Scott & Nanz helped us out by testing the pre-release Mac version of Brain Fitness Pro. Both courageously took a pre-test and a post-test using the challenging TRI52 visual series IQ test.
Here are the results:
Nanz:
Pre-test: 680
Post-test: 700
Scott:
Pre-test: 820
Post-test: 860
Well done, Scott and Nanz!!
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Good news for the increase.
However, on behalf of the good devil, I’d also point out that the increase could be attributed to practice effects as in the Jaeggi study control group who improved performance somewhat on their retake.
Hey Devil…
I’m going to be taking the gIQtest again in about a week.
Warm regards,
Shaun
Shaun, you should take it, but as with the WAIS, don’t be discouraged if the results don’t show an improvement; ceiling effects happen over 130, which even D. Wechsler himself warned of. That said…
The GIQtest seems to be a very good test, one of the two best ways imo of getting an estimate of IQ without taking a professional test. The other way would be to combine one’s TRI 52 score with the CCAT verbal test (found on the cerebrals site). In my case, the average between the latter two (when properly weighted) is very close to the full scale score of the former. When I say close, I mean almost exactly the same. Both of these measures I think are geared for calibrating abilities that should hold well for most of the adult lifespan. Whereas working memory and processing speed have reputations for deteriorating with age, so this is where my emphasis is. I think my IQ has (maybe) gone up 5-7 points in about 6 months of training (basing this on a GIqtest that I took a year ago), with most of the gains coming on quickly. However, it’s hard to say for sure because I am not doing this scientifically. I do feel smarter, and that’s sort of subjectivity is invaluable (to me) yet valueless (to any scientific investigation of the effects of training).
Will, thanks for the info on TRI52 and CCAT. How long do you recommend I take to complete the CCAT? Is it an hour long test, a three hour long test, or a test to complete over a couple of days or weeks?
Shawn, it’s a pretty long test and so a thorough assessment of crystallized intelligence. I have taken it twice and got the same result both times; the test/retest reliability seems to be very good. Give yourself 2 hours to be safe.
I agree on the good devil comment – I was happy to see a higher score – but then I think the questions were the same…sooo??? The True test is in daily doings…focus and remembering – which …I think I am doing much better at regardless of IQ.
nanz
Nanz, there’s no raw score given on the test so it’s hard to know exactly what the difference is. Yes, though, I agree, if you feel you’re functioning is up, I think that’s the most important thing.
Also, the TRI 52 is only measuring a facet of intelligence (visual inductive reasoning). I’d say for what it seeking to measure, though, it measures it well. The work on the test shows a very high correlation with the SAT math section as well as the performance scale of the WAIS, which is interesting. Only moderate correlation with the verbal scale which makes sense. From what I understand, this test is professionally designed (by a European division of Harcourt Brace, same company that sells the WAIS).
For anyone interested, here is an interview with Jensen and the Mega society, addressing the question of high range scores and why it’s very hard to impossible to calibrate in the 99%ile. Essentially, I think what is being said here by Jensen is that what’s being measured at the highest levels is more in the way of specialized ability than the G factor (or IQ). The notion of intra-differentiation in scores at the high ranges between say, verbal and spatial and working memory, etc, is very common in a group of gifted people. Here, Jensen is big on the idea of reaction time to measure the differences of intelligence, even at the high end, which doesn’t seem to sit well with Langan whose reputation rests on power test results.
“Chris Langan: Even IQ tests with moderate ceilings can be upwardly
extrapolated, and there exist experimental high-ceiling tests that
appear to have much higher ranges than standard IQ tests when
anchor-normed on those same standard tests. Indeed, whatever the
limitations on its measurement, there would seem to be no a priori
ceiling on intelligence itself. Yet, some claim that the very idea of
an IQ in excess of +4s is meaningless. In your opinion, can it be
fruitful to consider IQs in excess of +4s? What, if any, is the
absolute upper limit on the measurement of IQ?
Arthur Jensen: I believe we have no means at present of determining a
ceiling for intelligence or for extrapolating existing scales to a
theoretically derived ceiling. Im not even sure if the idea of a
ceiling for intelligence is a meaningful concept. An upper limit for
the measurement of g may be more meaningful and +4s (IQ of 160) may
well be the highest level in which we can have much confidence that it
is g that is being measured. It has long been known that various tests
become less g loaded the higher one goes in the IQ distribution. That
is, if we gave a large battery of diverse tests to people with IQs
above, say, 120 (i.e., the top 10% of the population) and to people
with IQs below IQ 80 (the bottom 10%), we will find that the
correlations among the tests are considerably smaller in the high IQ
group than in the low IQ groups, and consequently the tests have less
in common (i.e., their general factor g) and hence lower g loadings in
the high than in the low group. This appears to be quite a linear
effect as we move up the IQ scale. If the IQ scale were a true
interval scale (we only assume it to be such), we could extrapolate
the linear trend to the point at which g loadings = 0. That, then,
would be the ceiling of the g factor. High IQ persons abilities become
more highly differentiated and specialized, hence are less correlated
with one another and afford a weaker basis of prediction of any
particular ability from a knowledge of the individuals standing on
some other ability. Yet this diverse or differential development of
mental abilities itself seems dependent on the possession of a fairly
high level of g, in the sense of superior performance on the kinds of
tests that are the most g loaded.
The problem in researching the uppermost region of human abilities is
that the further we go above the mean IQ, the smaller is the
proportion of the population that we can obtain as research subjects,
and, since research in this field depends a lot on statistical
inference, we would find it exceedingly difficult, or even impossible,
to obtain large enough subject samples to permit statistically
significant conclusions. The more highly selected the subject sample,
the smaller is the variance of the test scores and their reliability.
There are more tractable and scientifically more important things to
be researched at present. Because there is little if any practical
value in measuring ability levels above the 99th percentile in the
general population, hardly anyone, least of all the producers of
mental tests, is interested in doing so. The only interest I have ever
seen has been among some members of the high IQ clubs that are
offshoots of Mensa. I once tested a group of some 20 to 30 volunteers
from Mensa. On a standard psychometric test they averaged about 20 IQ
points or so above the average of U. C., Berkeley, undergraduates. I
was interested in whether the Mensa subjects would also show faster
reaction time (RT) than Berkeley undergrads, who on our RT averaged
about +1 s above the general population mean on such tests. The Mensa
subjects averaged considerably faster RT than the Berkeley students.
The fact that RT is monotonically related to IQ throughout an
80-points IQ range, from about IQ 60 to at least IQ 140, suggests that
it might be a useful tool in studying the upper reaches of ability,
strange as that may seem. But of course there is a physiological limit
to RT, determined in part by the limits on time for sensory
transduction of the stimulus and afferent and efferent nerve
conductive velocity. But RT has the advantages of measurement on a
ratio scale and also of being based on the very same test at all
levels of IQ (beginning at a mental age of about 3 years, below which
subjects typically have difficulty in performing the RT tasks without
training).”
Taken from this link for anyone who wants to read more:
http://eugen.leitl.org/tt/msg12769.html