Working-Memory Training Report – Michelle – Session 34

Session number: 34

Average n-back: 5.20

Duration (min.): 60 mins

I’ve been see-sawing backwards and forwards in increments of 10-20 all through the second training group, but my average n-back for today is 5.20. It’s not the first time I’ve reached it, but it’s nice to know that the first time wasn’t a one-off. Various days have been low-focus days, which has ended up back in high 4 averages several times.

I’ve been juggling n-back stuff with brain training at MyBrainTrainer, and with other software. Overall, I’ve been spending at least 2 hours a day on various forms of brain training. In non-n-back training exercises, my focus has been on processing speed, increased focus, and improving visual scanning (obviously to prepare for some of the upcoming more information processing tasks in the WAIS). I think they’ve dovetailed quite nicely.

I finally had a visual-spatial WAIS-III task administered to me 2 days ago (this testing seems to be going at a snail’s pace……). I was kind of looking forward to seeing how I fared in a measure of fluid intelligence, since most of the stuff administered so far has been of the crystallised variety. Either the n-back stuff helped quite a bit, or I’m very good at visual-spatial reasoning (or maybe a bit of either). The only thing that prevented me from a perfect score was anxiety – got nervous ‘butterfingers’ when handling the blocks and lost 1 bonus point on 2 of the questions, and on the final task I kind of panicked then got myself together and focused and finished perfectly – except that the time spent in sheer panic mode meant that I timed out and lost out on points for that question. Apart from that I scored perfectly with everything else. If only dual n-back could do something for the anxiety as well as working memory……..

I think the dual n-back made a difference in that up until the very last couple of questions I didn’t have to refer back to the puzzle as much whilst constructing, because I was able to hold more in my head at once whilst I worked. I think that translated into gaining valuable seconds in a timed task that would have otherwise been taken up moving my eyes backwards and forwards from pattern to construction.

I do think the neuropsychologist was a little bit surprised, as he has had me pegged as high on verbal IQ from day one and kind of naturally expected that visual-spatial would be weaker.

We also went through a visual-spatial memory task from the WMS, and it was way better than the verbal word-pairing I did a few weeks ago. Whilst my visual-spatial memory has always been better than random word groupings anyway, I do wonder whether seeing n-back patterns at n=6 in ever alternating shapes of 3 ‘nodes’ has contributed to that.

Coming up in the next 2 weeks:

That WAIS task that’s like digit span where you have to reorganise the letters and numbers in ascending order (or is it the other way around???). I have a baseline for that from my Simply Smarter software. A couple of weeks into n-back training, my baseline for this particular task was a span of 4. I’ve not taken another baseline since, but in practice exercises I am handling spans of 5, 6, and 7 digits/letters (although at a span of 7 I’m not getting it consistently every time).

Matrix reasoning. I’m curious about this one. I was mad about visual-spatial puzzles about 10 years ago and used to get nearly all of the ones in the Mensa puzzle books right, but immediately prior to n-back training I had slipped a bit (still getting the majority but fluffing a few).

Those ones where you’ve got to cancel out shapes and ones where (I think) you have to copy symbols – the more pure processing ones. It will be interesting to see the effect that a couple of more weeks of dual n-back practice will have on those exercises.

This post was submitted by Michelle.

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5 Responses to “Working-Memory Training Report – Michelle – Session 34”

  1. martin says:

    Hello, Michelle.

    This is fascinating. Thanks for posting such a detailed overview of your WAIS testing and your thoughts on the interplay of n-back.

    I recognize your description of how n-back seems to have helped with visio-spatial tasks. That feeling of greater confidence and more room for the task.

    In fact, anxiety reduction and n-back are related. Getting flustered can happen when we our working memory gets overloaded. So, in certain situations at least, having a better working memory capacity can prevent overload and help us from getting flustered.

    Martin

  2. Michelle says:

    Normally I would get flustered and stay flustered. For me to be able to suddenly pull all that back in and complete the task – regardless of whether I managed to do it before the time limit ran out – is highly significant, even for such a small, discrete task.

    My clinical psychologist agrees with you, Martin. One of his colleagues has been doing work on this, I think, and the idea is to expand working memory so that anxiety doesn’t eat up the limited working memory capacity that is there. (Otherwise there’s no room for anything there but the anxiety.) With the tasks strung out as they are, I’m noticing a distinct improvement in anxiety management from session to session, so perhaps exposure combined with n-back work is working well together.

    I am supposed to be meeting up with one of my lecturers who is an educational psychologist in the next couple of weeks, and will be sharing some of this stuff. I might even let him play with my iphone app while I’m there if we both have the time. He’s dual trained in psychology and education, and has gifted ed and learning disabilities as areas that he works in, so I’m sure there could be a really interesting discussion of how this sort of training can be incorporated in both those areas if we get time.

  3. Shaun says:

    Michelle,

    What Martin said about anxiety reduction reminds me of my own experience with anxiety / anger. When I practice BFPro these days, I try to be as relaxed as I can (within reasonable limits). Sometimes I think that I’m almost falling asleep while I train with BFPro. The result is that my ability to concentrate while remaining very relaxed has improved a lot. Before BFPro I used to tense up whenever I needed to concentrate; now, I hang loose whenever I need to concentrate. This experience of concentrating deeply while also relaxing deeply feels quite novel to me. It’s also one of the most satisfying fruits of BFPro training.

    Shaun

  4. Dave says:

    In terms of managing anxiety during stressful events, someone once recommended a book called “Gold Medal Mental Workout for Combat Sport”.

    I never ordered it, but here’s a review from The Wall Street Journal:

    “…program fills 10 weeks with readings and audio recordings that sink the subject into an `alternative state of consciousness,’ implant `triggers’ that activate the trance in seconds, and then soothingly build a cool disposition for the heat of competition.”
    —The Wall Street Journal, February 11, 2002

    Anyway, thought I would mention it in case you found it helpful. It can be found at http://www.stadion.com/gold_medal_mental_workout.html

    Dave

  5. Michelle says:

    Boy, that’s really detailed. Way more detailed than the mini-program I worked out for myself with Neuroprogrammer 2 Pro. Might have helped with those red & white blocks.. :)

    It’s frustrating knowing that your IQ result is going to be lowered because of an anxiety condition. I’m working like a dog to desensitise myself to the testing process on a daily basis and crossing my fingers that I have enough ability left in reserve for my blatant underperformance to still be above the Mensa cutoff. Certainly the psychologist thinks that’s possible. And I guess if I don’t get the nerves completely under control I could always get the Stanford-Binet administered (no timed questions, so technically I should perform more at my true ability level).

    Mind you, according to him, I should just be grateful that I can still perform above average anyway; he’s quite anti-Mensa, doesn’t see the point in me joining since I have an anxiety disorder, and also figures that if I have the intelligence to work my way through this the way that I have, then it’s not a real disability in the first place (too bright and too functional….). He doesn’t see the CBT work I put in behind the scenes to maintain that high functionality, not to mention the brain training regime……..

    Bit too late to change horses midstream – I’m about halfway through the WAIS now, and if I had to begin it again with someone else the testing would be hopelessly compromised.

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