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Can You Make Yourself Smarter?
NY Times ^ | April 18, 2012 | DAN HURLEY

Posted on 04/22/2012 10:39:10 PM PDT by neverdem

Early on a drab afternoon in January, a dozen third graders from the working-class suburb of Chicago Heights, Ill., burst into the Mac Lab on the ground floor of Washington-McKinley School in a blur of blue pants, blue vests and white shirts. Minutes later, they were hunkered down in front of the Apple computers lining the room’s perimeter, hoping to do what was, until recently, considered impossible: increase their intelligence through training.

“Can somebody raise their hand,” asked Kate Wulfson, the instructor, “and explain to me how you get points?”

On each of the children’s monitors, there was a cartoon image of a haunted house, with bats and a crescent moon in a midnight blue sky. Every few seconds, a black cat appeared in one of the house’s five windows, then vanished. The exercise was divided into levels. On Level 1, the children earned a point by remembering which window the cat was just in. Easy. But the game is progressive: the cats keep coming, and...

--snip--

So began 10 minutes of a remarkably demanding concentration game. At Level 2, even adults find the task somewhat taxing. Almost no one gets past Level 3 without training. But most people who stick with the game do get better with practice. This isn’t surprising: practice improves performance on almost every task humans engage in, whether it’s learning to read or playing horseshoes.

What is surprising is what else it improved. In a 2008 study, Susanne Jaeggi and Martin Buschkuehl, now of the University of Maryland, found that young adults who practiced a stripped-down, less cartoonish version of the game also showed improvement in a fundamental cognitive ability known as “fluid” intelligence: the capacity to solve novel problems, to learn, to reason, to see connections and to get to the bottom of things...

(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; News/Current Events; Testing
KEYWORDS: add; adhd; fluidintelligence; intelligence; nback; neuroscience; tbi; workingmemory

1 posted on 04/22/2012 10:39:20 PM PDT by neverdem
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To: neverdem

>>>Dan Hurley is an award-winning writer, a former contributing editor of Psychology Today, and serves as a vice president of the American Society of Journalists and Authors. He is the creator of the #1 online writing-site, “Amazing Instant Novelist.”

Whew! At first, I thought he was another alleged “expert” from Harvard... like Howard Gardner of “multiple intelligences” fame.

Sooo... if all the school systems buy these computer systems, then IMAGINE how smart people we’ll have. /s/

I wonder if the alleged IQ increase ends up decreasing if the computer is not used.


2 posted on 04/22/2012 11:04:33 PM PDT by Hop A Long Cassidy
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To: neverdem
Can You Make Yourself Smarter?

Yes, watch MSNBC.

3 posted on 04/22/2012 11:13:08 PM PDT by South40 (Mitt is full of Shtt)
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To: neverdem

with a teleprompter, yes you can!


4 posted on 04/22/2012 11:13:51 PM PDT by max americana
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To: neverdem; Hop A Long Cassidy

Wait a minute, aren’t IQ tests supposed to be bogus?

Wasn’t “The Bell Curve” marginalized on that basis?

The NYSlimes better be careful - they don’t realize what can of worms they are re-opening with such articles.


5 posted on 04/22/2012 11:19:06 PM PDT by aquila48
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To: neverdem
Can You Make Yourself Smarter?

Sure. Just put on a pair of glasses duh..


6 posted on 04/22/2012 11:19:28 PM PDT by Lancey Howard
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To: aquila48
It's interesting this article popped up out of the blue. The other day I was researching the life of John von Neumann, and ran across the following fascinating article...

Are Geniuses Made, Not Born?
7 posted on 04/22/2012 11:29:47 PM PDT by SpaceBar
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To: neverdem

I just wanted to throw this out there...

How many of you realize that IQ tests are designed to give men and women the same average score? In other words, when they’re making the tests, if a question is answered correctly more often by men than by women, it is thrown out. Did you know this? It turns out that without this cheat, men would outscore women by several points.

Why would they do this? What else are they doing to our vital bodily fluids?


8 posted on 04/22/2012 11:33:01 PM PDT by Born to Conserve
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To: neverdem

Smarter than what?..


9 posted on 04/22/2012 11:55:56 PM PDT by hosepipe (This propaganda has been edited to include some fully orbed hyperbole...)
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To: Born to Conserve

Serious? Have they always done this?


10 posted on 04/23/2012 1:46:24 AM PDT by MNDude
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To: neverdem

You can certainly make yourself dumber.


11 posted on 04/23/2012 3:44:04 AM PDT by Steely Tom (If the Constitution can be a living document, I guess a corporation can be a person.)
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To: neverdem

You could start by cancelling your subscription.


12 posted on 04/23/2012 4:26:40 AM PDT by the invisib1e hand
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To: SpaceBar

Dr Sheldon Cooper was born a genius and puts the lie to all this bootstrapping idiocy.

13 posted on 04/23/2012 4:32:38 AM PDT by bert (K.E. N.P. +12 ..... Crucifixion is coming)
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To: neverdem

Play Tetris.


14 posted on 04/23/2012 4:38:11 AM PDT by rbg81
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To: SpaceBar
Are Geniuses Made, Not Born?

This article has some problems. Here are some:

Presumably, the boys who attended the school were Lutherans.

Von Neumann, Wigner, Szilard, Teller, Erdos were all Jewish.

Also, of these five, only Von Neumann and Wigner went to the Lutheran High School.

Also the article speculates that the Lutheran High School was a neighborhood school, when it was a private school with students from all over Budapest.

15 posted on 04/23/2012 6:01:04 AM PDT by wideminded
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To: the invisib1e hand; bert
You could start by cancelling your subscription.

I never post anything that needs a subscription.

While I'm always curious about neuroscience, I'm more interested in the potential to treat traumatic brain injury(TBI) and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, attention deficit disorder(ADHD/ADD).

16 posted on 04/23/2012 12:17:54 PM PDT by neverdem (Xin loi minh oi)
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To: neverdem

The message in the graphic wasn’t directed to you ....... I liked the photo of DR Cooper and it came with the admonition.


17 posted on 04/23/2012 1:55:38 PM PDT by bert (K.E. N.P. +12 ..... Crucifixion is coming)
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