Session number: 113
Average n-back: 5.0
This has been difficult. The most amazing thing is that if you keep at it you will get better even if you kind of suck at it!
A few obvious points and some observations from my experience and my time investment.
1.) More sessions in a shorter amount of time might not give you any greater improvement.
This makes sense from a neuroplasticity stand point… it takes time for the brain to change in response to the training. However, being impatient i tried over-training as a strategy (113 sessions on 66 training days over a time span of 81 calendar days).
Maybe 66 sessions would have led to the same result?
2.) Not everyone is going to achieve an average n-back of 5 or higher.
It took a large effort for me to achieve 5. My guess is that there are a large number of people who won’t be good at this and will give up early.
Do not give up if at first you feel really lost and hopeless.
3.) Your performance on this test may be out of synch with your expectations based on who you think you are ( various IQ parameters, work, education).
I am considered extremely good at what i do. Like many experts in many different disciplines I work mostly from intuition. My expectation given my education (PhD), experience and success in solving difficult problems would be that i would be good at the n-back training from the start but i was not (at least based on the other posts here).
There must be more to working intelligence than working memory.
My slow but consistent pace of improvement on the n-back test leads me to believe that this training may be helping me improve on a weakness. Thus, I am hopeful that improvement in working memory will help by complimenting what i am already good at…
TO BE CONTINUED:
I plan to continue training.
Next training post if and when i can hit an ave n-back of 5.5
Thanks to all who have posted their experiences here. This has been fun and rewarding. I can feel the difference!
This post was submitted by TravelingWilbury.
Tags: Brain Exercises, brain-fitness, brain-fitness-pro, buschkuehl, increase intelligence, increase IQ, intelligence-training, IQ-training, jaeggi, martin-buschkuehl, mind-sparke, susanne-jaeggi, Training Working-Memory, working-memory
Hello Will.
Thank you for this lucid description of your experience and feelings regarding dual n-back training.
“My expectation given my education (PhD), experience and success in solving difficult problems would be that i would be good at the n-back training from the start but i was not (at least based on the other posts here).”
– I absolutely agree. I was startled at first by how hard the training is.
“This has been fun and rewarding. I can feel the difference!”
– I’m curious to know more about what you feel from the training.
Martin
I discovered that the key to remembering was simply to relax and sink into your mind rather than try to force a memory, the memory kind of surfaces itself. Instead of the memory getting darker and darker the more you try, it becomes clearer and clearer. However there is a limit (I call it the “fade out”), and thats what gets extended by playing the n-back.
Great persistence; it seems you have much improvement ahead of you. Hitting 5 is a turning a big corner so you should start to see some new territory soon. My suggestion — don’t limit yourself or worry about time it took for you versus others. The key is to get there.
I agree with what you write in your post, especially the part about other aspects of cognitive ability that go working intelligence. Most research indicates that working memory accounts for roughly 50% (some go as high as 70%) of the variance in fluid intelligence. But then, there is crystallized ability and, particularly among gifted people in academic settings, this sort of intelligence based on long term memory becomes heavily weighted, often far more than WM or fluid intelligence. WM does play a role in crystallized abilities (as WM plays some role in storage for long term recall) but learned skills and abilities can do a lot for people, even if WM is relatively weak. However, improvement in WM will improve speed at which one can solve problems or even remember the solution to a problem already solved in the past (crystallized ability). Gc is actually a very important aspect of cognitive ability, just as important as Gf and WM and they all go into what we call intelligence. But one thing about WM is it
is pretty central to other abilities, even, as Martin pointed out a while ago,
special abilities like music, language, numerical, visualization, etc.
A belated many thanks for your comments …
I Have felt a clarity of mind and an ease with my work and my ability to handle day to day stress to be greatly improved. I believe that the training (in combination with other components of learning and experience) has enabled me to achieve some breakthroughs, both personally and professionally, that have been extremely challenging for me.
I have finally posted on achieving the ave n-back of 5.5 that i referred to back in June! It took 100 sessions to get from 5 to 5.5. I expect to hit 6 sometime in the spring.
Thanks for posting Travelingwilbury. I found reading your stuff interesting.