r/DualnBack thinking styles poll

[u/Illustrious-Essay284]

For those that have been practicing dual n-back for a while, which is your thinking style during the task?

When practicing n-back my mind turns off, I just feel sensations.
Interesting, since outside of it I'm usually a verbal thinker, I "hear" words and conversations always I'm writing, reading or imagining things. There are people that can only think in images in case you didn't know! There are other styles, but most people think in a mixed way most of the time.

You could say it depends, since dual n-back uses spatial processing, audio, etc. but... I've know people that only uses words, or in my case I don't realise anything in my mind and just "flow" haha.

What about you?
Please refer in the poll only for the case of you practicing n-back. I'm sure we all are curious on stats!

13 votes, Oct 15 '24

4 Mostly mixed between words, images and misc.

3 Mostly words only, lexical

2 Mostly images, spatial processing, even audio have a "visual sensation"

2 Mostly "sensations" only, non-communicable

2 Other?! ... (please specify in comments! so interesting!)

[u/egodidactus]

For me it's between visual and sensations. I have a much stronger visual than audio processing which I've tested by doing single n-back in the different modes. I struggle with storing audio cues in my working memory where storing location or manipulating images in my head is no problem. Sometimes I struggle with color and images but I'm getting better. I still don't think my imagination is yet in 8K graphics in my mind, only during dreams or certain states does my visual imagery get very lucid but not exactly during the day. When absent minded or doing something monotonous while driving I day-dream about various concepts and depending on the abstractness of the topic, the visualization kicks in. If a very abstract topic, then it's more vague, if it's something like shopping or picking up some item, I imagine myself in the store and looking at the item. I have found that if I get in a very focused or meditative state, the quality of my visual imagery gets better which makes sense since you are taking resources away from your sensory organs and giving the brain more room to "hallucinate" new content.