"How I Increased My IQ By 13 Points" - IQ boost via working memory training?

[Carl-Richard]

On 27.10.2024 at 8:34 PM, The Renaissance Man said:

This to say that progress in this kind of exercises doesn't necessarily mean progress in your working memory, it's just that your brain has developed better and better specific chunking and pattern recognition abilities.

8 hours ago, The Renaissance Man said:

Yes I'm not saying the problem is that the game becomes easier and easier, I'm saying why progress in the game will probably not translate to other areas.

I would think it's the specific pattern recognition and chunking that doesn't transfer between tasks, but the underlying working memory training that is indicated by the fatigue does transfer. It's like playing basketball and then one day switching to football. Your game performance will drop significantly, but your general physical fitness will stay the same.

N-Back training does load your working memory, or else there would be no platform to develop the pattern recognition or chunking abilities on. Your working memory is the general workspace of your mind, kinda like the musculoskeletal system is the general workspace of your body. The question is simply how much N-Back training loads it and whether it's more efficient than simply using your brain in other similar ways (e.g. reading a difficult text).

And indeed, I believe N-Back training is more efficient at this, because it follows the same principles of maximizing muscle growth: short and intense periods of work (e.g. 1 minute x 10 sets), short rest periods in-between (e.g. 30 seconds), and longer periods of rest (e.g. two to three rest days a week). So to speak, you can develop your muscles by simply doing manual labor all day, but you won't win the Mr. Olympia.

But how much more efficient is it? That's an empirical question, and paraphrasing one of my professors, "the evidence on the benefits of brain training on improving cognitive performance is weak to moderate", and the studies that show positive results generally point to e.g. single digit increases in IQ. However, I believe more clever research designs could show more convincing results.

Just like there are better and worse ways of training for example bench press, there are better and worse ways of training N-Back, and I don't believe this is well-controlled for in most studies. The way you structure your training, your focus, your intensity, your consistency, your technique, etc., matters a lot.

This is also not to speak about factors like internal motivation, which is unbelievably important for pursuing growth in anything and arguably one of the largest predictors of cognitive performance in itself. You will probably never find a high-quality study like a randomized controlled trial that uses internally motivated participants unless they intentionally selected for it, and that is rare (and almost practically impossible in this case: where would you find people who can't wait to start N-Back training but has not already started it?).

As for what I believe is possible, I believe you could increase your IQ by 10 points using a proper N-Back training protocol with internal motivation (and coaching) in one month of training. You could probably increase it another 5 points or so over time, like indicated by the anecdotal report mentioned by OP (although he was also maximizing other factors like diet and exercise). On the surface, this would probably get me laughed at by some scientists, but again, I would ask them for better studies.

 

So to sum up, N-Back is a very intense exercise, and it fits well within a training protocol that maximizes growth.

Edited October 29 by Carl-Richard

[Carl-Richard]

I've started on 7-Back and it's ridiculous. It's essentially challenging the 7±2 rule every 3 seconds (or every 7 trials depending on how you define it).

Edited Saturday at 10:12 PM by Carl-Richard

[Reciprocality]

@Carl-Richard Is it not likely that the more you improve your cognitive performance from these n-back exercises the earlier in your life you get burnt out or experience similar after-effects? Assuming that your mind is allowed to burn more energy the more efficiently it thinks any given thing because it thinks an associated or connected thing in addition to that thing when it thinks it more efficiently.

[Carl-Richard]

1 hour ago, Reciprocality said:

@Carl-Richard Is it not likely that the more you improve your cognitive performance from these n-back exercises the earlier in your life you get burnt out or experience similar after-effects? Assuming that your mind is allowed to burn more energy the more efficiently it thinks any given thing because it thinks an associated or connected thing in addition to that thing when it thinks it more efficiently.

I don't think so. Doing intense work for a short period (20 minutes) and then resting for the next 47 hours and 40 minutes before you work again is most definitely not going to lead to "burnout", unless those 20 minutes are the most terrorizing and traumatic 20 minutes of your life. It will lead to an adaptation response which will increase your ability to handle those 47 hours and 40 minutes spent doing other things, which will actually lead to an overall reduction in burnout, and that is what you're after.

 

1 hour ago, Reciprocality said:

Assuming that your mind is allowed to burn more energy the more efficiently it thinks any given thing because it thinks an associated or connected thing in addition to that thing when it thinks it more efficiently.

Reading this sentence is more difficult than a 7-Back task.

Edited Saturday at 10:17 PM by Carl-Richard

[Reciprocality]

@Carl-Richard Imagine that your mind consumes more energy the more efficiently it processes a thought because this efficiency allows it to also process related or connected thoughts. Additionally, any surplus energy saved through increased efficiency is not stored but instead redirected to handling these additional tasks, leading to a higher overall energy expenditure per second than in the initial, less efficient system.

The duality here would be accumulation or retention vs offset or redistribution

 

2 hours ago, Carl-Richard said:

I don't think so. Doing intense work for a short period (20 minutes) and then resting for the next 47 hours and 40 minutes before you work again is most definitely not going to lead to "burnout", unless those 20 minutes are the most terrorizing and traumatic 20 minutes of your life.

But my response took into account the cognitive improvements themselves on the mind, which you appear to theorise as being substantial, not just their cause (the n-back exercise) which your comment responded to. On the one hand you look very optimistic on the positive effects the dual-n-back training have on the efficiency of the mind in relation to cognitive tasks but on the other hand you are very pessimistic that the consequences of this efficiency can be similar to what I believe to be the consequence of those who already possess a very efficient cognitive apparatus, that being mental burnout.

But let us say that many of my assumptions are incorrect, the principle that more efficient systems produce a surplus of energy per task is tautological, and that this surplus energy is either offset or accumulated exhausts all non-magical possibilities, if your refined assumption that higher cognitive efficiency does not correlate with burnout is correct then this raises a few questions, 1. why the surplus energy is merely accumulated into some general energy bank, 2. how surplus energy can be offset to other tasks associated with the original and result in more energy spent without it correlating with burnout, 3. why burnout is trivially correlated with mental activity and instead a matter of physical toil or 4. why the surplus concept does not apply in this issue at all.

To be clear, I am only asking questions and doing some consistency checking, I have no scientific knowledge in this area nor am I invested in any given stance on the issue, I ask these questions to get answers since it could reveal nuanced principles I have not considered.

[Cireeric]

10 hours ago, Reciprocality said:

 Imagine that your mind consumes more energy the more efficiently it processes a thought because this efficiency allows it to also process related or connected thoughts. Additionally, any surplus energy saved through increased efficiency is not stored but instead redirected to handling these additional tasks, leading to a higher overall energy expenditure per second than in the initial, less efficient system.

Since your mind doesnt have an embedded growth-obligation, I dont think the Jevons Paradox applies to the mind  From my experience with 2 months of N-back training it feels more like stuff that was once challenging becomes more effortless. It doesnt seem like that the "saved" energy will then be spend on compulsive-thinking or overanalyzing or something like that. Having an "less efficient" mind and getting challenged by lifes problems, where youre not up to the task cognitively seems to be way more likely to lead to something like burnout.

[zurew]

@Reciprocality Lets pivot from the mind and from the brain for a second, and lets talk about physical exercise. 

Would you raise the exact same issues  with workout ? If the answer is no, whats the difference?

[Reciprocality]

3 hours ago, zurew said:

@Reciprocality Lets pivot from the mind and from the brain for a second, and lets talk about physical exercise. 

Would you raise the exact same issues  with workout ? If the answer is no, whats the difference?

@zurew

1. The muscles are tools that gets employed from the motivation that lies in the mind, motivation is conceptual or semantic past a certain stage of infancy which means that there is not only a difference between the two but such a fundamental difference that one (mind/brain) is the foundation or threshold of the use of the other (muscles), 2. the muscles on the upper arms does not get more used when (if and only if) the muscles on the forearms have grown more efficient, just as the muscles on the legs does not work over-time when (again: if and only if) the abs have become more efficient at crunches, this implies a non-causal and non-inherent relation between growth of muscle groups, although the correlation would be significant since more efficient muscle group A would correlate with more overall exercise thus correlate with the need for muscle group B to grow as well.

The mind is a whole other order of business, since the relation between concepts are directly causal and share inherent similarities, overlaps, associations etc., my argument took this for granted and could do so since it holds true against scrutiny. 

Now recognise that if my arguments against the relevant difference between muscles and the brain falls short this would not in and of itself imply that the burnout rate is not higher for cognitively efficient agents, but could just as much imply that the burnout rate is higher for both physically and cognitively efficient agents, remember also that the burnout section of the argument must have two components, one being correlational and the other causal, this is important to recognise since it is actually possible that there is less correlation between higher cognitive function and burnout at the same time as higher cognitive function is a direct cause for burnout, this is especially possible if the causal relation is an outlier in the statistics. Since I provide no scientific findings this should be taken as causal inference, thus my methods must be rather conceptual and comprise conditionals that build on simple and universal principles.

Edited Sunday at 03:54 PM by Reciprocality

[zurew]

2 hours ago, Reciprocality said:

Since I provide no scientific findings this should be taken as causal inference, thus my methods must be rather conceptual and comprise conditionals that build on simple and universal principles.

I might be slow, but I still dont see where you provided an argument that ends with your conclusion -  where  a more efficient mind, necessarily leads to more energy spent. 

The reason why I brought up physical exercise, because to me, it seems that the exact same objections could be brought up there. You have some amount energy and you exercise and then you get better at doing/executing certain movements (you get more efficient) , but from that doesn't necessarily follow that you will engage in so much training that you will overall burn more energy compared to the past.

 

2 hours ago, Reciprocality said:

Now recognise that if my arguments against the relevant difference between muscles and the brain falls short this would not in and of itself imply that the burnout rate is not higher for cognitively efficient agents,

Yeah I know.

From your argument failing doesn't follow that our conclusion is right, because there are many possible scenarios. So thats clear, but I am still curious what kind of reasoning can lead to your conclusion.

2 hours ago, Reciprocality said:

The mind is a whole other order of business, since the relation between concepts are directly causal and share inherent similarities, overlaps, associations etc., my argument took this for granted and could do so since it holds true against scrutiny. 

Even If I grant you this, I still don't see how this establish the point you try to make.

This seems to be compatible with the scenario, where a developed/more efficient mind burns the exact same amount energy as a less efficient mind, and it seems to also be compatible with the scenario, where a more developed mind burns overall  less energy than a less efficient mind.

17 hours ago, Reciprocality said:

Imagine that your mind consumes more energy the more efficiently it processes a thought because this efficiency allows it to also process related or connected thoughts.

I don't see how you establish this conclusion. And again, even if we grant you that from efficiency it follows that the mind will start processing related or connected thoughts, from that doesn't follow that more overall energy will be spent.

I can have x amount of energy, and if I become more efficient, then I can use the same amount of energy to do more. (how do you rule this scenario out)?

Edited Sunday at 06:41 PM by zurew

[Reciprocality]

Where does the concepts of boredom and stimuli come from? Why are you stimulated by a conversation about neurology, principles, improvement, intelligence etc., instead of a conversation about the politics concerning the ownership of land in the sandbox at the closest kindergarten?

My answer to that question is largely that you have grown to think of ownership, self, self-bias etc. in far more efficient and interconnected ways than you once did, but that this efficiency would be impossible without first having been the self-proclaimed owner of the sandbox, and that whatever comes afterwards are more and more complex bifurcations of that proclamation and its negation, that the significance of such proclamation is the substance of the system that overtakes it.

The new branches on a tree grows out of what the tree already is, and these new branches render a higher toil on the tree in proportion to what they contribute than the previous generation, since the substance that allows it to operate is the same limit all throughout every generation, if this were not so then trees would die far later.

You don't accept my proposition because you don't connect the inherent relation between the condition for the possibility of x with the limit of x. 

 

Once you distinctly identify how all systems are limited by their conditions you see how it entails that if all else were equal then a more efficient variant of a brain or mind will use more energy than a less efficient one, not in relation to a given task, for which the converse is true, but in relation to the set of all relatively-present tasks.

It is possible that other variables minimises the effect, and that part of what life on this planet has done is to succeed at this, that would be a very interesting hypothesis and we should investigate it, but confusing that for the absence of condition-to-limit equivalency would be like confusing biology for physics.

 

If conditions are equal to limits then just as the conditions will continue to be the walls you are bumping into so too will they be the growth that allows you to tear through them, if the growth-vector were to minimise the more one grew then the continuous limits that the growth vector up until then constituted would need to minimise too. Which would be absurd unless the system were initially unequal in condition and limits, which also would be absurd.

The more easily you think concept x the more easily y is conceived alongside it, since concepts have their whole significance and origination in the perception and set of judgements both of which correspond with the growth-vector and its inherent limits all throughout your development.

What I am saying may be clearer if you consider concepts as the aperture of the mind and the experiences it can and will imagine.

Edited yesterday at 02:23 AM by Reciprocality

[Reciprocality]

To be clear, the thesis is that burnout is an effect of subject-relative higher cognitive efficiency because for every thought it processes more efficiently inherent constraints are approached more closely without that limiting the growth-vector/ synthesis of concepts, the unchangeable nature thus universal applicability of concepts could also be predicted simply from that. Thus the idea that you could think more efficiently x and y without that leading to z decouples the inherent relations without which the mind would not think in the first place.

The condition-limit equivalence is also an argument for a macro-level (non-continuous) determinism which is translatable to an inherent psychological balance-mechanism which dictates that any action or non-action follows by an equal and opposite action or reaction in some or other way.

To disagree with the equivalence will then imply disagreement with the balance mechanism, so if you think that the mind has a shadow, a conscience or values then what can be induced from them (inherent psychological balance) is negated by that disagreement.

 

Edit: note on the point of the universality of concepts: if they weren't unchangeable why would humans intuitively read their children and younger people like a book? Are judgements sudden novelties or are they remnants from past experiences? Is the belief in the novelty of my present judgement a decoupling between the present and the past?

Edited yesterday at 03:44 AM by Reciprocality

[Reciprocality]

You are treating variables as though they add to one another, are conjoined, but they are mutually defined, connected and are dualities of one distributed entity.

A sum of added parts / coinciding parts were one of the worst tragedies that happened to our intellectual circuits, they are effectively enforced accidents (inessentials) where any one part forcefully exists independently of the others. 

The modern language we use comes with the accident of every one combination of words that expresses meaning, the syntax of the sentence, and I believe this has forced us to think more syntactically about memories, the hypothesis from this is that tribes that only think by hieroglyphs or single words think wholes and are able to "see" the whole through the parts, that they think holistically because the accidental relations between things have not been forced on them through the way in which syntax of language efficiently allows one to think utterly differentiated things, partially from ones will and woe, at various points of the day or week which when generalised into entailments would be tremendously inconsistent with each other.

When we employ immense amounts of conceptual thinking the inherent connections between parts can reemerge, where their distinction is falsified through investigation into the ground for abstractions (phenomenology, axiomatics and memories), such that nothingness derive from logical negation,  negation derive from spontaneous distinction, ones sense of self is the same as others, limits unified with conditions, body identical with mind, the future identical with the past, space the same as time, algebra the same as geometry, energy as the same as space-time, logic as the same as identity etc.

 

Edited yesterday at 04:44 AM by Reciprocality