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Article: Can You Make Yourself Smarter?

Posted: Wed Apr 18, 2012 4:51 pm
by annet
From the NYT Magazine:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/22/magaz ... wanted=all

...At the University of California, Berkeley, Silvia Bunge, director of a laboratory on the building blocks of cognition, takes what she calls “an everything-but-the-kitchen-sink approach.” Working with 28 children from low socioeconomic backgrounds, she assigned half of them to play games designed to boost the speed of response times, and the other half to play games that target reasoning skills. “Quirkle,” for instance, challenges children to align tiles on a grid to match shapes and colors. After eight weeks of training — 75 minutes per day, twice a week — Bunge found that the children in the reasoning group scored, on average, 10 points higher on a nonverbal I.Q. test than they had before the training. Four of the 17 children who played the reasoning games gained an average of more than 20 points. In another study, not yet published, Bunge found improvements in college students preparing to take the LSAT. ...

I'm suddenly way more interested in N-back and other brain training games than I was a few hours ago :D Maybe I should dust off my Nintendo DS.

Re: Article: Can You Make Yourself Smarter?

Posted: Wed Apr 18, 2012 4:54 pm
by PARTY
annet wrote:From the NYT Magazine:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/22/magaz ... wanted=all

...At the University of California, Berkeley, Silvia Bunge, director of a laboratory on the building blocks of cognition, takes what she calls “an everything-but-the-kitchen-sink approach.” Working with 28 children from low socioeconomic backgrounds, she assigned half of them to play games designed to boost the speed of response times, and the other half to play games that target reasoning skills. “Quirkle,” for instance, challenges children to align tiles on a grid to match shapes and colors. After eight weeks of training — 75 minutes per day, twice a week — Bunge found that the children in the reasoning group scored, on average, 10 points higher on a nonverbal I.Q. test than they had before the training. Four of the 17 children who played the reasoning games gained an average of more than 20 points. In another study, not yet published, Bunge found improvements in college students preparing to take the LSAT. ...

I'm suddenly way more interested in N-back and other brain training games than I was a few hours ago :D Maybe I should dust off my Nintendo DS.
it's old news that video games aid in the development of spacial awareness and pattern recognition, as well as focus on detail and the ability to strategize regarding both micro and macro scales.

Re: Article: Can You Make Yourself Smarter?

Posted: Thu Apr 19, 2012 2:29 am
by omegaomega
i'll give it a try. i do think my ability to retain info in short term memory is holding me back for RC
it's 20 minutes' exercise everyday, not too much to lose

Re: Article: Can You Make Yourself Smarter?

Posted: Thu Apr 19, 2012 6:06 pm
by Lyov Myshkin
i think it's not a bad idea. i think there is an iphone version as well for those interested.

Re: Article: Can You Make Yourself Smarter?

Posted: Thu Apr 19, 2012 6:08 pm
by chem
I honestly advocate playing Professor Layton

Re: Article: Can You Make Yourself Smarter?

Posted: Thu Apr 19, 2012 6:10 pm
by glucose101
Dual-n back

Re: Article: Can You Make Yourself Smarter?

Posted: Thu Apr 19, 2012 6:16 pm
by Racecar Dad
u may want to check out the manhattan lsat arcade