The Jaeggi way (Was: dizziness)

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Manuel Matías

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Feb 6, 2009, 6:25:56 AM2/6/09
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On Fri, Feb 6, 2009 at 11:27 AM, Manuel Matías <manuel...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Fri, Feb 6, 2009 at 5:19 AM, Frank Licea <francis...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> I've been doing the exercises by memorizing the sequences and comparing. If
>> that is not the ideal way,
>> could someone explain what the ideal way is?
>
> I'm on the same boat. I've joined this group recently, so I'm not aware of
> old discussions. Could someone post a link to some relevant thread or
> a short summary of the conclusions?
>

After some time reading old posts, I've found one quoting
Susan Jaeggi on this matter (posted by putumayo on
November 15th 2008). I'll reproduce the quote below; and
here is a link to the thread:

http://groups.google.com/group/brain-training/browse_thread/thread/d779edc2b922db95?hl=en

Or if that long link gets mangled, try this tinyurl instead:
http://tinyurl.com/b9bx7e

"The challanges are in helping people understand that dual-n-back is
NOT about remembering n number of visual and auditory stimuli.
It's about developing a new mental process that intuitively recognizes
when it has seen or heard a stimuli n times ago.

"Initially, most students of dual n-back want to remember n items as
fast as they can so they can conquor the dual-n-back hill. They use
their own already developed techniques to help them remember.
They may try to hold the images in their head mentally and review
them every time a new image is added and say the sounds out loud
and review the sounds everytime a new sound is added. This is NOT
what we want. We want the brain to learn a new process that
intuitively recognizes if an item and sound was shown 3 back or 4
back. It's sort of like playing a new type of musical instrument.

"I've helped some students on the site try to understand this. It's
not about how much you can remember, its about learning a new
process. In theory, this new process translates into a better working
memory, which helps you make connections better and faster."

Ron Williams

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Feb 6, 2009, 6:08:50 PM2/6/09
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Tx for the rehash of Jaeggi. I've of course seen that before, but it
was useful to read it again.

It occurred to me that at least for us old blokes (I'm 55 this year),
it might be more advantageous to lock the n-level at one more than
you're comfortable with, and then just go at it in the 'Path Of
Jaeggi' style until it does become comfortable. I find it kind of
annoying that when I get up to say 5-back, I get a number of goes at
it, and then get dropped back to 4-back.

I guess that's to avoid the brain 'losing heart' and suffering ill
effects under a kind of 'aversion therapy'. I'd like more chances to
practice at it than that, though. Maybe I need to set the number of
failures before fallback much higher. To get the 'locking' effect you
could set it higher than the number of trials in a day.

OTOH, there could be 'lock at this level' checkbox on the interface...

Confuzedd

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Feb 6, 2009, 10:05:59 PM2/6/09
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I have noticed that quoted text disappeared in the instructions from
the home page. Why was it removed?

Gore Lando

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Feb 6, 2009, 10:13:19 PM2/6/09
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OK, once again -- Because, in fact, that is NOT Jaeggi, but someone else.    I repeat:  THAT QUOTE IS NOT JAEGGI, and it was misrepresented by putumayo, I assume out of mistake.  Paul or many of the "older hands" will recall this.  Otherwise, Jaeggi has made some comments that much more slightly may be taken to suggest "intuitive" strategies, but they are hardly dictates, and again, there were no dictates or guided advocacy of meditative-like approaches or whatnot in the study, and thus it is highly probable that a large proportion of the ORIGINAL RESPONDERS were using strategies such as "mental lists", strategies which are in fact more "intuitive" for many people.

Paul

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Feb 6, 2009, 10:19:29 PM2/6/09
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Thank you Gore Lando, I was just typing out this response as you posted.

The above quote was written by SwedishChef, an original member of the old DualNBack group. There is a real Jaeggi quote I had on there also, but ultimately I did not feel comfortable recommending a certain way of doing the task. There is simply not enough data to say whether one method is better than another. Many new users were getting worried that they were performing the task "incorrectly".

Here is the "real" Jaeggi quote, which you can see is not nearly as strong in its recommendation of a certain way of performing the task.

====

"I would NOT recommend you [train the visual and auditory task separately] if you want to train the dual-task (the one we used in our study). The reason is that the combination of both modalities is an entirely different task than doing both separately! If you do the task separately, I assume you use some "rehearsal strategies", e.g. you repeat the letters or positions for yourself. In the dual-task version however, these strategies might be more difficult to apply (since you have to do 2 things simultaneously...), and that is exactly what we want... We don't want to train strategies, we want to train processes. Processes that then might help you in the performance of other, non-trained tasks (and that is our ultimate goal). So, it is not important to reach a 7- or 8-back... It is important to fully focus your attention on the task as well as possible.

"I can assure you, it is a very tough training regimen.... You can't divert your attention even 1 second (I'm sure you have noticed...). But eventually, you will see that you get better at it and maybe you notice that you are better able to concentrate on certain things, to remember things more easily, etc. (hopefully)."

====

Manuel Matías

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Feb 8, 2009, 6:21:08 AM2/8/09
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On Sat, Feb 7, 2009 at 4:13 AM, Gore Lando <gore...@gmail.com> wrote:
> OK, once again -- Because, in fact, that is NOT Jaeggi, but someone else.
> I repeat: THAT QUOTE IS NOT JAEGGI, and it was misrepresented by putumayo,
> I assume out of mistake. Paul or many of the "older hands" will recall
> this. Otherwise, Jaeggi has made some comments that much more slightly may
> be taken to suggest "intuitive" strategies, but they are hardly dictates,
> and again, there were no dictates or guided advocacy of meditative-like
> approaches or whatnot in the study, and thus it is highly probable that a
> large proportion of the ORIGINAL RESPONDERS were using strategies such as
> "mental lists", strategies which are in fact more "intuitive" for many
> people.

Thank you for clarifying, Gore Lando. And thanks Paul for the real
Jaeggi quote.

I suppose we'll never know what the "correct" way is. But probably
any kind of mental exercise is good for the brain in some way,
so I wouldn't worry too much about it.

biped

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Feb 8, 2009, 2:33:19 PM2/8/09
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On Feb 8, 3:21 am, Manuel Matías <manuel.mat...@gmail.com> wrote:
Hi Manuel,

> On Sat, Feb 7, 2009 at 4:13 AM, Gore Lando <gorela...@gmail.com> wrote:
> ...
>
> Thank you for clarifying, Gore Lando. And thanks Paul for the real
> Jaeggi quote.
>
> I suppose we'll never know what the "correct" way is. But probably
> any kind of mental exercise is good for the brain in some way,
> so I wouldn't worry too much about it.

If you haven't already read Dr. Jaeggi's response to my question about
strategies and the "correct" way, you may be interested in the
following thread:

http://groups.google.com/group/brain-training/browse_thread/thread/955524caaf2e9001

Manuel Matías

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Feb 8, 2009, 6:57:10 PM2/8/09
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On Sun, Feb 8, 2009 at 8:33 PM, biped <biped....@gmail.com> wrote:
> If you haven't already read Dr. Jaeggi's response to my question about
> strategies and the "correct" way, you may be interested in the
> following thread:
>
> http://groups.google.com/group/brain-training/browse_thread/thread/955524caaf2e9001

Interesting indeed! Thank you very much.

Manuel Matías

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Feb 9, 2009, 3:19:30 AM2/9/09
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Oh, by the way, did anyone ask her about triple
n-back and other variations?

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