
You can increase your intelligence - jwdunne
http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/2011/03/07/you-can-increase-your-intelligence-5-ways-to-maximize-your-cognitive-potential/
======
fersho311
Every day, I train my memory by memorizing a pack of cards. I started because
I had lousy memory and I wanted to improve it. I have been going at it for a
few weeks now, memorizing and shuffling a deck of cards (twice a day). I can
now memorize a deck of cards in just a little over 3 minutes (I started at a
painful 19 minutes). Have I noticed am improvement in my memory? Yes, and much
much more.

What I've come to realize is that memorizing a deck of cards trains so much
more than your memory. The way I memorize is to associate every card with an
object and its corresponding action, and memorizing the deck of cards is a
matter of creating a sequence of events that corresponds to the sequence of
cards. So by memorizing a deck of cards I'm actually training different parts
of my mind: recalling the item that is associated with the card, coming up
with creative stories on the fly when I see a card, and holding the story in
my mind as I add 52 objects into the story one by one.

Each of these steps was painfully difficult in the beginning, but now I'm
starting to see the fruits of my training. I almost never misplace my things
(keys, wallet, etc) anymore. Mind blocks like, "what was the company's name? I
used to know it...", happens less frequently and I can recollect facts much
faster. Most importantly though, I have seen a dramatic improvement in the
speed I learn and understand things. I'm not 100% sure, but I think that the
rapid association of cards to objects and creatively creating a story have
somehow improved my ability to comprehend and grasp new knowledge.

I whole heartedly believe that the brain is a muscle that can be strengthened
through exercise.

~~~
JakeSc
How did you decide to embark on this challenge? Do you have any online
resources that you can link to so we can learn more?

~~~
fersho311
I started with this 10k memory competition, did really poorly, and decided to
continue after the competition because it seemed to me helping me alot.
[http://www.memrise.com/course/44056/the-10k-memory-
competiti...](http://www.memrise.com/course/44056/the-10k-memory-competition/)

~~~
gboudrias
Thanks for this! I really needed memory exercises but didn't know where to
start.

------
tokenadult
The article kindly submitted here is from 2011. There is a new article, from
today,

[http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/beautiful-
minds/2013/10/...](http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/beautiful-
minds/2013/10/09/new-cognitive-training-study-takes-on-the-critics/)

that follows up on recent cognitive training research. The research
conclusions are becoming more and more nuanced, and thus are better and better
guides to practical things you can do for your own intelligence boosting.

~~~
mikevm
It appears that the new study is as flawed as Jaeggi's previous one:
[http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/beautiful-
minds/2013/10/...](http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/beautiful-
minds/2013/10/09/new-cognitive-training-study-takes-on-the-
critics/#comment-357) (comment by this guy:
[http://www.uncg.edu/~mjkane/](http://www.uncg.edu/~mjkane/))

------
auctiontheory
Most of us on HN have enough intelligence. Other qualities (focus, dedication,
ambition, sociability) will have much greater impact on our success in life.

~~~
arrfscarf
Focus!

Here I am wasting time/procrastinating. There certain days, that no matter
what I do, consistent concentration is impossible.

~~~
arkitaip
Hear, hear. I'm getting kinda desperate in my non existing pursuit of being
able to focus / getting things done. I am considering meditation but I'm not
sure there's actual evidence that it actually makes it easier to focus.

~~~
vidarh
If meditation does not make it easier for you to focus, you will be unable to
progress with your meditation. It's that simple - increasing your focus is
integral to progress in meditation practice.

Meditation consists of two main "directions": Concentration practice and
contemplation practices. Most schools of meditation has one of these as their
main focus, but contemplation practice includes certain levels of
concentration practice as pre-requisite, either explicitly (separate ways to
train your concentration), or indirectly as part of practising a form of
contemplative meditation.

Concentration practice is generally what you might think of if you think of
meditation as emptying your mind, repeating mantras or similar.

Try this simple exercise:

Set an alarm for five minutes.

Sit comfortably. Floor is traditional, but not at all necessary; a position
that is comfortable enough that physical discomfort does not distract you too
much is much more important. Half close your eyes (you can meditate with your
eyes fully open, or fully closed, or anything in between - it is a matter of
preference, but until you know consider that fully open means your eyes will
be dry and there will be more distraction, and fully closed increases your
chance of falling asleep).

Then breathe in and out through your nostrils. Count 1, 2, 1, 2, 1,2 as you
breathe in and out.

Every time you notice that you have stopped counting, try to estimate
(quickly) how long you have been "off track", and start again, until the alarm
goes off.

Congratulations, you have just meditated. If you can make the whole five
minutes, try it again but without counting, just noticing the breath.

Most first timers/beginners are lucky if they manage 30 seconds consecutively
without going off track, often for minutes at a time. If you manage the full
five minutes without finding yourself thinking about something completely
difference, your concentration skills are already well above average. With
practice, you can keep attention like that for hours. And it does translate to
being able to keep focus in other situations.

If you want to try more, "Mindfulness in Plain English" is a good
introduction:
[http://www.urbandharma.org/udharma4/mpe.html](http://www.urbandharma.org/udharma4/mpe.html)
; the html version is free. Gil Fronsdals "Introduction to Meditation" series
of recordings are also great, free, and includes guided meditations that are
quite useful to beginners:
[http://www.audiodharma.org/series/1/talk/1762/](http://www.audiodharma.org/series/1/talk/1762/)

These focus on vipassana - insight meditation or mindfulness. This is a
contemplation practice, but the introductions above spend a substantial part
on the basic concentration practice of meditating on the breath, which is a
common concentration practice in many schools of meditation.

The "mindfulness" part is sort of in the gaps: Rather than trying to hold an
"iron grip" on your mind to focus on the breath, the purpose is closer to
"catching you thinking" (or feeling, or sensing, etc.) and paying attention to
the sensations an quality of what arises in you, while you try not to get
pulled away from paying attention to the breath, and then rather than forcing
the thought away, to let it "fade" by "simply" (it is by no means simple) not
follow the thought with another.

Both of these introductions are of buddhist origins, though if it matters to
you one of the things that appealed greatly to me about them is that they are
careful to keep the material mostly secular (there's some brief mentions of
buddhist faith, but they are explanatory rather than essential toe the
meditation practice).

~~~
flipgimble
While I'm familiar with everything you described from previous experience I
have to say that was masterfully described. I've found that meditation has so
much cultural and 'religious' sounding baggage attached to it that people who
would benefit most dismiss it out of hand. Your post cut through that.

When I started meditation I thought it would give me some sort of mental
superpowers (Tibetan Buddhist IMO are quick to sell you on those). However in
my experience the benefit is more like developing resilience against all the
drama and bullshit that life or your own mind throws at you. A potential
downside is that I notice more clearly how other around me are swept up into
unnecessary frustration or anger. Of course it would be overstating to say I'm
a competent meditator, but on some days I consider meditation the most
valuable thing I do for myself.

I'm motivated now to try the guided meditation your linked above. Thanks!

~~~
rafcavallaro
The spiritual baggage comes from the fact that in these traditions meditation
is a tool to develop concentration so that the meditator can focus his/her
full attention on some form of the question "who am I" \- that is, "what is my
true identity" \- sometimes aided by focus on a koan (a puzzle meant to spur
an insight into ones real identity)

Spoiler alert - you're supposed to discover by direct experience that your
real self is neither a homunculus looking out through your eyes, nor is it
coterminous with your body, and this direct experience that your true self is
everything that is, is intended to lead to compassion for other beings.

------
pmelendez
From the article: >"One of my first clients was a little boy w/ PDD-NOS
(Pervasive Developmental Delays-Not Otherwise Specified), a mild form of
autism. When we began therapy, his IQ was tested and scored in the low
80s—which is considered borderline mental retardation. After I worked with him
for about three years— one on one, teaching in areas such as communication,
reading, math, social functioning, play skills, leisure activities—using
multimodal techniques [pdf] —he was retested. His IQ score was well over 100
(with 100 considered "average", as compared to the general population). That’s
a 20 point increase, more than one standard deviation improvement, by a child
with an autism spectrum disorder!"

As a parent of a PDDNOS child this put a lot of noise in my mind. When my son
got his diagnostics, the psychologist couldn't finish the IQ test because he
couldn't focus on the questions. Now three years later, all people who know
the case agreed that he is a brilliant boy. So was that a huge increase on his
IQ? or Was just a noisy measure of the IQ at the beginning?

------
moocowduckquack
I've always been surprised people thought any different, given the content of
IQ tests. Is basically just puzzles and you usually get much better at puzzles
if you do them all the time.

~~~
gojomo
Increasing your score on an IQ test is one thing; getting the benefits
expected from more "intelligence" may be another.

In such matters, keep in mind Goodhart's Law: "When a measure becomes a
target, it ceases to be a good measure."

In the domain of IQ, we might observe a very high correlation between higher-
IQ and certain desirable results, like a longer/healthier life, lower rates of
victimization, higher incomes, and so forth. And we might have a strong case
that the test is, at least at the outset, measuring some sort of "general
intelligence", and that there is a causal link from "general intelligence" to
the other correlated beneficial outcomes.

But, then you start aiming to increase "general intelligence", and your only
measure is the IQ test, so your target for evaluating all interventions is the
IQ score. Now you are quite likely finding interventions that _only_ raise the
IQ score, and perhaps skip any "general intelligence" benefits. Even if your
IQ score goes up, you might not get the other benefits. Meanwhile, others
still researching the correlation/causation questions may see the original
correlations start to weaken, or the case that IQ measures "general
intelligence" weaken.

And in fact the originally-valid ideas are weakening! Motivated action around
that target has started to thwart whatever signal it once offered.

The problem is universal - in regulation, in education, in investment, in
semantics. It's why a lot of high-performing organizations keep their true
'measures' secret... to slow their dilution through motivated optimizations.

~~~
moocowduckquack
The other thing with optimising as a strategy is while it likes small changes,
it really hates structural ones as they make it very hard to compare what you
have now with what went before, so anything that is hard to measure is
resisted. But usefulness and ease of measurement are not always particularly
aligned.

------
coldcode
I'm happy with mine, I want to improve other people's. I'm sure you can think
of a couple places where that might be handy today.

------
ukoki
Interesting! If anyone wants to give it a go, I just made a quick Dual-N-back
app a couple of days ago, after reading Gwern's (who else?) excellent FAQ on
the subject.

My web app: [http://nnback.ukoki.com](http://nnback.ukoki.com)

Gwern's FAQ: [http://www.gwern.net/DNB%20FAQ](http://www.gwern.net/DNB%20FAQ)

~~~
jerf
Incidentally, if this is intended as some sort of response to gwern's other
post [1] as if he's never heard of dual n-back... please do read that FAQ. All
124 pages of it, according to my Firefox print preview.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6521885](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6521885)

~~~
gwern
Or if you're lazy, just check the latest version of my n-back meta-analysis
([http://www.gwern.net/DNB%20meta-analysis#control-
groups](http://www.gwern.net/DNB%20meta-analysis#control-groups)): looks like
the current point estimate for n-back's increase of IQ is 0.15 (so, 2 IQ
points), and is not statistically-significant (p=0.14).

A few of the researchers in the area have encouraged me to clean this up for
publication, which would be nice.

(Not that the rest of OP is much better than the n-back material. 'I worked
with autistic kids and I can cherrypick a few examples of improvement!' As if
he had never heard of regression to the mean or selection effects.)

------
aidenn0
The author says roughly "I helped many kids raise their IQ"; there is nothing
novel about that, it is well established that intervention has large effects
on IQ in children, but most of those effects have disappeared by the time they
are 18.

------
quanticle
As gwern points out in his meta-analysis of Dual N-Back [1], and his Dual
N-Back FAQ [2], the results of Dual N-Back have been very mixed. Some studies
show massive improvement. Other studies show minor improvement, while some
studies show no improvement at all. It is by no means clear in the literature
that Dual N-Back actually helps more than an active placebo.

    
    
        This is very damaging to the case that dual n-back increases IQ. Not only do the
        better studies find a drastically smaller effect, they are not sufficiently 
        powered to find such a small effect at all, even aggregated in a meta-analysis, 
        with a power of ~11%, which is dismal indeed when compared to the usual 
        benchmark of 80%, and leads to worries that even that is too high an estimate 
        and that the active control studies are aberrant somehow in being subject to a 
        winner’s curse or subject to other biases. (Because most studies used convenient 
        passive control groups and the passive effect size is 3x larger, they in 
        aggregate are very well-powered: 94%; however, we already know how they are 
        skewed upwards, so we don’t care if we can detect a biased effect or not.) In 
        particular, Boot et al 2013 argues that active control groups do not suffice to 
        identify the true causal effect because the subjects in the active control group 
        can still have different expectations than the experimental group, and the 
        group’ differing awareness & expectations can cause differing performance on 
        tests; they suggest recording expectancies (somewhat similar to Redick et al 
        2013), checking for a dose-response relationship (see the following section for 
        whether dose-response exists for dual n-back/IQ), and using different 
        experimental designs which actively manipulate subject expectations to identify 
        how much effects are inflated by remaining placebo/expectancy effects.
    

That said, there isn't any evidence of _harm_ , either, so at worst, you'll
waste your time if it doesn't work out for you.

[1] [http://www.gwern.net/DNB%20meta-
analysis](http://www.gwern.net/DNB%20meta-analysis) [2]
[http://www.gwern.net/DNB%20FAQ](http://www.gwern.net/DNB%20FAQ)

------
hownottowrite
The question is... Can you make yourself less intelligent by indulging in the
antithesis of the authors five principles? (viz. Seek Novelty; Challenge
Yourself; Think Creatively; Do Things The Hard Way; Network)

~~~
namenotrequired
Let's see... Avoid novelty; Only take on easy things; Don't think creatively;
Do things the most convenient way; Don't network.

...in other words, live a stationary life, do the same things you always did
in the same way with the same people.

I don't know if any research exists to support this but it seems pretty
likely, to me, that this will make one less intelligent.

------
cliveowen
This may seem very good and useful at first sight but it actually doesn't mean
anything. The classical stance is that intelligence it's something fixed and
can't be improved, so the smart guy will outsmart the average guy. Now they
say that intelligence can actually improve so it's possible for the average
guy to outsmart the smart guy. Well, not at all. If intelligence can improve
this means that the average guy can achieve an intelligence on par with that
of the smart guy, but the smart guy can also, so the gap still remains. Maybe
I'm missing the point but I don't really know what make of the whole article.

~~~
ekm2
Are you suggesting that if both weak and strong people go to the gym regularly
then the differences between them will remain?

~~~
csomar
Not weak and strong, but rather big and small. If someone is 1.6m and another
one is 1.8m; the second guy obviously has an advantage (being a bigger guy).

Sure the 1.6m can beat him. (exercise often, learn fighting techniques...) but
if they both exercise in the same amount, the difference will remain.

~~~
ekm2
People do not go to the gym to increase their height.They are focused on
things like increasing the size of their bicep,so the weak/strong analogy
holds better.

~~~
csomar
I was not talking about biceps size, but about who is stronger in a fight. The
bigger guy has an advantage. See the other child comment as it explains that
it can work the other way around (bigger being a disadvantage)

~~~
zxcdw
Your comparison is completely silly as it relies on something which can't be
changed by determinated effort, unlike human brain and mental
skills/capabilities and our physical body.

The comparison of going to gym holds perfectly, as _anybody_ can go there and
bulk themselves way, way bigger, fitter and more muscular with _effort_ than
almost anybody else who _doesn 't_ go there. Same is definitely possible with
human brain as numerous studies show that after exposure to a new skill,
learning it does physical changes to our brain(neuroplasticity) and thus
modifies it to work better/more optimally, making it more capable.

------
warmfuzzykitten
By a strange coincidence, yesterday a link to this article appeared on the
same Hacker News page as this.

[http://www.gwern.net/Drug%20heuristics?2](http://www.gwern.net/Drug%20heuristics?2)

The argument there is that - in healthy people - not much can be done to
improve intelligence, and speculates on reasons why. The qualification
suggests that experience working with autistic children is not relevant to the
general population.

That this link has been voted up to the front page and the other hasn't
perhaps says more about the optimism of the community than the respective
merits of the two positions.

------
BigChiefSmokem
Couple of points:

1) Use it or lose it, neurons act just like muscle fiber in this regard. I'd
be more interest if someone can prove that deep thought and learning can lower
the chances of cognitive disabilities like age-related dementia.

2) If you want to have a high IQ just retake the IQ test until you do. Maybe
one day someone will make a test that will indeed measure intellect across a
wide range of contexts, including social and abstract thinking.

------
piyush_soni
It amuses me that even in today's times we believe that IQ = intelligence. Not
true. All it requires is some practice. That doesn't make you intelligent. I
mean "Einstein intelligent" :). Every few days I read the news anyway "This
child has an IQ more than that of Einstein". Oh well. No wonder. He used his
mind at better places than solving some puzzles "fast" enough.

------
gaelow
Of course I can. If I manage to stop drinking.

~~~
buckbova
Drinking excessively makes one smarter. Consider it culling the herd. The
weaker slower brain cells die off, leaving the stronger faster brain cells to
propell your brain power to peak levels.

~~~
gaelow
I don't know. But for the fifteen years I've been doing it, every weekend when
I go out with my friends I can feel my IQ dropping down with every drink. And
don't even ask me to solve the simplest crossword puzzle on a Sunday morning.
Not necessarily bad, though. It's fun and releases a lot of stress...

------
akandiah
If you are interested in how people learn, you may be interested in this
comprehensive review published by the National Academy of Sciences:
[http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?isbn=0309070368](http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?isbn=0309070368)

------
gtani
all well and good, for a lot of people i know the more immediate concerns are
the basic trilogies of diet/exercise/rest, and learning the tiger parent
things your whole life (math, programming, foreign languages, musical
instruments). These things work because they require sustained
effort/concentration, adn dealing with frustration and plateaus

[http://www.sott.net/articles/show/216086-Mental-muscle-
six-w...](http://www.sott.net/articles/show/216086-Mental-muscle-six-ways-to-
boost-your-brain)

(the 6 things above: bright light, tDCS, food, exercise, playing music,
meditation

------
xntrk
I had to stop reading when I got to the part about GPS where the author says
he almost lost his job, due to tardiness, becuase he refused to use GPS.

------
l0c0b0x
Andrea Kuszewski is awesome! I recall reading this when it published, have
been following her on twitter ever since.

------
coryfklein
But will I get dumber by wasting my intellectual capacity?

------
linux_devil
Intelligence is just a fancy name to "determination"

