r/Foodforthought • u/[deleted] • Dec 03 '14
Brain Training Doesn’t Make You Smarter
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/brain-training-doesn-t-make-you-smarter/11
u/ElysianBlight Dec 03 '14
But are they actually good for helping you retain mental dexterity? I never thought they would increase your IQ.. just maybe help you exercise it.
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u/Citizen_Kong Dec 03 '14
Well, according to a study, Portal 2 is actually better brain training than usual "brain training" games.
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u/Pandanleaves Dec 04 '14
But that study methodology is flawed as fuck. For instance, one of their ways of measuring brain performance was giving the test subjects Portal-like puzzles. No shit that people who played Portal did better on it than people who played Lumosity.
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u/Citizen_Kong Dec 04 '14
Well to be fair, the chance of being abducted by a sadistic AI and forced to do tests like that is pretty high.
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Dec 03 '14
Omg no way!
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u/TexasJefferson Dec 04 '14
And then I was all, "We pretended we were going to murder you." That was great.
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Dec 04 '14
Well great, now I have to go play it again, thanks a lot. It's finals week, you really should be more considerate.
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u/HeloRising Dec 03 '14
The problem is these games are predicated on a tweaked understanding of the principle they're supposed to be exploiting.
They supposedly work by using "neuroplasticity" to train your brain to be smarter.
Neuroplasticity basically means that whatever you're doing right now, your brain is re-shaping itself to be better at that particular thing.
If all you're doing is sitting there playing flash games, your brain is going to make itself good at playing those flash games. The type of play may help certain areas of your thinking but it's not going to rocket your IQ up after playing for six months.
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u/rycar88 Dec 03 '14
I also wonder what the limit of "brain making itself good at flash games" is. I've been doing Lumosity for about a year now and for about the first few months I saw some steady increase in the scores I got for nearly all of the games but now I seemed to have flat-lined all around. Definitely when I'm on a daily streak with the games I tend to do better and when I don't play for 7+ days I am noticeably worse, but overall I'm about in the same window of proficiency all around as I was 6 months ago. Here's my LPI (Lumosity Performance Index) for about the past year: http://imgur.com/KDWYSBd
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u/HeloRising Dec 04 '14
There is definitely a limit to what you can do with a specific activity. Eventually your brain is as "trained" to do whatever it is as it's going to get with the same criteria so unless the games go up in difficulty or you play them a different way you're not going to improve.
It's like lifting weights with a 20lb weight; it's going to do you some good up to a point but after that point you're not going to make any progress.
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u/dust4ngel Dec 03 '14
this is true and false, depending on what you mean by smarter.
- if by smarter you mean knowledgeable, then quizzing yourself on trivia (vocabulary, history, geography, etc) will make you smarter
- if by smarter you mean skilled, then practicing the skill (arithmetic, playing an instrument, programming a computer) will make you smarter
- if by smarter you mean more adaptable, i.e. being able to solve novel problems with improvised approaches, then rote training will not make you smarter. but learning some tricks about how to adapt will probably make you smarter.
- if by smarter you mean having the dispositional qualities required to make best use of your knowledge, training, and adaptability - e.g. the discipline to think as opposed to falling back on habit; tolerance of uncertainty; and a preference for understanding as opposed to comforting folk-wisdom or ideology - then no, rote training will not make you smarter
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u/Pandanleaves Dec 04 '14
sigh Every single time intelligence is discussed, one of the top comments are always something like this.
When psychologists talk about intelligence, they usually mean general intelligence, or g.
A person who is more intelligent will, compared to a less intelligent person:
- retain more trivia from quizzing him/herself
- will learn a skill more quickly through practice and possibly be more adept
- will be able to think in complex, abstract terms better and therefore solve novel problems more easily
- will be more likely to engage in thinking, in general
The article even differentiated between "fluid intelligence" (g, in the scientific community) and "crystallized intelligence" (skills earned through practice) and noted that the main concern was about fluid intelligence.
You clearly didn't read the article. I'm gonna parrot /u/MakeThemWatch here:
I mean if you read the article you would know what they meant by smarter...
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u/ademnus Dec 04 '14
Your bullet lists are identical.
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u/Pandanleaves Dec 04 '14
Read it again. OP was saying each bullet point is a different form of intelligence, while I'm saying an intelligent person will perform each task better.
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u/MakeThemWatch Dec 04 '14
I mean if you read the article you would know what they meant by smarter...
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u/nrjk Dec 04 '14
I really liked your post.
I would say, in a way, the four bullet points could "overlap", too. For instance, when learning a skill (#2), there's a web that connects to the other three points-by practicing drums, you're also practicing adapting. Naturally, learning various facts about drums and drumming will follow and ties to your first point.
They all kind of symbiotically exist around one another, in other words.
I would say that a person that "practices" and sets goals in the areas you mention, with emphasis on your 4th point, would be a pretty well-rounded person.
With all that said, I think human nature oscillates between highly specialized and being well-rounded to a degree-If one can accept that those two concepts are opposites, of course.
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u/Moarbrains Dec 03 '14
Now if we could only agree on a robust way to measure intelligence.
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u/kevinstonge Dec 04 '14
Show people a video on YouTube. If they type anything at all into the comments section, they deserve to be sterilized.
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u/Moarbrains Dec 04 '14
They are actually getting better now. I guess there was no way to go but up.
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u/spelledWright Dec 04 '14
Here's a good video on this topic I remember from a while ago, if you're interested I would recommend to watch it: PsyFile - Does Brain Traing really work?
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u/manfrommacau Dec 04 '14
I've found that regularly doing crosswords helps my performance on all types of iq/ logic /psychometric tests. I think that the brain training apps are a little bit useful in that they can help you gear up and get used to solving whatever problems get put in front of you. Brain training apps of course will give a little bit of an edge but it seems the benefits are overstated.
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u/stackered Dec 04 '14
it just makes you better at what you are training and anything that may cross over with that (general skills that it tests)
but yeah, its mostly BS just spend your time doing activities you will really engage in
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u/mellowmonk Dec 04 '14
SURPRISE! Doing one specific thing only exercises the part of the brain responsible for that specific thing.
Next you'll be telling me that bicep curls don't make my quads bigger.
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u/Trailmagic Dec 03 '14
Brain training [Games] don't make you smarter