Trying to be held accountable

[J.]

I hope people don't find this an inappropriate use of this space, but
I'd like to start posting a "journal" of sorts relating to the next
week of DNB. I've had a tough time consistently doing DNB, but after
reading about grey matter changes in less than a week at 4 hours per
day, I thought "you can do that."

I have executive functioning issues that have held me back most of my
life ("he's so smart, but he just won't apply himself") and I just
want this shit to be handled. At the very least I'd like to not have
executive functioning be such an obvious weakness of mine...

So, If i don't post again in this thread by midnight today, feel free
to unload any pent up aggression my way and make me feel bad for not
keeping my promise to myself.

If nothing else, If I manage to keep it up for a week, this should be
an interesting anecdotal report for everyone.

[Awesome]

It's midnight here......you worthless tool of stupidity !!! You're a
loser and a disgrace to all mankind, you deserve to be crushed under a
school bus full of obese children !! The very sight of you sickens
me !!!
Now I know it probably isn't midnight in your area, but I want to make
sure I help and this is fun so thank you lol.

[Absent_Minded]

holy crap man, 4 hours of straight N-backing a day? yeesh, i can
barely tolerate 10 minutes :O

[J.]

I've done an hour and 20 minutes so far. I got a late start and I've
realized my brain can't take more than 20 minutes or so of DNB without
me zoning out mid session, so I have to take breaks. I'll get it all
done (i've had a late sleep schedule the last couple weeks), but I
wanted to update this before midnight.

[J.]

I only made it to 3 hours, but my brain still feels like mush.
Hopefully I'll get an earlier start on it tomorrow.

[UncleTouch]

this will be very interesting

[Colin Dickerman]

Take a before and after test!!!

[Paul]

I too am at capacity for around 20 minutes for N-back practice.
However, I also play serious chess online and games last 2-3 hrs
sometimes more.The concentration req

On Sep 24, 11:32 pm, "J." <joseph.a.albrecht...@gmail.com> wrote:

[Paul]

Sorry my post got cut off. I was saying the concentration required for
a game is very great -- one slip and the game is often lost. After
playing, my concentration abilities are heightened -- often enough to
raise my n-back scores a level or two.

Paul

[whoisbambam]

4 hours of nbacking with two ten minute breaks seems excessive.

i am not sure this choice necessarily duplicates that of the study.

it was my understanding the study used 4hours of addition/
multiplication?

altho difficult, i think 4hours of dnb is much more taxing on the
brain than the math example.

i could be wrong--it is just that for some reason i dont think it is a
good idea to try to make such kinds of substitution.

I feel that there will be much diminished returns per minute after 60
minutes of continuous dnb (or two 30minute sessions)


i do feel that you probably would continue to improve your brain if
you did 4hours vs 1hour, but not 400% more improvement--i doubt even
200% more improvement after, say, the first 2weeks of regular
training.

it seems some ppl can advance pretty quickly the first 2weeks, but
then begin to subtantially taper.

it is a serious exercise of willpower you are embarking on. i do feel
that it will benefit you, if you dont fail.

i am just not sure it will give the same results as the study, that is
all.

and i feel that you will be experiencing a diminishing returns issue,
as i am very skeptical about more than 1hour a day of dnb making much
more of an improvement, esp. factoring in the time investment.

sleep consolidation issues have been mentioned in the past.

[genvirO]

"i do feel that you probably would continue to improve your brain if
you did 4hours vs 1hour, but not 400% more improvement--i doubt even
200% more improvement after, say, the first 2weeks of regular
training. "

I understand where you're coming from. If someone's endeavour is to
train for 3 hours +, I think it would be more beneficial for them if
they were to incorporate different activities. I generally train for 2
hours + on 5 different variations of n-back, four-five days a week on
average. In short, although I think each activity shares a common
mental umbrella it's intuitively obvious that individually they
probably uphold unique underlying properties. Ceteris paribus, yes, of
course you want the ball to be in the hands of the person that
practices free throws all day if a penalty shot arises, however, in
the event of there being no penalty shot, if it comes close to crunch
time where only 10 seconds remain on the clock and to win the match
you have to score 2 more points, I'd much rather have the ball in the
hands of the guy that practices from all different areas of the court
in order to much up with the unpredictability of the final 10 seconds
left in the game.

Also, by undertaking a more well-rounded approach the inevitable
diminishing returns you speak of will police your potential progress
to a much lesser extent.

[odranoel]

It would be amazing if 28 hours of DNB could significantly improve
executive functioning.
If practicing four hours per day could meaningfully alter measures of
impulsiveness, I would be strongly tempted to take vacation time to do
it.
The obvious next question being whether a highly impulsive person
could even attend to the task for four hours per day.

So I'm very interested to see how this works for you. Like many
Americans, I am keen on quick fixes, especially those that actually
work.

[Awesome]

You should take things progressively,more time doesn't necessarily
mean better results,3 hours is very good since most ppl,me included
only do about 30 min. And try other mental activities I have Brain
Genius Delux and Memry Trainer on my phone and they don't each session
doesn't take too much time to do.Try Math Workout too,basically add
another activity to Brain N back.

> > > barely tolerate 10 minutes :O- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -

[Colin Dickerman]

I remember reading an article about why the Chinese beat us in ping
pong so much.

Turned out it was the way they practiced. The Chinese would practice
one thing, over and over, until they mastered it. The Americans would
practice every aspect of the game in a training session.

Maybe throwing too many different things at once on the brain bogs it
down and you should hit X level before switching modes?

[Sandi Htut]

Good Luck! I know you can do it. I'm going to try and do at least 30 mins a day.

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[genvirO]

The following post is pretty much the same as the one I wrote here:
- Perhaps dual-n-back isn't that important when it comes to brain-
training.

I apologise for my laziness, I'm just really tired at the moment and
it's unfair if I respond to someone that pushed in from the back of
the line of the canteen and then when they leave, completely ignore
the person that was initially at the front of the line to buy
something, therefore I have some left-overs...

"The n-back tasks described in the Jaeggi study are a type of working
memory task that tap certain kinds of mental processes (e.g.
updating), there are many different variations of n-back and working
memory tasks that are likely going to tap different areas involved
working memory. Therefore it is by no means necessary for one to
encapsulate working memory based solely around the traditional n-back
task nor is it necessary to say that it's the only task that explains
some of the differences found on tests of psychometric intelligence.
Both paradigms (intelligence and working memory) require a lot more
than one task in order for one to be able to comprehend their
multidimensional shape, with that being said, if one is to consider
cognitive training and it's potential benefits it should most
certainly include a battery of tasks in order to try and compete with
the depth of both of these concepts."

"One other article that reinforces this distinction found that the n-
back task barely even correlates with at least one other psychometric
task known as the OSPAN used for assessing working memory, however the
enlightening finding which supports my view was that they both equally
correlated with at least one test of intelligence, RAPM. "

SEE HERE:

Title - Working Memory, Attention Control, and the N-Back Task: A
Question of Construct Validity
Link - http://psycnet.apa.org/journals/xlm/33/3/615/

On Sep 26, 9:43 pm, Colin Dickerman <collin.silvern...@gmail.com>
wrote:

[genvirO]

Addendum:

I'm not sure if they _equally correlated_ with RAPM, I didn't read
the article so I can't say that. However, here is a direct line from
the abstract:

"N-back and WM span correlated weakly, suggesting they do not reflect
primarily a single construct; moreover, both accounted for independent
variance in Gf. N-back has face validity as a WM task, but it does not
demonstrate convergent validity with at least 1 established WM
measure."

> Link -http://psycnet.apa.org/journals/xlm/33/3/615/