Talking aloud
A recent study by Mark Fox and Neil Charness in the journal Aging, Neuropsychology and Cognition (paper) has looked at the effects of simply talking aloud while solving problems that need fluid intelligence. They compared the effects of talking aloud between older adults and younger adults.
A study
Thirty-one older (average age 72.3) and 30 younger (average age 19.0) adults participated in the study. Participants were instructed to either work silently or talk aloud during a shortened version of an IQ test called the Raven’s Advanced Progressive Matrices (similar to the kinds of problems in this Raven Matrices blog entry, as well as the free online IQ tests we provide for our increase IQ guarantee.) This test is the best test of fluid intelligence – the ‘culture free’ capacity to solve novel, unfamiliar problems flexibly using reasoning powers. Fluid intelligence is aspect of our intelligence; ‘crystallized intelligence’ is another. Crystallized intelligence is the knowledge we have acquired through education, learning and practice. General knowledge and vocabulary are types of crystallized intelligence. It is fluid intelligence, not crystallized intelligence, that HighIQPro software training improves. And it is fluid intelligence that tends to decrease quite substantially during the aging process – but not crystallized intelligence.
Results were interesting. For older adults, but not younger adults, talking aloud while working through Raven Matrices problems improved IQ performance substantially – by the equivalent of 11 IQ points! That is a massive impact. The results are shown in the graph below. TA stands for ‘Talk aloud’.
The explanation for this effect is that the fluid intelligence required to solve these kinds of matrix problems depends on what is called ‘executive processing’. Executive processing is the ability to think‘offline’, reasoning through something while not getting distracted or reacting automatically. Executive processing becomes more difficult as we age, and speaking out loud helps keep focus on the task and reason through the problem without distraction.
It is possible that the simple act of reasoning out load might have practical applications in developing other skills – for instance in learning new technologies. Just like training with HighIQPro, simply talking aloud while solving problems and trying to learn something might help older adults master new technologies.
If you are over 65, try talking the problem through when you are next challenged with a novel problem. It could help dramatically.
