SINGLE N-Back is as effective as Dual N-Back

[James Austin]

SINGLE N-Back is as effective as Dual N-Back

.......and even more so on some measures


refer far transfer effects on BOMAT, single trainers did better than dual trainers
on Raven's, single trainers were only slightly under dual trainers

http://jtoomim.org/brain-training/Studer%20Jaeggi%20et%20al_Psychonomics%202009.pdf

*it's easy to lose ourselves in our n-back level, single, dual, quad etc., but in fact the transfer effects are more important

[James Austin]

The image below is taken from Jaeggi's research in 2014 (here).

Again we find that single n-back yields better results than dual n-back.

[jotaro]

from a guy who did heg and n-back with heg they both do the same pfc awakening,

same with dual n back.

you will get more blood flow and activity in your pfc area.

i dont know if its actually good or not, because some people have then trouble to lower teh pfc, and then when they need it lower , it gives them trouble.

m

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[Heinstar]

But DNB might have other benefits like increased wm in different domains(e.g. auditory). Because when I was tested for auditory wm by my psychologist(having to repeat back a long chain of letters), I was told that I scored above average so I attribute that to my past DNB training. Although for some reason, I scored below average in spatial wm test, not sure why but it could be because I started taking antidepressants.

[Gwern Branwen]

On Thu, Nov 5, 2015 at 5:26 PM, James Austin <jamesdav...@gmail.com> wrote:
> SINGLE N-Back is as effective as Dual N-Back

No, it's not. I forget if Au et al included it as a moderator, but at
least in my meta-analysis, visual n-back has half the effect that dual
n-back does (d=0.22 vs d=0.42). Audio n-back might be *similar* but
since it's based on just two studies thus far, the estimate there is
extremely imprecise (going from d=-0.2 to d=1.1).

--
gwern
http://www.gwern.net

[James Austin]

Jaeggi's research disagrees with you.

[Gwern Branwen]

On Thu, Dec 3, 2015 at 12:10 AM, James Austin
<jamesdav...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Jaeggi's research disagrees with you.

I'm not sure you understood my point. When you pool *all* studies
which have done n-back training and measured gains on an IQ test, you
find that visual n-back studies turn in a net effect currently smaller
than dual n-back studies. This is *not* inconsistent with that
particular bit of Jaeggi's research because, as usual, the sample
sizes are small and the effects are very imprecise.

Look at that poster - n=21 in one group and n=25 in another? You're
not going to show a difference in efficacy because that requires very
precise estimation of *both* effects to show they don't overlap. (The
title is "Single N-back Is As Effective As Dual N-back", and even that
is overselling it.) The confidence intervals for the poster's single
and dual n-back effects are 0.14-1.38 and -0.29-0.87. You will notice
that both of these intervals overlap a great deal with each other (so
you couldn't reject a null hypothesis like their equality), and each
also overlaps the meta-analytic summaries of 0.22 and 0.42
respectively.

So there's not really anything here to explain. Small studies
inherently yield imprecise estimates, and this particular imprecise
estimate is consistent with the more precise estimate based on
multiple studies, and the more precise estimate indicates that visual
n-back is probably not better.

--
gwern
http://www.gwern.net

[James Austin]

I get it.

And I doubt you have pooled all studies as you imply. There are 1000s after all.

It's also worth noting that a small sample size does not invalidate the findings. Rather it means more research is required.

That said, neither of us can know for sure. But that doesnt render Jaeggi's findings any less interesting.

[King David]

I think it depends on the outcome.  Probably a variety of n-back type tasks would be good for the mind to train as they represent slightly different variations of things which we do with our mind all the time.

It is more like a person who goes to the gym and only does bench press versus a person who does crossfit . The crossfit person will have a better balanced body, but will be able to bench press less weight.  I would prefer the crossfit.  I think getting fixated into one way of doing things with the mind over time is not going to be as beneficial as variety.

The problem with most n-back studies, is that they are like 3 weeks long, a couple of months long, etc and that is it.  Like, do we even know if dual-n-back continues to increase iq, or if it stops after a few weeks?