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Comment by JamesBarney | Hacker News Reader

When the first studies by Jaeggie on IQ came out a few years ago I hit dual n back pretty hard trying to improve my IQ. I don't think I got any smarter, but I did notice a few things.

Pros

My attention got better, I was less easily distracted.

My executive function was better, I made better choices in life.(less junk food, fewer beers)

My thoughts slipped less often, I had those "what was I just talking about" moments less and less frequently.

Cons

Sometimes I felt overly focused for social situations. Like the feeling you get when you've been studying for 4 hours, and then try to the shoot the shit with someone, and you end up being too rigid/serious and instead of playful/fun.

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Same. I learned about it while in uni and got into it thinking that it'd help me improve my academic performance. While I don't know of a good way to measure if I have really increased my intelligence, I did noticed that I could focus longer on my tasks: studying, coding, solving problems, etc.

Nowadays, I could study for a couple of hours before going for a short break. I know that some of you don't think that's good enough but for someone who used to struggle with procrastination and being "easily distracted", I am happy with the result.

James - that's pretty interesting. Could you please share what SW (or other tools) did you use to train for dual-n-back?

I used http://www.soakyourhead.com/ and this one which is linked elsewhere in the thread. https://sourceforge.net/projects/brainworkshop/files/brainwo...

I doubt the subtle differences between different dual-n-back matter.

I've found this to be the best iOS app for dual n-back https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/iq-boost/id286574399

Those are all indicators of intelligence. Whether you have good executive control due to some "intrinsic" intelligence or due to some conditioning, the net effect is the same.

Not being sociable and fun at parties is a sign of intelligence?

Charisma doesn't come from the liver. (believe that was Yudkowsky)

Are you kidding? Did the "bright, socially awkward person" stereotype get put out to pasture while I wasn't looking?

That's a folk stereotype, not a rigorous demonstration that "intelligence" (in the appropriate sense) must cause worse social interaction, as your comment would imply.

Edit: To clarify, even accepting that (some narrow definition of) intelligence (associated with math) is anti-correlated with social skills, that wouldn't imply that someone who is already "good at parties" should worsen their social skills by improving their intelligence.

Edit2: I agree that my earlier comment was poorly worded, and that, if you knew nothing else you should expect "conventionally smart" people to have less social skills. But that wouldn't seem to be relevant here, for the above reasons. And charismatic people are intelligent, in a sense.

Ah, well, I wasn't even trying to imply that anyways. I was looking at the pros: better attention, better executive control, better focus. Whether he's great at parties is totally beyond my comprehension.

If the change resulted in you being less able to do what you did before because of a higher mental load from the environment, that would be evidence against having improved intelligence.

pretty much my experience too. I never got that good at dual n-back (4 I think, and only if I was well-rested) and my IQ didn't improve, but I did find an increase in the ability to relate recent events to the present and keep track of recent events. For example, during meetings I was much more able to recite back to someone things they had said earlier in the meeting in the context of what we were presently discussing.

So the working memory exercise... improved your short term memory? :)

But it is good to hear that it worked well for you

Interesting! I think I'd rather be dumb than boring, so this game is not for me.

You summed up the 21st century. In a nutshell.

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