Researchers Develop Software That Makes You Smarter

Brain researchers for the first time claim to have found a method for improving the general problem-solving ability scientists call fluid intelligence, otherwise known as "smarts."

Fluid intelligence deals with how people adapt to solving new problems they've never seen before. Cystallized intelligence, takes knowledge into account to solve the problem. You can train in one test area and gain proficiency, thus improving your test score, however that doesn't improve one's underlying smarts.

But in this case, subjects trained on a complex version of the so-called "n-back task" -- a difficult visual/auditory memory test -- improved their scores on a set of IQ questions drawn from a German intelligence measure called the Bochumer Matrizen-Test.

But after the group trained on the n-back task for 25 minutes a day for 19 days, they averaged 14.7 correct answers, an increase of more than 40 percent. (A control group that was not trained showed only a very slight performance increase.)

Source

I find this to be quite an interesting study, although I question whether we as a society are mature enough to handle it? Commercializing a "smartening software" is just another way for companies to rake in huge profits while creating further divisions in our society between those who can afford such things and those who can't.

[edit on 29-4-2008 by Scramjet76]

Very interesting....

Hope to see some software like that sometime.

Yeah. The bottom of the article has a link to a simplified version of the n-back test.

Instructions
Have a friend read out the following list of letters.

A C M C Q P C X R X

When you hear a letter read out that was read out two letters ago (this is a two-back test), tap the desk. For example, if I read out A C M C, the second C is the same as the letter two letters ago, and I would tap the desk. Inside the MRI, subjects are given a buzzer to push.

You can also do a one-back test or even three-back test. Try these

One-back test – P R M M Y D D R P R

Three-back text – A B C M R C Q R

You could design your own n-back tests. A one-back test would be easier and a three-back test much harder

Source

The test seems almost like a game. If their data showing (40%) improvement in problem solving proves itself over time I don't see why they wouldn't use such methods in public schools? Oh that's right they have to adhere to a rigid curriculum... Chances are you'll find the Bible in the public school curriculum before n-back.

Of course more testing is needed before any firm conclusions can be drawn. But preliminary results look good.

Originally posted by Scramjet76

Commercializing a "smartening software" is just another way for companies to rake in huge profits while creating further divisions in our society between those who can afford such things and those who can't.

[edit on 29-4-2008 by Scramjet76]

Tsk tsk.
If the basic prinicples behind the software work, it can be replicated cheaply. even if it is priced at a premium, those using it will become more productive, and as a result everyone will benefit. Furthermore the more of a preimium its priced at, the more incentive there is for someone to replicate it, or its effects, legally or illegally.

Capitalism is Equality.

reply to post by Shazam The Unbowed

If the basic prinicples behind the software work, it can be replicated cheaply

I stand corrected. I haven't been in a middle school in ages. I guess they purchase Photoshop and other expensive softwares for their computer labs. You're probably right though... won't be that expensive.

I was afraid it would wind up in expensive "mental gyms" and private schools, while public education would continue to lag behind.