Along with Dual N-Back, engage in a variety of mentally stimulating activities.

[Andrew]

Hi everyone, I'm new to dual n-back. Just did my first run and it went well. I'm mostly doing this so keep my brain sharp and to try and gain more fluid intelligence. Watching the tutorial on brain workshop website i noticed point 5 where they gave advice to engage in a variety of mentally stimulating activites. What would these be? What kind of stimulating activites do you use?

[Leonardo]

I stab hookers to death and try to subsequently outsmart the police in a duel of intellects. 

[BM XT]

Learn anything new and INTERESTING to you (language,  chess/go, maths, musical instrument, programming, philosophy (try reading Kant or Hegel without feeling very very mentally stimulated, my max is 2 hours with short breaks until I feel so drained I can't read anything that day besides super lightweght fiction). And so on and so on. *Sniff*

среда, 16 ноября 2022 г. в 12:03:56 UTC+5, Leonardo:

[Bo T]

I don't mean to sound like a jerk, but DnB won't increase your fluid intelligence. It doesn't even transfer to general working memory. Syllogimous v3 is currently the best brain training tool, and academics on this sub (Leonardo,Fredo,etc..) keep working towards updates in order to make it even more effective. Cognitive flexibility training also has a good deal of scientific merit.  

[Pete Levy [PL]]

Some guys here claim that n back works. One of them. I think Stopchemtrails(?)... showed his Mensa test result after a few years of training n back. IQ increase of 13-15 points. I remember it poorly. On YouTube, there is another guy quite well known in our group, who only thanks to n back improved his IQ by a dozen points and significantly ELO in chess.

I myself train with Syllogimous.

[Fredo Corleone]

My IQ surely improved over the years, I have no doubt about that (I took multiple IQ tests over the years with increasing results), but I'm not entirely sure it's due to N-back because I did so many brain stimulating activities.

One thing I'm sure of is that N-back is a pretty good exercise if you want to level up your attention, and IMHO attention is an higher skill than intelligence, that's because attention directs intelligence.

Anyway, your free time is better spent learning skills and doing things you love.

[Alex C.]

I have been using DnB for over 10 years now with time off/on periods and it most definitely works. 

I really don't understand people that say it doesn't.

[Bo T]

"I don't understand people who say it doesn't"

It doesn't transfer to other working memory tasks or fluid intelligence, that's for starters. 

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[Pete Levy [PL]]

Yup. I have ADHD and for me N Back works great, same as Syllogimous and any other task, which need high level of concentration. 

[Thomas van Dam]

@bora. How do you explain all these real life benefits then:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/e/2PACX-1vTBhgQ_HxtQqWcAZFxZrg0C_3TQT3mIdd_32BXsbC4LP2NMkDd8-3D_ZRwG492IjRmyCT4i-orusMVC/pub

[Leonardo]

How do you explain the thousands of real life benefits of homeopathy? 

N-Back has failed again and again in every rigorous study. 

[Leonardo]

However, far transfer to a measure of fluid intelligence did not emerge.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5805159/#!po=0.427350

 Follow-up Bayesian analyses supported null findings for training effects for each individual composite. Findings suggest that dual n-back working memory training may not benefit working memory or fluid intelligence in healthy adults.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4820261/

Every serious study with rigorous methodology finds nothing again, and again and yet again. Studies finding a really small effect are always those with questionable methodology. And they find a 4 IQ points increase at the very best. Which is something so tiny, that it is not possible to even feel it. 

[Leonardo]

Here you have some real life benefits for homeopathy: https://www.homeopathyschool.com/the-clinic/patienttestimonials/

Have fun reading them; and, given that this is your bar for evidence, treating yourself with it the next time you are in need of medical attention. 

PD: Please, don't use homeopathy if you are in need of medical attention. 

[Bo T]

I just used homeopathy to increase my IQ by 20 points , thanks Leo.

[Sebastian Zukowski]

I don't think this is a valid comparison since in one case they have no incentive to lie while in the other they do.

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[Alex C.]

I'm going to quit using DnB for 1 month and do Relational Frame Theory exercises strictly. I am very curious at this point.

[Leonardo]

Bora: Hahaha. Good one. Be careful, though. A couple more dosis and you will end up like this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YG6t8dsP7rs&ab_channel=SpongeBathShitPants

Alex C: Hold on a couple of days so Fredo has time to fix the negation system. 

[Thomas van Dam]

2 differences:

As sebz pointed out, these are testimonials from a website, thus omitting the results of everyone who didnt find results. 

The second one is that I also looked for people who trained and didnt experience results. I could find only 2 who trained for a significant amount of time and did not have significiant results. It is probably true that it is more significant for people with deficient working memory (normies like me). You have an IQ and equivalent working memory of 140+ and are therefore less likely to feel the results.

[Leonardo]

I also trained at pentuple-variable-n-back, which should account for the differences in memory capacity. My memory is good, but it has limits, I'm not von Neumann, sadly. I wish n-back made me von Neumann. 

[Alex C.]

After training all these years what I did notice that DnB does is it gives me a spike in focus, memory, I can make connections faster, new ideas seem to come to me easier etc. 

The problem I have however is that these benefits come after at least of 1 week of 30-45mins of intense training. A session like that drains the brain for me, and if I do it in the morning before work, I become somewhat useless for half the day because I lack motivation to do anything else. If I do it at night before bed, I get nightmares and insomnia and wake up very tired. But that's my experience with it.

Another problem I have with DnB is that the gains you get, seem to wear off pretty fast if you stop training. If my last session was on Friday for example, by Monday I feel as if I did not train at all. Which is very strange. I used to go to the gym everyday when I was in my 20s and if I missed a few days when I came back my muscles were sore like I never lifted a dumbbell in my life. The experience seem very similar.

[Sebastian Zukowski]

I too noticed that gains disappear quite quickly. 

DnB is like setting a fire to some part of my brain, it makes that part feel warm for some time and I am aware it exists, but after some time it will be gone.

I still think it's worth it.

I also feel that my brain works better when taking creatine. There's few research papers saying that people who took this supplement performed better on some tested mental tasks

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[Fredo Corleone]

You lose what you don't use. It's no surprise to me

[Sebastian Zukowski]

Yes, I agree, however it's very quick.

It must be a very intense task, DnB, compared to other daily tasks and I'd even some intensive jobs if none of them is challenging enough for the brain to sustain the gains. 

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[Alex C.]

Maybe short sessions 3x per day for the boost to be constant? Anyone tried something like that?

[Leonardo]

I was doing 500 trials of pentuple-variable-3-back every day, some times even two sessions of 500 trials, and I didn't feel any exhaustion nor any weird thing going on in my head, also no improvement whatsoever. When I did 99 syllogisms memorizing it one by one with the app of Robert every day, I felt exhausted, but that didn't make me von Neumann either. 

[Fredo Corleone]

Leo if for trials you mean # of stimuli then I do more than 4000 daily and I think I'm not even training enough.

I would ideally aim for 8000 trails a day, but I'm currently not because of my schedule.

In my experience I start to get a feel for how to control items in my working memory after about 2000 stimuli.

From 0 to 2000 I'm just warming up, from 2000 to 4000 you feel what it's like to have proper control and you start to get a feel for your limit.

Above 4000 I'm sure you are getting work to break your current limit.

It's a painfully slow process, I already gave detailed data on the N/hour you might expect and it's underwhelming, it's even more underwhelming if you consider N/trials.

I make sure in to avoid all strategies, no chunking no visualization no vocalization, at the speed I'm playing it's impossible to visualize and vocalize yet I could chunk and sometimes I do, if I realize that I stop doing that.

I'm playing with 750ms delay at N=5, it's not impressive I know, but it's at "thoughtspeed", I believe everybody should train at thoughspeed.

[Bo T]

According to Mark Ashton smith (founder of i3mindware), N back working memory training  works only if it has integrated interference control. 

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S001002771830218X

https://www.i3mindware.com/2g-nback/interference-control-training

The first link is a study that found far transfer to cognitive control and fluid intelligence following Nback with interference control.

The second link contains an article which shows that interference control is the link between working memory and Gf.

Interested to know your opinions on this. 

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[Leonardo]

Fredo: Trials is the name the settings on Brain Workshop call every round of stimuli. 1000 pentuple trials are already 33 minutes of training. I cannot give it more time. Considering that there are 5 stimuli per trial, 1000 trials are 5000 individual pieces of information: position, shape, color, left audio and right audio. If you consider the number asked in variable mode, the one I use, also a bit of information, and I think it is, that's 6000 stimuli per day. I use 2 second per trial, but at 6 pieces of information, as explained, that amounts to 333ms per stimulus. 
Bora: I always use 75% interference. I don't use 100% because that leads to weird things, like malfunctioning or something. Still, I found no transference, despite doing the hardest training possible. 

[Leonardo]

Fredo: I find your v0 the most interesting n-back, because that at least makes you train your spatial cognition, I think. 

[Aldona Odojewska]

Yeah, v0 would be great as a training for artistic abilities. It needs optional color cubes mode and piano sounds, possibly with 3D forms later since you are busy. 

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[Leonardo]

Yes, as an artist, a v0 with more shapes and colors would be a wet dream, really. 

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[Fredo Corleone]

Are you sure you want this? xD

Let me set up a few playground with different figures, but not this week. Next week! I'm full of job work...

[Sayed]

hello, 
if DnB doesn't benefit working memory, is there any kind of exercise that can benefit me 
thanks.

On Monday, November 21, 2022 at 5:41:01 PM UTC+2 Leonardo wrote:

[Wilma Skillma]

It does benefit wm. Onyly if you arewilling to train 1+ hour a day for months

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[Sayed]

thanks, William for your response 
is there anything other than DnB you recommend to enhance wm or IQ in general 

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[bread 12]

i feel tired if train for 1 hour plus daily though

do you just build endurance to it?

[Wilma Skillma]

Yeh

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[infogr...@free.fr]

Yes.