Long-term effects (years)

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Ari

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Oct 23, 2010, 1:29:56 AM10/23/10
to Dual N-Back, Brain Training & Intelligence
Way back in the frigid winter of 2008, I was doing 7-back pretty
consistently (and probably broke into 8 or 9, but I don't quite
remember). I must have discontinued using it a few months thereafter.
Anyway, for some reason, I took it up again today, and to my surprise,
I was not a complete n00b -- I moved into 4-back pretty quickly, and I
finished my 20 sessions with an overall score of 3.70. Has anyone else
had experiences like this? I remember there being some discussion on
the permanence of this type of working memory training; have any
conclusions been reached? It seems I'm still getting some effects
despite the passage of nearly two years. (It's possible my working
memory capabilities have increased of their own accord, but I do hope
some of this [http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/sci;
323/5915/800] was going on.)
Message has been deleted

Raman

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Oct 23, 2010, 11:25:26 AM10/23/10
to Dual N-Back, Brain Training & Intelligence
Similar for me - I stopped last year after reaching D7B. Tried again a
few weeks back and easily reached D5B. M average for 14 trials was
4.75 - and i was getting stuck at D5B. Though what this means in terms
of IQ/brain am not so sure.

Mark

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Oct 24, 2010, 4:18:18 PM10/24/10
to Dual N-Back, Brain Training & Intelligence
I stopped about april in this year after reaching dual 9 back. i
played last week a few times and reached dual 7 back.

A.Four.Sigma

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Oct 25, 2010, 2:34:30 AM10/25/10
to Dual N-Back, Brain Training & Intelligence
Hello,

Does anyone have a good sense of the gains they were experiencing
while increasing to 7, 8, and 9 back? How long did it take to get to 9
back? Did the perceived cognitive gains seem to go stale?

To be honest, I've played many of the modes and I find DNB to be the
hardest because you have to remember such a temporally long string of
data.

A.Four.Sigma

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Oct 25, 2010, 2:39:00 AM10/25/10
to Dual N-Back, Brain Training & Intelligence
By going stale, I mean did the rate of cognitive improvement slow down
at such high levels? Or when reaching them did you feel like your
thinking was reaching new levels?

Interested to know if it is "worth" getting to such levels, and what
it is like.

A4S

Jelani Sims

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Oct 25, 2010, 10:38:42 AM10/25/10
to brain-t...@googlegroups.com

Something I noticed when I reached 9nb was an increased ability to play videogames. I know its a poor example but I think it is somewhat relevant. In modern warfare it was like I could never not score in the top 3 players. This was after about a year of not playing it as well. Other than that I guess I'm more argumentative, among friends I'm known as spock.

On Oct 25, 2010 2:39 AM, "A.Four.Sigma" <david...@gmail.com> wrote:

By going stale, I mean did the rate of cognitive improvement slow down
at such high levels? Or when reaching them did you feel like your
thinking was reaching new levels?

Interested to know if it is "worth" getting to such levels, and what
it is like.

A4S


On Oct 25, 1:34 am, "A.Four.Sigma" <davidsky...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hello,
>

> Does anyone have a g...

Message has been deleted

Jelani Sims

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Oct 25, 2010, 8:01:02 PM10/25/10
to brain-t...@googlegroups.com

Lol

On Oct 25, 2010 7:56 PM, "likeprestige" <plast...@live.com.au> wrote:

That's an awesome example! You should enter some comps to capitalize ($
$$) on it, haha...


On Oct 26, 1:38 am, Jelani Sims <gouki...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Something I noticed when I reached 9n...

> On Oct 25, 2010 2:39 AM, "A.Four.Sigma" <davidsky...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> By going stale, I mean ...

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You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Dual N-Back, Brain Tr...

workingonit

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Oct 26, 2010, 3:05:02 AM10/26/10
to Dual N-Back, Brain Training & Intelligence
reaching 8 or 9 back is pretty impressive. i'm just trying to reach 5
now after a few weeks. if you don't mind me asking, have you ever
taken an IQ test? if so what was your score?

i have taken 2 or 3 and remember getting around 135 and 136, which is
apparently very good. my nback scores are pretty low though, and i'm
not surprised, because i'm pretty forgetful and easily space out. i've
also been diagnosed with possible ADD.

On Oct 25, 5:01 pm, Jelani Sims <gouki...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Lol
>
Message has been deleted

Pontus Granström

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Oct 27, 2010, 5:27:01 PM10/27/10
to brain-t...@googlegroups.com
In the original study the digit span increased but not the reading span.

On Wed, Oct 27, 2010 at 11:10 PM, David <dv.l...@gmail.com> wrote:
I wonder if the long-term improvement of dnb scores is because the
brain specializes at the task rather than any general improvement.
Does anyone know if their digit span also increased because of n-back,
for instance?
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Reece

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Oct 27, 2010, 7:51:08 PM10/27/10
to Dual N-Back, Brain Training & Intelligence
I had a digit span of 5 pre-DNB and reached a digit span of 10 after
around 1 year of (sometimes infrequent) training (was playing D4B at
that time in Fall '09). Now, after another year, I recently tested my
digit span on CognitiveFun.net and it once again came to 10 for visual
and 9 for auditory. I don't recall having previously tested my
auditory digit span unfortunately, however I strongly believe it would
have been much less than 9 pre-DNB.

One interesting thing I've noticed is that while my visual digit span
is still 10 like it was last year, I now have a digit span of 12 on
Lumosity's version of the digit span task (this was previously 10 like
on other implementations). Rather than list one digit per second, the
Lumosity version lists all the digits and then gives you (I believe)
one second for every digit in the number displayed. This would seem to
suggest I have gotten better at rehearsing/chunking, as I could never
*ever* get 12 digit numbers correct on Lumosity's implementation last
year and my digit span elsewhere has remained the same.

There are certainly plenty of possible confounding factors, however I
believed the improvement on the Lumosity digit span implementation
(and lack thereof elsewhere) was most interesting. I don't use
mnemonics or other strategies (eg. I don't say 'eleven' instead of
'one-one') when doing digit span -- I merely try to repeat the numbers
to myself very rapidly. This might very well mean I have made more of
a rehearsal improvement and not a genuine working memory improvement,
however this ability to rapidly rehearse information has proven itself
to be *extremely useful* for taking college lecture notes since I can
type around 80wpm 'hunt and peck'when being lectured but can only type
around 45wpm if I have to read the Powerpoint slide material and then
type it (I need to look at the keys when typing and thus can't both
read and type at the same time very efficiently). I no have to read
the slides (other than a quick double check to ascertain I have all
the info) -- I'm finding myself able to keep up with my professors at
almost all times, and if they talk a bit faster for a short while, I'm
able to retain what they say for long enough to get it typed while
simultaneously listening to what they are now discussing and preparing
to type that. It's hard to emphasize enough how much this has helped
-- I can finish taking slide notes much before most people and can
then concentrate my effort on trying to understand what I've just
heard -- I probably get in the equivalent of 15-20 minutes of "study
time" in a 50 minute lecture, whereas a couple years ago (pre-DNB) I
couldn't learn *anything* in class and had to read the material over
after the lecture was over, since I was spending all my effort trying
to take down notes fast enough.

On Oct 27, 4:10 pm, David <dv.ln...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I wonder if the long-term improvement of dnb scores is because the
> brain specializes at the task rather than any general improvement.
> Does anyone know if their digit span also increased because of n-back,
> for instance?
>
> On 23 Okt, 07:29, Ari <arizz...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>

Thomasthetankengine

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Oct 28, 2010, 3:16:54 AM10/28/10
to Dual N-Back, Brain Training & Intelligence
Hi,

This is my first post on this forum.


Any idea what kinds of games or activities may help someone improve
their reading span?


It seems like n-back and other tasks target different areas of
working memory.





On Oct 28, 8:27 am, Pontus Granström <lepon...@gmail.com> wrote:
> In the original study the digit span increased but not the reading span.
>
> On Wed, Oct 27, 2010 at 11:10 PM, David <dv.ln...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > I wonder if the long-term improvement of dnb scores is because the
> > brain specializes at the task rather than any general improvement.
> > Does anyone know if their digit span also increased because of n-back,
> > for instance?
>
> > On 23 Okt, 07:29, Ari <arizz...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > > Way back in the frigid winter of 2008, I was doing 7-back pretty
> > > consistently (and probably broke into 8 or 9, but I don't quite
> > > remember). I must have discontinued using it a few months thereafter.
> > > Anyway, for some reason, I took it up again today, and to my surprise,
> > > I was not a complete n00b -- I moved into 4-back pretty quickly, and I
> > > finished my 20 sessions with an overall score of 3.70. Has anyone else
> > > had experiences like this? I remember there being some discussion on
> > > the permanence of this type of working memory training; have any
> > > conclusions been reached? It seems I'm still getting some effects
> > > despite the passage of nearly two years. (It's possible my working
> > > memory capabilities have increased of their own accord, but I do hope
> > > some of this [http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/sci;
> > > 323/5915/800] was going on.)
>
> > --
> > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups
> > "Dual N-Back, Brain Training & Intelligence" group.
> > To post to this group, send email to brain-t...@googlegroups.com.
> > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to
> > brain-trainin...@googlegroups.com<brain-training%2Bunsu...@googlegroups.com>
> > .
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