Still 3.5

[putumayo]

Hi! I train Dual n Back from 10.08 to today (04.09) - it's 6 months
and my best score is 4. My average is about 3.65 . Is it normal or I'm
just SO STUPID!? I train the intuitive method (it means that I try not
to use any strategies but just concentrate and say intuitively when
some square or letter was) if it helps.

putumayo

[Gaël DEEST]

I don't believe that much in the "intuitive" method. I mean, sure, you
can intuitively remember you heard the same letter or saw the square
at the same position a few times ago, but I fail to see how you can
"feel" it was exactly 6 or 7 times ago without some kind of "active"
remembering.

Gaël

2009/4/16 putumayo <krotki...@o2.pl>:

[MikeM]

I totally agree with Gaël about the intuitive method not holding much
water.

I read somewhere in this group that the point is to take whatever
strategy/method you use to the limit and keep pushing it.

The key question is (whatever your method): Are you getting
consistently better at it?

For me a lot of times the intuitive method can be totally unreliable.
You'll be doing 5-back one game and a few games later your failing
miserably at 3-back..your score all over the place. Plus, intuitive-
wise, it's best to play the same n-back level over and over because
then you train your intuition...and that doesn't seem right.

With a method, you can generally tell A) when you're screwing up
because you're heads not in the game and B) When your getting better
because you're able to keep keep more of the positions/sounds alive in
your mind longer. Plus, you can switch between n-back levels without
much trouble (although it usually takes me 2 games to get into the
swing of a higher n-back level) because you're basically counting up
to a certain number versus trying to "feel" a certain number.

Just my 2 cents. My advice: Start using a strategy, scrap the
intuitive. The name of the game is do the biggest n-back level with as
few errors as your brain can muster by any means neccessary.

I didn't really get good and the visual n-back until a played a bunch
of rounds of physically tapping the screen, re-tracing the steps each
time. Then I learned to do that mentally.

[Gaël DEEST]

> I read somewhere in this group that the point is to take whatever
> strategy/method you use to the limit and keep pushing it.
>
> The key question is (whatever your method): Are you getting
> consistently better at it?

I think it's a good point. The intuitive method is, by definition,
passive: you're expecting your brain to catch up and digest
information on its own without much conscious intervention on your
part. Why should you make any progress if you're not pushing yourself
the smallest bit ? Somehow, it's like expecting to learn the piano by
pressing the keys randomly and noticing it sounds horrible.

Now, putumayo, I've read some people here were happy with this method,
and they would probably be wrong to switch, but it obviously isn't for
you !

Gaël

[Ashirgo]

Surely, you cannot go wrong keeping yourself as conscious of the task
and focused on it as it is possible for you without risking your
health ;) Again and again, I can quote some sources stating that Gf is
a synonym for a "strength of focus".

[MR]

Repeating sequences in one's head and remembering them is not what I
would consider a strategy...it's what I think we're trying to improve.
Being able to retain longer and longer strings of letters or numbers
while constantly updating them is what working memory seems to be
about. The better you get at it the stronger your working memory.

That being said, the more you advance in the task, the less you need
to repeat the sequences in your head at the lower levels and the more
"intuitive" it becomes. For instance someone who averages n = 5 and is
taxed by n= 6 or 7 may find that he no longer needs to repeat the
sequences in his head at n = 3 and that he can just remember and
update 3 back without effort. At least that's been my experience.

M

[kahreez...@hotmail.com]

There are contradictions though, isn't there? I thought you were
supposed to train a subconscious process, and this apparently means
not using any strategies including reherseals.

But then I read about some other memory exercise on this board where
you actually REPEAT sequences, i.e. ABC, BCD, CDE; ABCD, BCDE, CDEF;
etc. etc. and that is apparently supposed to train your working
memory.

[Paul]

A subconscious or intuitive process is simply a process that has become easy enough that it can be followed without much conscious effort. If an ineffective process is being used, it will be ineffective no matter how intuitive it becomes. Obviously the process putumayo is using is not effective for the purpose of remembering streams of letters and positions. This tells me that it's time to put some conscious effort into remembering through strategies such as rehearsal and whatnot. This new effort will become subconscious and intuitive over time. 

Rehearsal is not something to be avoided. The best way to strengthen a memory is to rehearse it, a fact which is confirmed by everything we know about how memories are stored in the brain.

Regarding Ashirgo's theory of "strength of focus", I postulate that focus is only one of the required elements, albeit an important one. An illiterate person will not learn to read by staring at a page with intense focus. There has to be some kind of process going on to direct the mind's resources, and some processes are better than others. I think one thing that defines people of high intelligence is their ability to devise the most effective, efficient strategy for whatever task they are performing.

[Ashirgo]

Of course the strength of focus itself is not the whole story.

In n-back it is also your bare short-term memory capacity (which is
extended as you achieve new n levels) and the ability to block out
wandering thoughts and other idiocities that our mind is willing to do
during the exercise, ruining our performance.

On the other hand, some people deal with that "wandering" in a
surprising way - they take it as a part of training and try to get
higher in spite of any amount of distracting activities (I refer to
http://groups.google.com/group/brain-training/browse_thread/thread/18eeddd23451f1f0
). An eye opener ;)

As to memory capacity, observing many people with mediocre n-back
results (namely, low levels after a long training) makes me think that
the capacity may be hard-wired or resistant to change.

[childofbaud]

What's the highest score or longest improvement-period anyone here has
achieved via the passive, "intuitive" method?

The idea that one can improve on a task without any kind of active or
concerted effort doesn't seem that intuitive to me.

On Apr 16, 3:58 pm, MR <rouss...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Repeating sequences in one's head and remembering them is not what I
> would consider a strategy...it's what I think we're trying to improve.
> Being able to retain longer and longer strings of letters or numbers
> while constantly updating them is what working memory seems to be
> about. The better you get at it the stronger your working memory.
>
> That being said, the more you advance in the task, the less you need
> to repeat the sequences in your head at the lower levels and the more
> "intuitive" it becomes. For instance someone who averages n = 5 and is
> taxed by n= 6 or 7 may find that he no longer needs to repeat the
> sequences in his head at n = 3 and that he can just remember and
> update 3 back without effort. At least that's been my experience.
>

My experience mirrors your own. I focus and struggle at the high
levels, but the lower levels have become a breeze.

[Ashirgo]

I saw people reporting sth around from 5 to 6 back.

[Vlad]

Hi,

in the original Jaeggi research, no instruction was given to the
persons, whether to use any "method" or not. Using some sort of method
(rehearsal, imaginery lists, imagining letters in place of squares
etc.) definitely easies the training task, producing a higher N-back
average result. But in the original study, the people who get to
highest N-back average WERE NOT the same who get biggest IQ gain. This
means that
- dual-n-back task is not test of intelligence or stupidity
- average N is not correlated well to IQ gain, so
- the goal is not to get highest N-average.

Important is, that you are sitting focused on your ass :) trying to
memorize and remember - and usually get frustrated too. So putumayo,
make an IQ test for yourself if you want to see if this training helps
you. Of course you can try start using methods to remember, or maybe
go for the "triple" n-back.

This said, I have one tip why could the "method-approach" work too
(switching remembering and memorising), but the intuitive method
surely has some effectivity. And btw, it's definitely not "passive" -
I think there's big difference in "being focused", and "being focused
with the intention to memorize".

[Jarno Virtanen]

On Apr 17, 5:50 pm, Vlad <pol...@gmail.com> wrote:
> But in the original study, the people who get to
> highest N-back average WERE NOT the same who get biggest IQ gain. This
> means that
> - dual-n-back task is not test of intelligence or stupidity
> - average N is not correlated well to IQ gain, so
> - the goal is not to get highest N-average.

Yep. And more importantly, I don't think anyone has any idea what is
the real cause for whatever improvements you might get from this
exercise. It's not even completely sure if there's a repeatable effect
and how strong it is if there is one.

Also, some people point out that the instructors of the original study
didn't tell not to use any strategies. But what Jaeggi also pointed
out is that she believed that whatever strategy you would come up with
would become ineffective on the next level. But I'm sure someone could
come up with a generic method that makes whatever level (and the level
above that) you're doing easier and that certainly doesn't seem to be
the essence of this exercise. I think it's supposed to be hard, in one
way or another, even if you continue to do it weeks or months over.

Jarno