This is the first tutorial in your HighIQPro training program.

The Stroop task: System 1 and System 2 Thinking

The exercise you just performed is a famous test in cognitive psychology called the Stroop task (named after the psychologist John Stroop who first studied it). The fact you were slowed down – or made errors – while trying not to let the meaning of the words interfere with your ability to say out loud the colours – is called the Stroop Effect.

The task shows up a conflict between a) your need to focus your attention to apply a rule to perform a new, unusual task (saying the colors),  and b) the automatic, familiar process of reading the words. The automatic process interferes with your task, leading to mistakes. To do the task accurately, and learn how to do it fast requires attentional focus and ‘cognitive control’.

Nobel laureate Daniel Kahneman distinguishes between two ‘modes’ of cognition:

‘System 1’ : Using your ‘instinct’,  intuition or ‘default’ response. This is fast and automatic.

‘System 2’ : Using your analytic ability and reasoning. This is slow and requires focus and effort.

In the Stroop task, automatically reading the words is an ‘easy’ System 1 task, while at first describing the colours of the letters is a ‘hard’ System 2 task. The more practice you get at naming the ink color, the more this skill becomes automatic and ‘System 1’.

Capacity-Strategy Training

The ability to apply yourself to new problems in a way that is flexible, strategic and goal directed (System 2 thinking), and not routine or automatic (System 1 thinking),  is core to general intelligence.  Through our customized HighIQPro n-back training over time you will be able to:

• Better focus your attention to overcome old, automatic responses to reach your problem-solving goals without getting distracted. This is known as ‘executive control’.
• Expand your ‘mental workspace’ to be better hold in mind and learn new strategies and rules to apply to your problem solving (‘System 2’).
• More efficiently make your new problem-solving strategies automatic and effortless (‘System 1’).

The increased focus and resistance to distraction, as well as the increased ‘mental workspace’ to hold information in mind and apply this information to attain your goals is called your working memory. The training you did today effectively strengthen and expand your working memory over time. Combining this with  learning new problem solving strategies and rules is what we call capacity-strategy training. Strategy and capacity training work synergistically. The more working memory capacity you have, the better able you are to apply System 2 thinking to learn, apply and manage strategies that help to solve a problem. HighIQPro is specifically designed according to  this synergistic learning method – capacity-strategy training (CST).

Summary

Your HighIQPro training improves your working memory which is the motor for System 2 thinking – enabling us to maintain and process short term information while thinking something through on our mental ‘scratchpad’.
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