{"243371":{"#nid":"243371","#data":{"type":"news","title":"\u2018Brain Training\u2019 May Boost Working Memory, But Not Intelligence","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EBrain training games, apps and websites are popular, and it\u2019s not hard to see why \u2013 who wouldn\u2019t want to give their mental abilities a boost? New Georgia Tech research suggests that brain training programs might strengthen your ability to hold information in mind, but they won\u2019t bring any benefits to the kind of intelligence that helps you reason and solve problems.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cIt is hard to spend any time on the web and not see an ad for a website that promises to train your brain, fix your attention and increase your IQ,\u201d says School of Psychology Professor Randall Engle, who helped lead the study. \u201cThese claims are particularly attractive to parents of children who are struggling in school.\u201d\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe report, \u0022Working Memory Training May Increase Working Memory Capacity but Not Fluid Intelligence,\u0022 is published in the current issue of \u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/www.psychologicalscience.org\/\u0022\u003EPsychological Science\u003C\/a\u003E.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EAccording to Engle, the claims are based on evidence that shows a strong correlation between working memory capacity (WMC) and general fluid intelligence. Working memory capacity refers to our ability to keep information either in mind or quickly retrievable, particularly in the presence of distraction. General fluid intelligence is the ability to infer relationships, do complex reasoning and solve novel problems.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe correlation between WMC and fluid intelligence has led some to surmise that increasing WMC should lead to an increase in both fluid intelligence, but \u201cthis assumes that the two constructs are the same thing, or that WMC is the basis for fluid intelligence,\u201d Engle notes.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ETo better understand the relationship between these two aspects of cognition, Engle and colleagues had 55 undergraduate students complete 20 days of training on certain cognitive tasks. The students were paid extra for improving their performance each day to ensure that they were engaged in the training. Students in the two experimental conditions trained on either complex span tasks, which have been consistently shown to be good measures of WMC, or simple span tasks. With the simple span tasks, the students were asked to recall items in the order they were presented; for complex span tasks, the students had to remember items while performing another task in between item presentations. A control group trained on a visual search task that, like the other tasks, became progressively harder each day.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe researchers administered a battery of tests before and after training to gauge improvement and transfer of learning, including a variety of WMC measures and three measures of fluid intelligence.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe results were clear: Only students who trained on complex span tasks showed transfer to other WMC tasks. None of the groups showed any training benefit on measures of fluid intelligence.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cFor more than 100 years, psychologists have argued that general memory ability cannot be improved, that there is little or no generalization of \u2018trained\u2019 tasks to \u2018untrained\u2019 tasks,\u201d says Tyler Harrison, a Georgia Tech graduate student and lead author of the paper.\u0026nbsp; \u201cSo we were surprised to see evidence that new and untrained measures of working memory capacity may be improved with training on complex span tasks.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe results suggest that the students improved in their ability to update and maintain information on multiple tasks as they switched between them, which could have important implications for real-world multitasking.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cThis work affects nearly everyone living in the complex modern world,\u201d says Harrison, \u201cbut it particularly affects individuals who find themselves trying to do multiple tasks or rapidly switching between complex tasks, such as driving and talking on a cell phone, alternating between conversations with two different people, or cooking dinner and dealing with a crying child.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EDespite the potential boost for multitasking, the benefits of training didn\u2019t transfer to fluid intelligence. Engle points out that just because WMC and fluid intelligence are highly correlated doesn\u2019t mean that they are the same.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cHeight and weight in human beings are also strongly correlated, but few reasonable people would assume that height and weight are the same variable,\u201d explains Engle. \u201cIf they were, gaining weight would make you taller and losing weight would make you shorter \u2013 those of us who gain and lose weight periodically can attest to the fact that that is \u003Cem\u003Enot\u003C\/em\u003E true.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe researchers plan to continue this research to better understand how training specific aspects of cognition can lead to positive transfer to other tasks, both in the lab and in the real world.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cem\u003EStory written by Anna Mikulak, Association for Psychological Science.\u003C\/em\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EBrain training games, apps and websites are popular, and it\u2019s not hard to see why \u2013 who wouldn\u2019t want to give their mental abilities a boost? New Georgia Tech research suggests that brain training programs might strengthen your ability to hold information in mind, but they won\u2019t bring any benefits to the kind of intelligence that helps you reason and solve problems.\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"Study suggests that brain training programs may help memory, but won\u2019t bring any benefits to the kind of intelligence that helps you reason and solve problems."}],"uid":"27560","created_gmt":"2013-10-08 10:38:18","changed_gmt":"2016-10-08 03:15:05","author":"Jason Maderer","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2013-10-08T00:00:00-04:00","iso_date":"2013-10-08T00:00:00-04:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"243381":{"id":"243381","type":"image","title":"Randall Engle","body":null,"created":"1449243704","gmt_created":"2015-12-04 15:41:44","changed":"1475894919","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:48:39","alt":"Randall Engle","file":{"fid":"197854","name":"engall.jpeg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/engall_0.jpeg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/engall_0.jpeg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":1091545,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/engall_0.jpeg?itok=G7_U3XI6"}}},"media_ids":["243381"],"related_links":[{"url":"http:\/\/www.psychology.gatech.edu\/index.php","title":"School of Psychology"}],"groups":[{"id":"1183","name":"Home"}],"categories":[{"id":"135","name":"Research"}],"keywords":[{"id":"856","name":"Intelligence"},{"id":"1228","name":"memory"},{"id":"76091","name":"Randall Engle"},{"id":"167710","name":"School of Psychology"}],"core_research_areas":[{"id":"39501","name":"People and Technology"}],"news_room_topics":[{"id":"71891","name":"Health and Medicine"},{"id":"71881","name":"Science and Technology"}],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EJason Maderer\u003Cbr \/\u003EMedia Relations\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022mailto:maderer@gatech.edu\u0022\u003Emaderer@gatech.edu\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E404-285-2966\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":["maderer@gatech.edu"],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}}}