In general, scientific studies find that getting good at one activity doesn't make you better at other activities. For example, if you play a lot of chess, you will get better at playing chess, but there is not good evidence that playing chess will make you better at other activities like, say, playing bridge or computer programming (See this interesting article in Scientific American on "The Expert Mind" : http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=the-expert-mind ).
That means that if we do find scientific evidence that playing some game improves general intelligence, it is a very exciting finding for us. The Mind Hacks and Mind Performance Hacks books both describe evidence that playing first person video games improves certain general mental processes, namely the "attentional blink" and "subitizing". This is a fast moving area of research and every now and then researchers are making new findings suggesting ways that game playing can improve intelligence.
Recently, researchers have presented evidence that practicing a particular demanding mental task (called "Dual n-back") increases general intelligence - probably through increasing the capacity of working memory (i.e. the number of things we can hold in our head at one time while thinking). That holds the promise of a way of increasing general intelligence and problem solving ability.
1. Training with dual n-back
The ![[WWW]](/wiki/mentat/img/moin-www.png){kind=small}
study suggests that practicing the dual n-back task for about 30 minutes a day will improve overall intelligence. There are a number of implementations of the dual n-back task that you can use for training. Two of the best are:
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soakyourhead.com - an implementation of the n-back task which is very close to the original paper
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cognitive fun - another good implementation of the n-back task. The cognitive fun site has a number of other demanding brain games which are well worth exploring.
2. Other brain training and mental calculation games online
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Fitbrains.com - a slick site with lots of games (all free)
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Speed math trainer - a good online game for rapid fire drilling of mental arithmetic
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Grey Matters mental gym - lots of online games
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gbrainy - Free, open source game software that claims to improve your intelligence. Cf. Brain Age.
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TimesOnline.co.uk - some simple but slick Nintendo-style online brain training games
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Matica.com brain gym - free flash games
3. Other relevant links
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Article from "Monitor on Psychology" - "A workout for working memory"
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sharpbrains.com - a site on brain fitness, including a regularly updated blog
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"hback" - another program aiming to implement dual n-back as described in the paper
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Article at portfolio.com with a "brain age" reaction time game
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How does it work - the science behind Nintento brain training's purported benefits
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Radio interview with Suzanne Jaeggi, one of the authors of the dual n-back study
4. Open questions
Here are some open questions for development:
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Can we find any more research evidence in this area?
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Is there evidence that the "brain training" programs that have been popularised by Nintendo and others recently really work?
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What other memory and brain training software is available? Which is the best?
5. See also
6. Comments
Apparently, this online game implements the n-back task: http://cognitivefun.net/test/5
-- Ron Hale-Evans 2008-05-09 14:22:39
Thanks Ron - this looks like exactly what I was after. ThufirHawat.
