More Trials and Faster Speed?

[enRich]

I've been n-backing on and off for over a year now and I was wondering
if anyone has had experience with increasing the number of trials per
"set" (or session) and increasing the rate of the trials. If you have
experimented with this method, have you noticed any real world
benefits?

I'm thinking that more trials with less time in between them would be
more analogous to real world activities such as conversations which
tend to be longer than 90 seconds and generally have shorter than 3
seconds time intervals between each stimulus.

[thomasbudhi]

Yes. Recently I started DnB,QnB, 2+ stimuli nB at a rate of less than
1 second time intervals in between each stimulus. First off, it's
really intense. My brain crapped out for the first few days training
in this fashion (started off less than 2 seconds per trial 3 weeks
ago). Since then, I've been progressively shortening the time interval
each day.

I noticed my improvement because my saccadic eye reaction speed
improved. In between my sessions, I would do the saccadic eye exercise
in the brainworkshop program. Unlike the bs that speed reading classes
offer, this simple exercise did improve my reading speed.. by alot!

And so, by shortening the time interval in between each trial, I was
able to break my plateau. I use to not be able to go beyond D8B, but
with a shorter time interval, I was able to hit 70%+ D9B - sometimes
hitting D10B (that is, with a time interval space reverted back to
normal).

As far as real world benefits, it's all a matter of perception. Your
mind is going to be more receptive to the changes in the world it
wants to see. Also, it's going to be difficult to see the changes/
progress that you have made, because in the end it's you judging
yourself. My analogy is to weight lifting. By sticking to a regimen
and constantly seeing yourself everyday in the mirror, you might not
see the changes that has occured physically; however, people around
you will notice a greater amount of change.

[Green]

On Aug 3, 1:02 pm, enRich <respenschi...@gmail.com> wrote:

> I've been n-backing on and off for over a year now and I was wondering
> if anyone has had experience with increasing the number of trials per
> "set" (or session) and increasing the rate of the trials.
>

I have been trying to use dual-auditory N-back training, in the
hopes that it would help me hold conversations in noisy places. I have
been decreasing the "tick" count in brainworkshop from the default (I
think 35?) to about 15 over the course of the past 40 days. I've also
increased the number of trials per set, and the level of
"interference," but as a result I've kept myself at N=1.

If you have
> experimented with this method, have you noticed any real world
> benefits?

It's hard to tell. I was in a noisy restaurant the other day with
a group of people, and afterward it seemed to me that I had managed to
follow conversations better than in the past. But it could be a
placebo effect. I wish I had come up with a simple test to do pre- and
post- comparisons.

> I'm thinking that more trials with less time in between them would be
> more analogous to real world activities such as conversations which
> tend to be longer than 90 seconds and generally have shorter than 3
> seconds time intervals between each stimulus.

I don't know about this. It seems like there are two basic
approaches to skill acquisition:

1) Training for a task should aim to simulate the task as
perfectly as possible.
2) Training for a task should aim to strengthen specific mental
operations that are required for high performance at the task.

It seems like DNB training, if it transfers to Gf, does this
because it utilizes the 2nd approach more effectively than any
previous training method ever did. Why mess with this? Unless you have
a particular skill you want to get better at (like I do... wanting to
improve my ability to filter out background noise).
At the same time, it seems like regularly changing the length of
your sessions would be a good policy. Weight-lifters regularly change
the number of sets, number of reps per set, speed, etc. because change
is supposed to overcome the training asymptote. Something similar may
happen in DNB training - the longer you train without varying the
nature of your training the more the benefits tend to diminish.

[Green]

On Aug 4, 2:53 pm, thomasbudhi <thomasbu...@gmail.com> wrote:

>
> I noticed my improvement because my saccadic eye reaction speed
> improved. In between my sessions, I would do the saccadic eye exercise
> in the brainworkshop program. Unlike the bs that speed reading classes
> offer, this simple exercise did improve my reading speed.. by alot!
>

I am not familiar with any saccadic eye exercises in the
brainworkshop program. Can you elaborate on this?

[Sunil]

Green, it was in version 4.5, after doing a quick google, but as you
say, I dont' see it in the current version

[Reece]

The saccadic eye exercise requires that full-screen mode be enabled in
the config.ini file. Once full-screen mode has been enabled, re-open
the program and, rather than start another session of Brain Workshop,
press the 'E' key on your keyboard (just make sure you are beyond the
Brain Workshop start-up screen and are at the 'pre-game' screen where
pressing space bar will initiate a new session -- this is the screen
at which you will want to press 'E' in order to do saccadic eye
exercise training. You can change the saccadic eye exercise settings
in the config.ini file if you would prefer a different speed.

[thomasbudhi]

Exactly what Reece said.

I set up my training sessions where in between every game/DnB
interval, I would test with the saccadic eye exercise for 60
repitions. Each week, I would shorten the time interval in between
each trial for the n-backing and the saccadic eye exercise.

What I found was that it helped me to not only read copious amounts of
information faster, but to also comprehend and retain key elements in
the passage. I'm still an undergrad and just finishing up my senior
year. It's really helpful for me, and I wish I knew about this group/
programme my freshmen year!

> > > brainworkshop program. Can you elaborate on this?- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -

[foobeer]

Hi guys,

just something on saccadic-eye-exercise I was curious about.
From "Eye movements enhance memory for individuals who are strongly
right-handed and harm it for individuals who are not" by Lyle, Logan &
Roediger III (2008) (afair in the archives)

In their experiments they used a visual angle of about 27° (I think that means, angle between center-eyes to center-monitor and center-eyes to edge-monitor).
That would allow you to sit away from the monitor about two times its width.
So no need to overstrain your eyes and nerves by sitting too close.
(Unless there are some pointers that closer distances would matter.)

Bye

Reece wrote/schrieb:

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