Measuring results of training and lifestyle changes using Cambridge Brain Sciences

[mike.b...@cambridgebrainsciences.com]

Hi everyone. I'm Mike, a staff scientist at Cambridge Brain Sciences. I've noticed some discussion about the site here, so I thought I'd stop by and introduce myself.

For those who aren't familiar, Cambridge Brain Sciences is a service that allows you to track your cognitive performance over time. Up until about a year ago, it stopped there, but we have now added the ability to track lifestyle changes alongside cognition. Currently, sleep, stress, and exercise are built-in lifestyle factors, and we've just added the ability to add your own notes to any day's brain report.

We've been publicly skeptical of brain training (as I know many of you in this group are). Personally, although I haven't seen convincing scientific evidence for an effective, generalizable brain training program, I hope an effective training method can be discovered in the future. And that's where, in addition to lifestyle factors that are proven to improve brain health, we see Cambridge Brain Sciences as a way of verifying that training actually transfers to improvements in general cognitive performance. Both scientists and individuals can (and have) used the site in that way. Same with nootropics and the increasingly common commercial devices that supposedly enhance cognition.

It's free to sign up and track performance over time, but we also have a paid premium option that enables access to statistical analyses of results, surfacing insights on the relationships between lifestyle factors and cognitive performance.

Our web site explains more, and I just updated some FAQs that go deeper into the science of it all.

I hope this isn't spammy, but I thought it'd be relevant. I'm happy to answer any questions about the site, or related science, that you all have. Thanks for the awesome discussions in this group (I've been lurking for a while).

[Thomas]

Your site will only be interesting once it puts on programs that are most likely to increase intelligence. Those one's that I'm most familiar with are mentioned here as it pertains to relational reasoning, especially as it concerns the introduction and sustainability of novelty into the program, whether artificially introduced by the program or naturally introduced through the imaginative powers of the user. 

I would consider n-back interventions combined with relational reasoning are the best advancement so far without considering the unique contributions made to the working memory component which the Toulouse (https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/brain-training/069mZxyA7u0) task seems to take most advantage of given they're less recognition and more recall based. 

I imagine however that given your strong affiliation with the site you're likely already well aware of very good arguments that state quite clearly that working memory and fluid intelligence are indeed not isomorphic (regardless as to what short sighted studies might try and infer), that more plastic neural mechanisms like relational reasoning provide a very strong hint to if not being the lock and key itself in terms of standing for the fundamental difference between the two.

The thing to remember is as another thing I'm sure you're likely already aware of, stupid cannot create intelligent interventions for intelligence, this the most likely case for why we've been unsuccessful so far and why a dog will never be able to consciously improve its intelligence without the aid of a human or just something capable of the thought of this kind of improvement. 

If you can create something less stupid than the following intervention, again, I'd be more than willing to get involved. Its only of my opinion that we have to think of our best interventions as merely the first models we ever established for trying to fly a plane, stupid. This will allow us to avoid complacency and arrive at higher standards for the interventions we aim to create.

Good luck and thank you for your contribution, Robert Chalean himself has done a great service here.

Here are the mentions relating to relational reasoning that I began making reference to:

"Your best chance on increasing your intelligence in the most direct way is with this game here created by Robert Chalean (cheers Robert!): 

http://competicionmental.appspot.com/router?page=rfnback&en=1 

And played in the way that it's described here so it doesn't just train a skill and it remains novel enough to engage those processes important to fluid intelligence: 

https://groups.google.com/forum/m/#!topic/brain-training/7g2rjkOUXZ0 

Forget the naysayers their conclusions are merely based on old info predicated on a different training intervention making the comments noteworthy only by virtue of pointing out what we shouldn't be doing to increase IQ as opposed to sayin "oh well crawling doesn't increase our running speed therefore intelligence can't be increased". The problem is with the intervention, it's not that we can't increase our running speed it's that crawling isn't an effective intervention, as soon as we learn something analogous to running to increase running speed, we'll be able to increase pure intelligence. Relational reasoning seems to be the greatest candidate so far for filling those shoes. Time will prove this to be true and if it doesn't then we'll have something else, but the point is that relational reasoning is the greatest bet to place so far, as noted, complimented with real world crystallised problem solving exercises (I.e. Focusing on your physics, engineering, chemistry (among other) knowledge application quotient).