Posted on 04/28/2008 7:25:57 PM PDT by blam
Simple brain exercise can boost IQ
22:00 28 April 2008
NewScientist.com news service
Alison Motluk
Can mental training improve your intelligence? No video game or mental puzzle has convincingly been shown to work. But now a group of neuropsychologists claims it has found a task that can add points to a person's IQ – and the harder you train, they say, the more you gain.
So-called "fluid intelligence", or Gf, is the ability to reason, solve new problems and think in the abstract. It correlates with professional and educational success and it appears to be largely genetic.
Past attempts to boost Gf have suggested that, although by training you can achieve great gains on the specific training task itself, those gains don't transfer to other tasks.
Now Susanne Jaeggi at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, US, and her colleagues say that is not true.
They invited 70 healthy adults to participate in a challenging training exercise known as the "dual n-back" task.
Daily training The first part of the exercise involves small squares on a screen that pop into a new location every three seconds. Volunteers have to press a button when the current location is a duplicate of two views earlier.
For the second part, the volunteers have to simultaneously carry out the same task with letters. Consonants are played through headphones and they have to press a button when they hear one that is the same as that heard two "plays" earlier.
If participants perform well, the interval to be tracked (n) increases to three or more stages earlier.
Jaeggi's volunteers were trained daily for about 20 minutes for either 8, 12, 17 or 19 days (with weekends off). They were given IQ tests both before and after the training.
(Excerpt) Read more at newscientist.com ...
I don’t get it.
I think it’s been stated for years that things like working crossword puzzles help older people’s brains working better.
Lol, I may not have worded that in the best way.
It doesn’t help democrats or socialists. They are stuck on stupid.
I started to think it was going to be waterboarding.
It’s my only hope!
I would argue that people in general don’t spend enough time thinking; critically or otherwise. By taking an initial test, spending 2+ weeks concentrating intensely on a task that does require concentration, then taking a second test that they’ve put into use a “muscle” that they very rarely exercise.
Nah, it's learning to put the toilet seat down. Or up? Or first up, then down?
Oh well, there goes that IQ test.
Okie, doke! Let’s then stay clueless as to what this means. Because what this demonstrates, nothing less or more, is that all IQ tests measure is the ability to solve puzzles, which ability is part of intelligence, sure, but not all of it, and, arguably, not the most critical part of it. D’uh!
Yeah, that's for sure.
***
My brain needs a personal trainer.
>nothing less or more, is that all IQ tests measure is the ability to solve puzzles,
That is incorrect.
Well, other than my boo - boo, in writing “brains working better”, it was worded OK, lol.
I prefer to do the Daily Cryptoquote in my head, without aid of a writing tool.
“Here I’m thinking fluid intelligence refers to beer!”
You are right. Beer is “fluid intelligence”.
One afternoon at Cheers, Cliff Clavin was explaining the Buffalo Theory to his buddy Norm…
“Well ya see Norm, it’s like this… A herd of buffalo can only move as fast as the slowest buffalo. And when the herd is hunted, it is the slowest and weakest ones at the back that are killed first. This natural selection is good for the herd as a whole, because the general speed and health of the whole group keeps improving by the regular killing of the weakest members.
“In much the same way, the human brain can only operate as fast as the lowest brain cells. Excessive intake of alcohol, as we all know, kills brain cells, but naturally it attacks the slowest and weakest brain cells first. In this way, regular consumption of beer elimates the weaker brain cells, making the brain a faster and more efficient machine. That’s why you always feel smarter after a few beers.”
Ha! you better get crackin on those crosswords...LOL.
IQ tests measure different things, and they have been very helpful in determining what parts of my daughter’s brain is damaged. An MRI showed that she had damage, but the IQ tests really tell us what she can and can’t do.
For one thing, she has great long term memory, but horrible short term memory. She also has some processing problems.
IQ tests don’t tell the whole picture, but they are valuable in giving us information.
It also doesn’t mean she is smart or not smart. She is actually gifted at math. She just has other areas that don’t work well.
Lol, that WAS pretty funny! All that and I make a messup, I’m still laughing.
Well, sorta...
bump for later
there’s that.
LOL, I shall just slink away now.......
I bet that famous painters and writers would fail at IQ tests and famous musicians would excel. Don’t over-rely of them to diagnose your children’s shortcomings and talents. It ain’t where it’s at! My children are fine a without them as I am, although I did take one once and became bored with it guessing the final set of answers (getting quickly bored is one of my psychological characteristics, I’m told) and still got a high score which I dismiss as utterly meaningless. Some things just can’t be quantified and measured, and intelligence is one of them, or else we’re all damn Darwinists.
ping
Honestly - I don’t get the Sudoku craze and, frankly, life is too short to spend hours at something so pointless. I understand someone doing one or two a day, as I can understand people doing crosswords; or if someone is in the hospital or in a plane or other scenarios where it’s nice to have something to keep busy, but there are people who will actually just spend hours and hours on this stuff.
Oh, and don’t get me started on the people spending hours on video games.
FR does not count so don’t anyone start now. He He.
Sudoku is a john, believe me, a monkey on your back; I had it for a while, where I couldn’t get enough of it every damn day. Finally, it took a foreign trip and I went cold turkey, and now I forgot all the techniques and methods of it and can’t do even the simplest one. It oughta be banned by the gummint like marihuana!
It’s very simple: people actually like math. It’s just that the schools have ruined their appreciation for the bits of mathematics with obvious practical applications by making them dull, first by delaying the rote memorization until children are too old to enjoy memorization, then by loading on lots of faux application problems in a hopeless quest for ‘relevance’. Mathematics is best approached as a bunch of puzzles. The trouble is teaching it that way would require teachers who are actually good at it, and good enough to recognize and praise correct, clever, nonstandard approaches.
Enter sudoku: folks can amuse themselves by providing existence and uniqueness proofs without connecting the obviously mathematical activity with the mathematical abuse they received in school.
Working a Mah Jong game that you cannot finish, then undoing it on the computer and using a different sequence has a similar effect to this ‘exercise’ the researchers were testing. Playing Chess blindfolded is another way to jolt the mind.
Square peg, meet round hole.
Middle-right square, topleft is a ‘7’.
Your move.
“Playing Chess blindfolded is another way to jolt the mind.”
Yes, in the same way that swimming a mile in 50F water jolts the body.
:-)
“Well ya see Norm, it’s like this… A herd of buffalo can only move as fast as the slowest buffalo. And when the herd is hunted, it is the slowest and weakest ones at the back that are killed first. This natural selection is good for the herd as a whole, because the general speed and health of the whole group keeps improving by the regular killing of the weakest members.
“In much the same way, the human brain can only operate as fast as the lowest brain cells. Excessive intake of alcohol, as we all know, kills brain cells, but naturally it attacks the slowest and weakest brain cells first. In this way, regular consumption of beer elimates the weaker brain cells, making the brain a faster and more efficient machine. That’s why you always feel smarter after a few beers.”
LOL. I am going to get drunk and do a Soduko. we’ll see how it goes.
bump
I am starting this one at 01:17 Tuesday, I'll post the answer when I finish it!
I wrote a solver:
typedef char GRID[9][9];
main(){
int i,j,k,c;
GRID grid;
for( i=j=0 ; i<9 ; c=getchar() ){
switch ( c ){
case ‘_’:
case ‘1’:
case ‘2’:
case ‘3’:
case ‘4’:
case ‘5’:
case ‘6’:
case ‘7’:
case ‘8’:
case ‘9’:
grid[i][j] = c ;
if( ++j == 9 ){ j=0 ; ++i ; }
}
}
if( fill(grid) )
try(grid);
}
fill( grid)
GRID grid;
{
int i,j,k,c,cnt,hit,good,goodi,goodj,i1,j1,must;
do{
do{
hit=0;
for( i=0 ; i<9 ; i++ )for( j=0 ; j<9 ; j++ ){
if( grid [i][j] == ‘_’ ){
printf(”(%d,%d) “,i+1,j+1);
for( cnt=k=0 ; k<9 ; k++ ){
grid[i][j] = ‘1’+k;
if( check( grid, i, j ) ){
++cnt;
good=’1’+k;
printf(”%c “,’1’+k);
}
}
if( cnt == 0 ){printf(”BAD GRID\n”); return 0;}
if( cnt == 1 ){ hit = 1; grid[i][j] = good; }
else grid[i][j] = ‘_’ ;
printf(”\n”);
}
}
show( grid);
}while( hit );
must=0;
for( i = 0 ; i < 9 ; i++ ){
for( k = 0 ; k < 9 ; k++ ){
for( j = 0 ; j<9 ; j++ )if( grid[i][j] == ‘1’+k ) break;
if( j < 9 ) continue;
for( cnt=j=0 ; j<9 ; j++ ){
if( grid[i][j] == ‘_’ ){
grid[i][j] = ‘1’+k;
if( check( grid, i, j ) ){ ++cnt ; good=j;}
grid[i][j] = ‘_’;
}
}
if( cnt == 0 ) { printf(”BAD GRID\n”); show( grid); return 0;}
if( cnt == 1 ) { grid[i][good] = ‘1’+k; must=1;show(grid); }
}
}
printf(”rows\n”);
for( j = 0 ; j < 9 ; j++ ){
for( k = 0 ; k < 9 ; k++ ){
for( i = 0 ; i<9 ; i++ )if( grid[i][j] == ‘1’+k ) break;
if( i < 9 ) continue;
for( cnt=i=0 ; i<9 ; i++ ){
if( grid[i][j] == ‘_’ ){
grid[i][j] = ‘1’+k;
if( check( grid, i, j ) ){ ++cnt ; good=i;}
grid[i][j] = ‘_’;
}
}
if( cnt == 0 ) { printf(”BAD GRID\n”); show( grid); return 0;}
if( cnt == 1 ) { grid[good][j] = ‘1’+k; must=1;show(grid); }
}
}
printf(”cols\n”);
for( i=0 ; i<9 ; i += 3)for( j=0 ; j<9 ; j += 3 ){
for( k = 0 ; k < 9 ; k++ ){
for( i1 = j1 = 0 ; i1<3 ; ){
if( grid[i+i1][j+j1] == ‘1’+k ) break;
if( ++j1 == 3 ){ j1=0; ++i1; }
}
if( i1 < 3 ) continue;
for( cnt=i1=j1=0 ; i1<3 ; ){
if( grid[i+i1][j+j1] == ‘_’ ){
grid[i+i1][j+j1] = ‘1’+k;
if( check( grid, i+i1, j+j1 ) ){
++cnt ;
goodi =i1;
goodj = j1;
}
grid[i+i1][j+j1] = ‘_’;
}
if( ++j1 == 3 ){ j1=0; ++i1; }
}
if( cnt == 0 ) { printf(”BAD GRID\n”); show( grid); return 0;}
if( cnt == 1 ) { grid[i+goodi][j+goodj] = ‘1’+k; must=1;show(grid); }
}
}
printf(”sqs\n”);
}while( must );
return 1 ;
}
try( grid )
GRID grid;
{
GRID new;
int i,j,m,n,k;
for( m=0 ; m<9 ; m++ ){
for( n=0 ; n<9 ; n++ ) if( grid[m][n] == ‘_’) break;
if ( n<9 ) break;
}
if( m == 9 ){ printf(”SOLUTION:\n”);show(grid); return; }
for( k = ‘1’ ; k <= ‘9’ ; ++ k ){
for( i=0 ; i<9 ; i++ ) for( j=0 ; j<9 ; j++ ) new[i][j]=grid[i][j];
new[m][n] = k;
if( check( new, m, n ) ){
printf(”TRY (%d,%d) = %c\n”,m+1,n+1,k);
if( fill( new ) )
try( new );
}
}
}
check( grid, m, n )
GRID grid;
int m,n;
{
int i,j,k,l;
for( i=0 ; i<9 ; i++ )if( i != m && grid [i][n] == grid[m][n] ) return 0;
for( i=0 ; i<9 ; i++ )if( i != n && grid [m][i] == grid[m][n] ) return 0;
k = m/3 * 3 ; l = n/3 * 3;
for( i=0 ; i<3 ; i++ ) for( j=0 ; j<3 ; j++ )
if( ( k+i != m || l+j != n ) && grid[k+i][l+j] == grid[m][n] ) return 0;
return 1;
}
show( grid )
GRID grid;
{
int i,j;
for( i=0 ; i<9 ; i++ ){
for( j=0 ; j<9 ; j++ ){
printf(”%c “,grid[i][j]);
if( j == 2 || j == 5 ) printf(” “);
}
printf(”\n”);
if( i%3 == 2 ) printf(”\n”);
}
printf(”\n”);
}
that FORTRAN or BASIC?
I forgot, but it looks like BASIC
I didn’t see the VOID in the header file, but you have MAIN, is that C++ ?
Not C++ ! No dear friends! The real thing!
This compiles and runs with gcc on cygwin. You may infer the input format from the input loop in main() ... ‘_’ for blanks and digits ‘1’-’9’ for themselves. Other characters are ignored, so I normally use spaces and newlines to from a grid for input.
The output is verbose, and it finds all solutions. Usually it doesn’t have to TRY (i.e. guess) but this is actually a very efficient strategy when it has to resort to it, which it does if the basic rules of uniqueness, and row, column, and square inference fail. Only rarely does it have to go to a second level of guessing.
That would be good, old-fashioned C there, FRiend. :-)
First time I’ve seen that. I think I could have it done by next March. LOL
Let me ask, is there only one answer, or can there be a variety of answers? At first blush, it looks like there could be more than one.
I think there can be some with multiple answers, when within one 9 cell square, you have a 2 digit combination that is identical to the cell above it or beside it that is missing, and in the same column or row to the side
The exercise is the goal, winning or losing is not; so long as the games are carried out without memory errors, the mind is exercised more than sufficiently. I used to play Chess for the winning and hated the losing. Now, at my age the mental exercise is more important to me.
Sudokus with multiple answers are considered flawed.
We knew my daughter had brain damage, and it’s just useful information to know what part is working well and what isn’t.
For example, I used to have to repeat everything that I said to my daughter. I took her to the audiologist, and her hearing was fine.
The bad public school said she was fine, but I knew differently.
Finally, we had an independent evaluation from a neuropsychologist. She’s the one that found the short term memory problems. Now, I’ve learned tricks on how to make sure my daughter can remember something I tell her. If I can’t write something down, then I have her repeat what I say back to me. After she does that a few times, it gets put in long term memory and she’s okay.
Once we understood what wasn’t working well, we’ve been able to get her appropriate help. Also, there are things you can do to help short term memory. Practice actually does help.
When I looked at the first blank provided by RaceBannon, it seemed to me like multiple solutions might be possible. It wasn't readily apparent that it was locked in to only one solution, especially with only one number on multiple rows and columns. I will say that it did occur to me that being a high level numbers brain teaser, that there could be just one solution if configured right. That's why I asked.
I can see rationality behind both your answers, and I appreciate your responses. I'm goint to check these out further.
The mania hit England before it hit the States, and several years ago, some newspaper, I think it was the Guardian, organized a sudoku contest and promotion where they painted a puzzle on a hill somewhere challending the readers to solve it. Well, it turnout that the puzzle had not just two or four but hundreds of possible solutions, and the whole promotion went pop, pop, fizz, fizz!
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