Dr. Fidel Exconde will pull out his “E” reminder again with glee. Dr. Exconde is a retired neurologist in Texas who consistently sends me his reactions to my columns, particularly when it has to do with brain studies. I have had the most thoughtful exchanges with him over the past year. The recent study entitled “Improving fluid intelligence with training on working memory” by Susanne M. Jaeggi, Martin Buschkuehl, John Jonides, and Walter J. Perrig in the latest issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS, May 13, 2008; vol. 105 no. 19;6829–6833) is something that will further boost his case for “E.”
I previously wrote about a study that gave evidence that children achieve more when you tell them that they did well because they worked hard as opposed to telling them it was because they were simply smart. Dr. Exconde reacted to that column by sending me cheers for “E” — for EFFORT. He told me that when their children were growing up and got A’s, he and his wife, Eppie, always reminded them that “E” is always more preferred than “A.” So they consistently worked hard and achieved their educational and professional goals. While this wisdom makes more than enough sense for all of us to abide by, the general perception is that the kind of intelligence that makes you do very well in school and in your jobs is something that nature has bestowed on people at birth and that this does not change. And this perception is not completely without basis.
While many drugs could affect specific areas of the brain that could affect one’s learning, there is no evidence yet that any drug is capable of improving intelligence — a complex coordination of many brain parts — in adults. The study also mentioned that despite the brazen claims of company advertisements telling you that their latest brain drills will help turbo boost your IQ enough to put you ahead in school and in your job, there have not been any studies yet that have shown evidence that you can improve your tests on this kind of intelligence (psychologists termed this “fluid intelligence”) apart from testing yourselves on these same tests over and over again. This is why you have all those services being offered to drill your child on taking particular entrance tests for certain schools or tests like SATs or GREs. They do help. They also mentioned that if you think kids these days are smarter because of the computer games they habitually play, science will also tell you that the evidence so far, only points to their increased ability in specific areas like “visual spatial attention” (translation: they will simply be better at well, playing video games) but says nothing about increased intelligence — the kind which this study dealt with. But this study is now saying that even without drugs or video games, there may be a way to improve your intelligence.
Fluid intelligence (Gf) was defined in the study as a “complex human ability that allows us to adapt our thinking to a new cognitive problem or situation.” As such, fluid intelligence is “closely related to professional and educational success, especially in complex and demanding environments.” This means that you are able to mould your thinking to deal with new problem situations. You have seen people like this. Most often, you adore them. Often, you would want to be like them but you think that no matter what you do, apart from testing yourself on the same tests they take (and on which they score very well), over and over again, you will never score the level they do. Well, think again. The researchers suspected that there must be a relationship between training your working memory and fluid intelligence. They had this hunch because the brain circuitry that is involved in what makes for fluid intelligence does share some brain parts with working memory. They also think that working memory and fluid intelligence involves the capacity to hold a number of elements in your head — with great attention. So they devised a new test.
In summary, the working memory training involved a very rigorous visual and auditory test which changes depending on the performance of the subject. This kind of test is not in the tests for fluid intelligence. However, after training on this test for varying periods that ranged from eight to 19 days, the subjects were asked to take the standard tests on fluid intelligence. And whoa, the results showed that the benefit from the training was “superior.” This means that there is now a way to improve fluid intelligence without having to practice on the standard intelligence tests over and over again. And you can do this by training harder because as the training days got higher, the scores on the Gf test also got higher.
This is science reminding you to think twice before you surrender your or your child’s intelligence to pills or video games that claim they have the power to coordinate the circuitry that will land you or them success in school and in jobs. The secret, which is really no secret, is to work at it and work at it harder and harder.
If fluid intelligence is one’s ability to wrap your head around new situations successfully, I also think a lifetime habit of reading is one darn good training for all of us. If so, it is something within one’s choice to cultivate. I just know that books are worlds between covers — worlds that you need not experience yourself to know and understand. It gives breathing room for an expansive kind of imagination — so that you understand other viewpoints even when they are from people who belonged to a generation that has long passed or from people you will never meet. While there is no evidence for a pill or a brain drill that can boost IQ, there has been mounting evidence that many brains of deceased people that show signs of Alzheimer’s belonged to people who never showed any signs of the disease. And these brains belonged to people who embraced a life of continuous learning.
So read a book, then another, then one more and never stop. That “E” may just save you from that devilish “A” which would rob you of yourself.
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