on IQ in children, but most of those effects have disappeared by the time they are 18.
linux_devil 13y ago
Intelligence is just a fancy name to "determination"
gtani 13y ago
all well and good, for a lot of people i know the more immediate concerns are the basic trilogies of diet/exercise/rest, and learning the tiger parent things your whole life (math, programming, foreign languages, musical instruments). These things work because they require sustained effort/concentration, adn dealing with frustration and plateaus http://www.sott.net/articles/show/216086-Mental-muscle-six-ways-to-boost-your-brain http://www.sott.net/articles/show/216086-Mental-muscle-six-w... (the 6 things above: bright light, tDCS, food, exercise, playing music, meditation
warmfuzzykitten 13y ago
By a strange coincidence, yesterday a link to this article appeared on the same Hacker News page as this. http://www.gwern.net/Drug%20heuristics?2 http://www.gwern.net/Drug%20heuristics?2 The argument there is that - in healthy people - not much can be done to improve intelligence, and speculates on reasons why. The qualification suggests that experience working with autistic children is not relevant to the general population. That this link has been voted up to the front page and the other hasn't perhaps says more about the optimism of the community than the respective merits of the two positions.

259 points by jwdunne 13y ago

I've always been surprised people thought any different, given the content of IQ tests. Is basically just puzzles and you usually get much better at puzzles if you do them all the time.

cliveowen 13y ago
True, but since virtually no one takes IQ tests on a daily basis, the IQ test is still a valid measure of one's intelligence (or potential, I don't really know what IQ is supposed to measure).
- gohrt 13y ago
  People who score high on IQ tests do take IQ tests (or similar puzles on a daily basis). > I don't really know what IQ is supposed to measure Neither does anyone else.
  - clarkm 13y ago
    They attempt to measure the theoretical concept of generalized intelligence, known by psychometricians as g. They're obviously not perfect, but they're better than anything else we have.
  - Tehnix 13y ago
    >People who score high on IQ tests do take IQ tests (or similar puzles on a daily basis). not necessarily, on an official test, I scored 140 (which I'd consider high), and I don't do any puzzles or similar at all. that said, obviously an IQ test is not perfect, but, I'd argue a high score is a good indication that a person is relatively intelligent. Middle scores and below can be attributed to a lot of other things (distractions, etc etc), but, the high score is still indicative of your brains capabilities. If that made sense?
gojomo 13y ago
Increasing your score on an IQ test is one thing; getting the benefits expected from more "intelligence" may be another. In such matters, keep in mind Goodhart's Law: "When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure." In the domain of IQ, we might observe a very high correlation between higher-IQ and certain desirable results, like a longer/healthier life, lower rates of victimization, higher incomes, and so forth. And we might have a strong case that the test is, at least at the outset, measuring some sort of "general intelligence", and that there is a causal link from "general intelligence" to the other correlated beneficial outcomes. But, then you start aiming to increase "general intelligence", and your only measure is the IQ test, so your target for evaluating all interventions is the IQ score. Now you are quite likely finding interventions that only raise the IQ score, and perhaps skip any "general intelligence" benefits. Even if your IQ score goes up, you might not get the other benefits. Meanwhile, others still researching the correlation/causation questions may see the original correlations start to weaken, or the case that IQ measures "general intelligence" weaken. And in fact the originally-valid ideas are weakening! Motivated action around that target has started to thwart whatever signal it once offered. The problem is universal - in regulation, in education, in investment, in semantics. It's why a lot of high-performing organizations keep their true 'measures' secret... to slow their dilution through motivated optimizations.
- moocowduckquack 13y ago
  The other thing with optimising as a strategy is while it likes small changes, it really hates structural ones as they make it very hard to compare what you have now with what went before, so anything that is hard to measure is resisted. But usefulness and ease of measurement are not always particularly aligned.
jessriedel 13y ago
IQ tests are very robust. The correlation between scores is greater than 0.9. These working memory results are usually good for just a few extra IQ points (as in, literally 2 or 3), and they are far and away the largest boosts people have been able to induce through training.

cliveowen 13y ago

This may seem very good and useful at first sight but it actually doesn't mean anything. The classical stance is that intelligence it's something fixed and can't be improved, so the smart guy will outsmart the average guy. Now they say that intelligence can actually improve so it's possible for the average guy to outsmart the smart guy. Well, not at all. If intelligence can improve this means that the average guy can achieve an intelligence on par with that of the smart guy, but the smart guy can also, so the gap still remains. Maybe I'm missing the point but I don't really know what make of the whole article.

itsybitsycoder 13y ago
It means that effort becomes more of a factor. OK, if you hold effort constant, maybe the gap remains, but not everyone is equally hard-working.
ekm2 13y ago
Are you suggesting that if both weak and strong people go to the gym regularly then the differences between them will remain?
- csomar 13y ago
  Not weak and strong, but rather big and small. If someone is 1.6m and another one is 1.8m; the second guy obviously has an advantage (being a bigger guy). Sure the 1.6m can beat him. (exercise often, learn fighting techniques...) but if they both exercise in the same amount, the difference will remain.
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]
  - joyeuse6701 13y ago
    I was going to counter this with gymnasts, since size past a point becomes a problem that can't be overcome by the larger man (it is better to be smaller), and then I realized that the idea still holds, there are certain limitations of which we cannot overcome no matter how hard we try.

tokenadult 13y ago

The article kindly submitted here is from 2011. There is a new article, from today, http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/beautiful-minds/2013/10/09/new-cognitive-training-study-takes-on-the-critics/ http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/beautiful-minds/2013/10/... that follows up on recent cognitive training research. The research conclusions are becoming more and more nuanced, and thus are better and better guides to practical things you can do for your own intelligence boosting.

mathattack 13y ago
Thanks for the update! I do believe that there may be diminishing returns to focusing on intellectual improvement (a genius that can't get a date won't be happy) but it's clear that our minds are indeed malleable.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
mikevm 13y ago
It appears that the new study is as flawed as Jaeggi's previous one: http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/beautiful-minds/2013/10/09/new-cognitive-training-study-takes-on-the-critics/#comment-357 http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/beautiful-minds/2013/10/... (comment by this guy: http://www.uncg.edu/~mjkane/ http://www.uncg.edu/~mjkane/)

coryfklein 13y ago

But will I get dumber by wasting my intellectual capacity?

ukoki 13y ago

Interesting! If anyone wants to give it a go, I just made a quick Dual-N-back app a couple of days ago, after reading Gwern's (who else?) excellent FAQ on the subject. My web app: http://nnback.ukoki.com http://nnback.ukoki.com Gwern's FAQ: http://www.gwern.net/DNB%20FAQ http://www.gwern.net/DNB%20FAQ

jerf 13y ago
Incidentally, if this is intended as some sort of response to gwern's other post [1] as if he's never heard of dual n-back... please do read that FAQ. All 124 pages of it, according to my Firefox print preview. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6521885 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6521885
- gwern 13y ago
  Or if you're lazy, just check the latest version of my n-back meta-analysis (http://www.gwern.net/DNB%20meta-analysis#control-groups http://www.gwern.net/DNB%20meta-analysis#control-groups): looks like the current point estimate for n-back's increase of IQ is 0.15 (so, 2 IQ points), and is not statistically-significant (p=0.14). A few of the researchers in the area have encouraged me to clean this up for publication, which would be nice. (Not that the rest of OP is much better than the n-back material. 'I worked with autistic kids and I can cherrypick a few examples of improvement!' As if he had never heard of regression to the mean or selection effects.)
Flip-per 13y ago
The instructions of the webapp are incorrect, isn't LEFT and RIGHT mixed up? At least for 1n and 2n, I didn't try more. update yep, the instruction text doesn't match the keyboard shortcut list
- ukoki 13y ago
  oops thanks. Updating the instructions now.

auctiontheory 13y ago

Most of us on HN have enough intelligence. Other qualities (focus, dedication, ambition, sociability) will have much greater impact on our success in life.

arrfscarf 13y ago
Focus! Here I am wasting time/procrastinating. There certain days, that no matter what I do, consistent concentration is impossible.
- nostromo 13y ago
  I wish my brain had a switch. Monday: follow crazy ideas, absorb everything, novelty hunting. Tuesday - Friday: focus.
  - networked 13y ago
    >I wish my brain had a switch. We might be able to develop one by using non-invasive brain stimulation: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/06/110615123647.htm http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/06/110615123647.ht....
  - sitkack 13y ago
    Right now that switch is ADD medication, meditation, exercise (in order of increasing effectiveness and access).
- larrys 13y ago
  "Here I am wasting time/procrastinating." Interesting though that there is no data with regards to how much time people spend on HN and whether it results in success or not. Or just adds to entertainment, knowledge, or enjoyment. Even anecdotal although I do know there are some outliers like tpatcek and patio11 that have benefited. But we don't know how that compares to time that they spent.
- arkitaip 13y ago
  Hear, hear. I'm getting kinda desperate in my non existing pursuit of being able to focus / getting things done. I am considering meditation but I'm not sure there's actual evidence that it actually makes it easier to focus.

BigChiefSmokem 13y ago

Couple of points: 1) Use it or lose it, neurons act just like muscle fiber in this regard. I'd be more interest if someone can prove that deep thought and learning can lower the chances of cognitive disabilities like age-related dementia. 2) If you want to have a high IQ just retake the IQ test until you do. Maybe one day someone will make a test that will indeed measure intellect across a wide range of contexts, including social and abstract thinking.

coldcode 13y ago

I'm happy with mine, I want to improve other people's. I'm sure you can think of a couple places where that might be handy today.

gaelow 13y ago

Of course I can. If I manage to stop drinking.

buckbova 13y ago
Drinking excessively makes one smarter. Consider it culling the herd. The weaker slower brain cells die off, leaving the stronger faster brain cells to propell your brain power to peak levels.
- gaelow 13y ago
  I don't know. But for the fifteen years I've been doing it, every weekend when I go out with my friends I can feel my IQ dropping down with every drink. And don't even ask me to solve the simplest crossword puzzle on a Sunday morning. Not necessarily bad, though. It's fun and releases a lot of stress...
- frozenport 13y ago
  Exactly my point, it also does wonders for my liver by killing the old cells so that new ones can take their place - eventually, if I stop drinking. Perhaps even a new liver!

xntrk 13y ago

I had to stop reading when I got to the part about GPS where the author says he almost lost his job, due to tardiness, becuase he refused to use GPS.

deleted 13y ago
[deleted]

hownottowrite 13y ago

The question is... Can you make yourself less intelligent by indulging in the antithesis of the authors five principles? (viz. Seek Novelty; Challenge Yourself; Think Creatively; Do Things The Hard Way; Network)

zxcdw 13y ago
I think brain can be thought to behave like a muscle and skeleton. If you put it under stress(learning) and let it recover(sleeping) it improves and grows stronger. Similarly if you let it idle, atrophy hits and it weakens. Just like muscles and bones do. Both can be trained with consistent and proper effort.
namenotrequired 13y ago
Let's see... Avoid novelty; Only take on easy things; Don't think creatively; Do things the most convenient way; Don't network. ...in other words, live a stationary life, do the same things you always did in the same way with the same people. I don't know if any research exists to support this but it seems pretty likely, to me, that this will make one less intelligent.

pmelendez 13y ago

From the article: >"One of my first clients was a little boy w/ PDD-NOS (Pervasive Developmental Delays-Not Otherwise Specified), a mild form of autism. When we began therapy, his IQ was tested and scored in the low 80s—which is considered borderline mental retardation. After I worked with him for about three years— one on one, teaching in areas such as communication, reading, math, social functioning, play skills, leisure activities—using multimodal techniques [pdf] —he was retested. His IQ score was well over 100 (with 100 considered "average", as compared to the general population). That’s a 20 point increase, more than one standard deviation improvement, by a child with an autism spectrum disorder!" As a parent of a PDDNOS child this put a lot of noise in my mind. When my son got his diagnostics, the psychologist couldn't finish the IQ test because he couldn't focus on the questions. Now three years later, all people who know the case agreed that he is a brilliant boy. So was that a huge increase on his IQ? or Was just a noisy measure of the IQ at the beginning?

fersho311 13y ago

Every day, I train my memory by memorizing a pack of cards. I started because I had lousy memory and I wanted to improve it. I have been going at it for a few weeks now, memorizing and shuffling a deck of cards (twice a day). I can now memorize a deck of cards in just a little over 3 minutes (I started at a painful 19 minutes). Have I noticed am improvement in my memory? Yes, and much much more. What I've come to realize is that memorizing a deck of cards trains so much more than your memory. The way I memorize is to associate every card with an object and its corresponding action, and memorizing the deck of cards is a matter of creating a sequence of events that corresponds to the sequence of cards. So by memorizing a deck of cards I'm actually training different parts of my mind: recalling the item that is associated with the card, coming up with creative stories on the fly when I see a card, and holding the story in my mind as I add 52 objects into the story one by one. Each of these steps was painfully difficult in the beginning, but now I'm starting to see the fruits of my training. I almost never misplace my things (keys, wallet, etc) anymore. Mind blocks like, "what was the company's name? I used to know it...", happens less frequently and I can recollect facts much faster. Most importantly though, I have seen a dramatic improvement in the speed I learn and understand things. I'm not 100% sure, but I think that the rapid association of cards to objects and creatively creating a story have somehow improved my ability to comprehend and grasp new knowledge. I whole heartedly believe that the brain is a muscle that can be strengthened through exercise.

JakeSc 13y ago
How did you decide to embark on this challenge? Do you have any online resources that you can link to so we can learn more?
- fersho311 13y ago
  I started with this 10k memory competition, did really poorly, and decided to continue after the competition because it seemed to me helping me alot. http://www.memrise.com/course/44056/the-10k-memory-competition/ http://www.memrise.com/course/44056/the-10k-memory-competiti...
  - 13y ago

l0c0b0x 13y ago

Andrea Kuszewski is awesome! I recall reading this when it published, have been following her on twitter ever since.

piyush_soni 13y ago

It amuses me that even in today's times we believe that IQ = intelligence. Not true. All it requires is some practice. That doesn't make you intelligent. I mean "Einstein intelligent" :). Every few days I read the news anyway "This child has an IQ more than that of Einstein". Oh well. No wonder. He used his mind at better places than solving some puzzles "fast" enough.

akandiah 13y ago

If you are interested in how people learn, you may be interested in this comprehensive review published by the National Academy of Sciences: http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?isbn=0309070368 http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?isbn=0309070368

quanticle 13y ago

As gwern points out in his meta-analysis of Dual N-Back [1], and his Dual N-Back FAQ [2], the results of Dual N-Back have been very mixed. Some studies show massive improvement. Other studies show minor improvement, while some studies show no improvement at all. It is by no means clear in the literature that Dual N-Back actually helps more than an active placebo. This is very damaging to the case that dual n-back increases IQ. Not only do the better studies find a drastically smaller effect, they are not sufficiently powered to find such a small effect at all, even aggregated in a meta-analysis, with a power of ~11%, which is dismal indeed when compared to the usual benchmark of 80%, and leads to worries that even that is too high an estimate and that the active control studies are aberrant somehow in being subject to a winner’s curse or subject to other biases. (Because most studies used convenient passive control groups and the passive effect size is 3x larger, they in aggregate are very well-powered: 94%; however, we already know how they are skewed upwards, so we don’t care if we can detect a biased effect or not.) In particular, Boot et al 2013 argues that active control groups do not suffice to identify the true causal effect because the subjects in the active control group can still have different expectations than the experimental group, and the group’ differing awareness & expectations can cause differing performance on tests; they suggest recording expectancies (somewhat similar to Redick et al 2013), checking for a dose-response relationship (see the following section for whether dose-response exists for dual n-back/IQ), and using different experimental designs which actively manipulate subject expectations to identify how much effects are inflated by remaining placebo/expectancy effects. That said, there isn't any evidence of harm, either, so at worst, you'll waste your time if it doesn't work out for you. [1] http://www.gwern.net/DNB%20meta-analysis http://www.gwern.net/DNB%20meta-analysis [2] http://www.gwern.net/DNB%20FAQ http://www.gwern.net/DNB%20FAQ

aidenn0 13y ago

The author says roughly "I helped many kids raise their IQ"; there is nothing novel about that, it is well established that intervention has large effects on IQ in children, but most of those effects have disappeared by the time they are 18.

linux_devil 13y ago

Intelligence is just a fancy name to "determination"

gtani 13y ago

all well and good, for a lot of people i know the more immediate concerns are the basic trilogies of diet/exercise/rest, and learning the tiger parent things your whole life (math, programming, foreign languages, musical instruments). These things work because they require sustained effort/concentration, adn dealing with frustration and plateaus http://www.sott.net/articles/show/216086-Mental-muscle-six-ways-to-boost-your-brain http://www.sott.net/articles/show/216086-Mental-muscle-six-w... (the 6 things above: bright light, tDCS, food, exercise, playing music, meditation

warmfuzzykitten 13y ago

By a strange coincidence, yesterday a link to this article appeared on the same Hacker News page as this. http://www.gwern.net/Drug%20heuristics?2 http://www.gwern.net/Drug%20heuristics?2 The argument there is that - in healthy people - not much can be done to improve intelligence, and speculates on reasons why. The qualification suggests that experience working with autistic children is not relevant to the general population. That this link has been voted up to the front page and the other hasn't perhaps says more about the optimism of the community than the respective merits of the two positions.