Mental exercise makes you smarter.
May 4th 2008 22:02
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According to one group of brain doctors at the University of Michigan, at long last a mental exercise has been discovered that could really make you smarter. Literally, if the research is correct, the more you play and the harder you play it, the smarter you get.
The came is pretty simple in design: Players are presented with a computer screen that shows a pattern of squares. If the pattern matches the same one the player saw two patterns earlier, he pushes a button with one hand. At the same time, he has to listen to letters narrated over a set of headphones. If the letter matches the one said two letters earlier, he pushes a button with his other hand. The better the player does, the longer the interval stretches out: Three patterns and letters earlier, then four, and so on.
In tests, 20 minutes of daily training over a varying period of time led to "significantly" increased IQ vs. a control group, and the longer people played the game, the higher their IQ got. The study is of course contested for a variety of reasons: Primarily, that it was too small to be scientifically rigorous. But if it pans out, this is good news for people who want to improve their intelligence through video games, or at least help stave off the effects of old age with them.
This extract comes from: Christopher Null: The Working Guy, link at top.
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