The brain training method utilized by HighIQPro is called ‘capacity-strategy’ training, designed to increase intelligence and improve problem solving and decision-making skills. Here we review the capacity-strategy method.
Dual N-Back Training is highly effective, but it has limitations
One component of HighIQPro neuroplasticity brain training is working memory training, using a ‘second generation’ version of the dual n-back.
The aim of all WM training programs is to expand working memory capacity. The most widely studied brain training exercise targeting WM capacity is the dual n-back task. The N-back task involves viewing a continuous stream of items (e.g., letters) and deciding whether each item matches the stimulus presented n stimuli back. In dual n-back training, a verbal and a visuo-spatial stream of items is presented simultaneously and item matches have to be detected for both types of information. This dual task requires updating items in both the visual short term store and the verbal short term stores of working memory. The most well-known dual n-back task has been developed by Dr. Susanne Jaeggi and her colleagues back in 2007.
N-back training is known to improve the following cognitive functions:
Known benefits of n-back working memory training
WM capacity training has been shown in replicated studies to result in the following cognitive benefits (reviews: Morrison & Chein, 2011; Salminen, Strobach & Schubert, 2012):
- Increased performance on untrained measures of short term memory.
- Multi-tasking – i.e. attentional selection between two sets of information associated with different tasks.
- Detaching attention from irrelevant items and attending to new relevant items.
- Shielding against interfering information.
- Episodic memory.
- Reading comprehension.
- Verbal learning and every day attention in older adults (60+).
- Reduced symptoms of ADHD.
- Improvements for multiple sclerosis – everyday memory, quality of life.
- Improvements for schizophrenia patients – everyday memory, quality of life.
- Improvements for frontal lobe stroke patients.
In general terms, the larger your working memory capacity or ‘mental workspace’, the greater your capacity for higher order cognition and thus academic and professional achievement. An example of this relationship is shown below.
For my review of n-back working memory training effects on general cognitive performance, click on the pdf icon:
Limitations of dual n-back working memory training
There are clear benefits of working memory training for overall cognitive performance and brain health. However, there are also well-recognized weaknesses. One major weakness is maintained motivation to complete the 20 day course. The original Jaeggi task is deadly dull and only a small percentage of highly committed individuals generally complete the program from their own initiative.
The following are three n-back strategies people naturally use to maintain or go up n-back levels using the traditional Jaeggi n-back task. However, they disrupt the genuine expansion of working memory capacity – they are actually ways of compensating for limitations of working memory capacity to increase your n-back performance. It is as though you are making up for lack of physical strength when weight training by using different body movements that don’t actually help your strength movements.
Attentional blinking
As you get more experienced with the HighIQPro dual n-back task, it is possible to strategically direct your attention in ‘jumps’ to useful strings of letters or square locations in order to maintain or go up an n-back level. Using this strategy, you are not actually updating the items in your working memory continuously, but are ‘counting through’ a particular string of items and then refreshing it from the start again for the next string. This is a kind of attentional blink.
Chunking
Sometimes during the dual n-back task, a letter or location may be repeated one two or even three times. When this happens it is easier perform on the n-back exercise because with only one ‘place holder’ there is less information to ‘encode’ to do the task. Or at other times, there may be a meaningful string of letters that forms a word or acronym, or the sequence of locations forms a known shape. When items can be grouped together like this, easing the burden on our memory system, this is called ‘chunking’. Chunking can also benefit from practice.
Playing the odds
Another strategy that is used during standard n-back tasks is playing the odds. This involves having a rough idea that an item was e.g. to the left or right, and taking systematic guesses as to the exact location. Instead of remembering exact locations and letter identities, this strategy can help a player maintain an n-back level or go up a level based on statistical ‘bets’.
These three n-back strategies are actually ways of getting around (i.e. compensating for) limitations of working memory capacity to increase your n-back performance. But getting practice with these strategies doesn’t actually help increase working memory capacity itself.
HighIQPro ‘second generation’ dual n-back training
The HighIQPro working memory task differs from other dual n-back versions, addressing some of the weaknesses in the following ways:
- For motivation, HighIQPro incorporates ‘game-like’ incentives, such as reward sounds, and ‘best score’ tables in case the user wants to compare his/her performance with other users. Score comparisons can be revealed after each session of training, as well as for the overall n-back attained.
- HighIQPro offers a ‘fast’ setting, in which stimulus presentations are double the rate. This helps with motivation in that only half the training time is needed to complete the session. It also trains processing speed.
- HighIQPro helps prevent attentional chunking by having both letter and number options for the stimuli. Users can experiment with the modality that affords the least chunking.
- HighIQPro largely prevents attentional blinking and playing the odds strategies by having a ‘hard task’ setting which puts a stricter criterion on players t maintain and increase their n-back level. It is much harder to use these strategies on this harder setting, forcing users to genuinely expand their working memory capacity to go up an n-back level.
Capacity-strategy training
It is well established in the cognitive science literature that a larger working memory capacity functions to allow for easier utilization and memorization of rules , strategies or procedures – whether for learning, solving problems, making decisions and skill-acquisition. To learn how to do a mathematical calculation, you need to learn mathematical rules; to learn how to drive a car, you need to learn how to operate the car with certain operations; to learn a second language, you need to apply grammatical rules.
Working memory circuitry is located in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. Activation in this area allows for the flexible application of a wider range of novel strategies and rules, overcoming automatic responses, and these new rules – with practice – are then more effectively encoded in more anterior (to the front of the head) prefrontal areas. This is shown in the ‘Capacity-Strategy’ infographic above, and this is precisely the kind of training method HighIQPro utilizes.
In addition to second generation n-back training that expands working memory capacity, HighIQPro builds in problems / brain teasers with associated online ‘mindware’ tutorials to allow for fast, efficient learning of strategies for problem solving and decision-making. Both approaches – capacity & strategy – work synergistically.
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