What Do You Do In The VISUAL Practice N-Back Game?
HighIQPro uses a scientifically based working memory training game called the dual n-back.
In Visual Mode, when you press the ‘Start’ button, the training game window will open and every 3 seconds a square will move to one of 8 locations randomly. This screen is shown here with a square in one of the eight locations. The training starts at n–back = 1. In this task you have to press the ‘F’ key (with your left hand) when the spatial location of the square is the same as the location 1 move earlier. This is a memory gap of 1 – a 1-back. When you get proficient at this, you will progress to an n-back=2 game. In the example of a 2-back shown in the schematic below, there are 2 matches in 6 square moves. If you correctly press the key when there is a match you get points, if you miss the match or if you press the ‘F’ key when there is no match, you lose points.
After 20 moves you will have completed your first training Block. The training stops and you get feedback on the percentage you got correct, and what the next n-back level is, and how many blocks remain out of the total 10 blocks needed to complete your day’s training Session. In Practice mode, there are 10 daily Sessions to complete the training for your Profile – although you can stop your Practice training any time if you want to start with dual n-back training.
Going UP Or Down N-Back Levels
- If you got 90% or more in the game, the memory gap for the next block increases one n-back level.
- If you do less well, the gap decreases one n-back level for the next game.
- Otherwise the n-back level stays the same.
The n-back level can in principle increase all the way to a 6-back, 7-back or even higher, as your working memory training for spatial information takes effect. In 2G N-Back and Stroop N-Back training you can see on the Leaderboard how others are doing with their n-back level. Because the difficulty level of the training task always adapts to your current performance level, the brain training always remains challenging to you: it is never too easy, nor too difficult to become frustrating and demotivating. This is what is known as ‘adaptive training‘, and it is critical for real working memory and IQ gains.
Different n-back levels show different colored squares. Here is the coding. Few people reach beyond a 5-back or more in 10 days, one day for each Session.
Once you have completed 10 blocks in practice mode two windows open – a graph giving your average n-back performance, and a ‘congratulations’ window. In the graph, if you click on the ‘percent correct’ button, a ‘percentage correct’ graph opens.
Press the forward arrow button to open the Session window. In this window, there is information about sessions remaining, and your average ‘matches’, ‘mis-hits’ and ‘% correct’ performance for the previous 10 block session.