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Training exercise boosts brain power, Johns Hopkins researchers say

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Re: Training exercise boosts brain power, Johns Hopkins researchers say

#3
post #2

Cool. Does anybody know an app where I can exercise like in the video?

Found this, but I'm sure any N-back will work:

http://brainscale.net/dual-n-back

Also, if you feel like working off of someone else's source:

https://sourceforge.net/projects/brainworkshop/files/brainwo...

Though it seems relatively simple to design.

Re: Training exercise boosts brain power, Johns Hopkins researchers say

#6
When the first studies by Jaeggie on IQ came out a few years ago I hit dual n back pretty hard trying to improve my IQ. I don't think I got any smarter, but I did notice a few things.

Pros

My attention got better, I was less easily distracted.

My executive function was better, I made better choices in life.(less junk food, fewer beers)

My thoughts slipped less often, I had those "what was I just talking about" moments less and less frequently.

Cons

Sometimes I felt overly focused for social situations. Like the feeling you get when you've been studying for 4 hours, and then try to the shoot the shit with someone, and you end up being too rigid/serious and instead of playful/fun.

Re: Training exercise boosts brain power, Johns Hopkins researchers say

#7

When the first studies by Jaeggie on IQ came out a few years ago I hit dual n back pretty hard trying to improve my IQ. I don't think I got any smarter, but I did notice a few things. Pros My attention got better, I was less easily distracted. My executive function was better, I made better choices in life.(less junk food, fewer beers) My thoughts slipped less often, I had those "what was I just talking about" moment…

Those are all indicators of intelligence. Whether you have good executive control due to some "intrinsic" intelligence or due to some conditioning, the net effect is the same.

Re: Training exercise boosts brain power, Johns Hopkins researchers say

#8
This is actually a really common improv warm up. The group that's about to perform circles up, and one person says a word to someone else in the circle. That second person then passes the word to someone else, and so on. Eventually, after around 50 words, someone spontaneously passes what was said to them back and you start trying to go back down. The benefits are many, everyone practices focusing, listening and trusting their teammates. It can also be funny, as near the bottom opinions on what the true order is can vary quite a bit.

Re: Training exercise boosts brain power, Johns Hopkins researchers say

#9
When I see these exercises, I think it would be more fun to just play the drums to boost my brain. Here's an article collating studies on rhythm playing and brain effects:

https://www.google.com.pe/amp/s/m.mic.com/articles/amp/89363...

(i do play drums, synth, and guitar.)

Re: Training exercise boosts brain power, Johns Hopkins researchers say

#10
This is interesting, and kind of odd.

The article claims the failure of previous brain-training studies came from choosing the wrong techniques, but the evidence on dual n-back specifically has been conflicted for quite a while; this isn't the first study on it.

What's interesting here is that a lot of the best results on dual n-back in the past have concluded that it's mostly promising to fight cognitive decline or boost recovery. Previous work on boosting memory in young, mentally-healthy people has come up with basically nothing.

I'm hoping that this is the better and more-powerful study, and that n-back does boost general working memory. But the cynic in me is wondering if the chosen working-memory metric was simply more vulnerable to training effects from n-back than from complex span.

https://www.gwern.net/DNB-meta-analysis

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