Many thanks for your contribution. I think you make excellent points. Our life experience has a tremendous impact on the paths our intelligence follows and the skills and knowledge we develop. Some of this is truly crystallized knowledge (e.g., the rules of chess or physics) and some of this is pseudo-crystallized or semi-crystallized, if you will, in that repeated experience with similar sets of data or patterns of thinking leads us to be better able to manipulate those problem sets. (As Kasparov saw thousands of chess openings and how they developed, his brain responded by becoming able to more effectively process all of the variables required to interpret the impact of a new opening.)

I would raise two points that extend this beyond a discussion of IQ and ability:

1. Special skills and creativity don’t necessarily correlate to IQ. One can have an extremely high IQ and not much imagination. Einstein became so lauded as a scientist in large part because he was able to imagine solutions that others could not. (Curved space time, for instance.) Einstein himself is quoted as attributing his success to imagination.

2. We can be drawn to certain activities or paths in life because we have an aptitude or interest in them. Einstein was drawn to physics, not driven to it. (I don’t know about Kasparov.)

The great thing about dual n-back training seems to be that it benefits us in whatever intellectual or cognitive-heavy pursuit we give our energies to. It works on strengthening core cognitive functions that have a general utility in every conscious mental activity – and perhaps some unconscious ones too.

Martin

I like your plan! Please do let us know what happens with your intensive training.

Martin

Excellent points, Martin, and it would certainly make sense.

In the case of Einstein, he certainly did his major work when young. And he reportedly was not very great at math, but was far more visual — this goes against Gardner’s typing him as a ‘logical-mathematical’ type. So it could be, though, that Einstein’s thought experiments required a great deal of visual memory in addition to pure visualization. Eidetic memory tends to fade with age — e.g. the novelist Vladimir Nabokov had perfect visual recall for numbers as a child but lost the gift later in life…(but obviously retained general recall ability as his memoir Speak Memory, attests to).

I am very curious to how G affects higher level abilities…why some people can do certain things (such as high level math) while others cannot, given roughly the same level of G. The idea behind the Mega and tests such as that is that G might be extended to a higher order processes beyond wm and processing speed…yet beyond that there is really only chrystallized IQ (learning) and special talents; so perhaps no other aspect of general intelligence takes over space in the high range. The thing is no one really knows what goes on….but in the end, I agree with you. There can be no Genius in the machine; higher order process can only be informed by the lower ones…which is probably what got Galton so obsessed with lower level cognitive processes…however, what the layman associates with high IQ is being able to juggle complexity and engaging in deep abstractions, which seems to defy the notion that such complexity could be built on so simple of constructs as WM and processing speed…but may very well be so.

While I don’t have any comments at this point, I am chiming in to let you two know that I have read the posts. After reading them, I feel enthusiastic about the training, and excited to post some of my own thoughts and feelings.

Interestingly, I scored >99 percentile on the similarities part of the WAIS-III, but I scored in the 92 percentile in the working memory part of the WAIS-III. That might imply that working memory was indeed limiting my ability to use my potential.

Interestingly, I have had major depressive disorder, which is now well managed in my life. But one of the last aspects of the psych to recover after depression is cognitive functioning. In particular, memory and concentration take a very long time to recover after a profound depression. If any of you are interested, I can post research article links that speak to this.

Warm regards,
Shaun.

I particularly like the way you separate out the concept of a training gain or transfer that leads to a “better, sharper, faster, svelter” thinking mode, or IQ, from that of a training gain that might improve one’s “ability to solve extremely hard problems.”

And, as you point out, the concept of ongoing brain training to meet the first goal is by no means an unimportant or unworthy goal.

Your comment prompts several thoughts on my part:

- First of all, well done for posing a provocative perspective.
- Secondly, I agree that there is more to the process of solving problems than the brute force of working-memory and processing speed.

Here are the buts…

- I’m convinced that the training leads to neurogenesis and plastic change. In which case, this plastic change in the brain’s ability to hold and process short term information for visual and aural stimuli might in fact have a bearing on one’s ability to solve really hard problems.

This might be a matter of degree. What if someone had the creative intelligence to solve the really hard problems, but often came unstuck by overloading his or her working memory? And why do so many brilliant minds produce their best output when they’re young? Could it be that the normal deterioration of working memory over time is enough to blunt the edge of their intellectual power?

These are maybes, I realize, but the idea of plastic change makes me cautious about writing off a change in a person’s ability to solve the really hard problems.

- The second but has to do with another unanswerable: How do the brains of the Einsteins and the Feynmans develop their profound abilities to tackle the extremely hard problems? Through innate structure and through haphazard environmental influences. What’s to say that an adult brain, through exposure to certain influences, can’t be reorganized so as to promote a significantly higher level of functioning?

I freely admit that I am an optimist and that this colors my own perspective!

I guess the only way to answer this would be to persuade you to take the Mega test again… ; )

Martin