A recent sci­en­tific study is being wel­comed as a land­mark that shows how fluid intel­li­gence can be improved through train­ing. I inter­viewed one of the researchers recently (Can Intel­li­gence Be Trained? Mar­tin Buschkuehl shows how), and con­trib­u­tor Dr. Pas­cale Mich­e­lon adds her own take with the great arti­cle that fol­lows. Enjoy!

Ref­er­ence: Jaeggi, S. M., Buschkuehl, M., Jonides, J., & Per­rig, W. J. (2008). Improv­ing Fluid Intel­li­gence With Train­ing on Work­ing Mem­ory. Pro­ceed­ings of the National Acad­emy of Sci­ences of the United States of Amer­ica, 105(19), 6829–6833

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What is intelligence?

Intel­li­gence is a con­cept dif­fi­cult to define as it seems to cover many dif­fer­ent types of abilities.

One def­i­n­i­tion dis­so­ci­ates between crys­tal­lized intel­li­gence or abil­i­ties and fluid intel­li­gence. Crys­tal­lized intel­li­gence refers to the knowl­edge acquired through­out life such as vocab­u­lary. Fluid intel­li­gence is the abil­ity that allows us to adapt to new sit­u­a­tions or problems.

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Here you are have the bi-monthly update with our 10 most Pop­u­lar blog posts. (Also, remem­ber that you can sub­scribe to receive our RSS feed, or to our newslet­ter, at the top of this page, if you want to receive this digest by email).

News and Events

Exer­cise your brain in the Cog­ni­tive Age: The New York Times pub­lished two thought-provoking arti­cles on brain and cog­ni­tive fit­ness, one of them fea­tur­ing SharpBrains.

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Today I had a great con­ver­sa­tion with Mar­tin Buschkuehl, one of the Uni­ver­sity of Michi­gan Cog­ni­tive Neu­roimag­ing Lab researchers  involved in the cog­ni­tive train­ing study that has received much media atten­tion (New York Times, Wired, Sci­ence News…) since late April, when the study was pub­lished at the Pro­ceed­ings of the National Acad­emy of Sciences.

Ref­er­ence: Jaeggi, S. M., Buschkuehl, M., Jonides, J., & Per­rig, W. J. (2008). Improv­ing Fluid Intel­li­gence With Train­ing on Work­ing Mem­ory. Pro­ceed­ings of the National Acad­emy of Sci­ences of the United States of Amer­ica, 105(19), 6829–6833 (You can read it here, with subscription).

Before you keep read­ing, let me clar­ify a cou­ple of terms:

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This week’s edi­tions of two excel­lent blog car­ni­vals. Enjoy!

- Encephalon #45 — Life Is Good, Brains Are Better

- Grand Rounds 4:34 at the Health Busi­ness Blog

 

I have been trav­el­ling much over the last 2 weeks to speak at a num­ber of con­fer­ences and uni­ver­si­ties. I promised I would be shar­ing some of the key high­lights, but we have decided to do some­thing bet­ter to do jus­tice to the rich­ness and com­plex­ity of the field we cover. We are going to launch an exper­i­ment: a Brain Fit­ness Webi­nar Series.

This inau­gural Brain Fit­ness Webi­nar Series will con­sist of 3 free live ses­sions. The series cov­ers the most fun­da­men­tal advances in cog­ni­tive sci­ence and their impli­ca­tions for indi­vid­u­als, com­pa­nies and orga­ni­za­tions. And we are hon­ored to have John Med­ina lead of the sessions!

Each event is inde­pen­dent, in topic and in reg­is­tra­tion process.

Webi­nar #1: In “The State of the Brain Fit­ness Soft­ware Mar­ket, 2008, I will pro­vide an overview of the sci­ence, mar­ket, and ven­dor land­scape of the emerg­ing brain fit­ness soft­ware mar­ket, based on our recent mar­ket report on this grow­ing cat­e­gory.
– Tar­get audi­ence: Exec­u­tives, pro­fes­sion­als, investors, reporters and blog­gers inter­ested in learn­ing more about the brain fit­ness mar­ket.
– More infor­ma­tion: Mar­ket Report.
– Date and time: Tues­day May 27th, 2pm EDT/ 11am PDT
Reg­is­ter: Here

Webi­nar #2: In “Brain Rules for Think­ing Smarter, John Med­ina, devel­op­men­tal mol­e­c­u­lar biol­o­gist and author of Brain Rules: 12 Prin­ci­ples for Striv­ing and Thriv­ing at Work, Home, and School will empha­size the impor­tance of phys­i­cal exer­cise, stress man­age­ment and avoid­ing mul­ti­task­ing alto­gether.
– Tar­get audi­ence: Any­one who wants to learn more about brain health and per­for­mance.
– More infor­ma­tion: The Sci­ence of Think­ing Smarter, by John Med­ina.
– Date and time: Tues­day June 3rd, 2pm EDT/ 11am PDT
Reg­is­ter: Here

Webi­nar #3: In “The Sci­ence and Prac­tice of Brain Fit­ness,” I will pro­vide an overview of the Brain 101, lat­est research find­ings and impli­ca­tions for how to improve brain health and per­for­mance based on my classes and speak­ing engage­ments.
– Tar­get audi­ence: Any­one who wants to learn more about brain health and per­for­mance
– Date and time: Tues­day June 10th, 2pm EDT/ 11am PDT
Reg­is­ter: Here

I hope you find this series stim­u­lat­ing. Just pick the event that sounds more rel­e­vant to your interests!

What a beau­ti­ful dis­play of creativity:

Phys­i­cal Fit­ness ‘God­fa­ther’ Jack LaLanne Turns to Brain Fit­ness, Becom­ing Ambas­sador for Dakim’s [m] Power System

- Dakim, Inc., announced today that 93-year-young Jack LaLanne, the world’s most iconic fig­ure in health and fit­ness, has signed on as a “brain fit­ness moti­va­tional coach” on behalf of the company’s [m]Power Cog­ni­tive Fit­ness Sys­tem, join­ing the company’s efforts to help seniors fight against dementia.

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Daniel Lende and Greg Downey run the though-provoking Neu­roan­thro­pol­ogy blog. Daniel also teaches a class at Uni­ver­sity of Notre Dame, and he asked his stu­dents to sub­mit group-based blog posts in lieu of the tra­di­tional final essays. He explains more on Why A Final Essay When We Can Do This?.

Below you have a spec­tac­u­lar post writ­ten by 4 of his stu­dents. They show how brain imag­ing is start­ing to pro­vide a win­dow into the plas­tic­ity (glos­sary here) of our brains, and how our very own actions impact them. For good and for bad.

Under­stand­ing Brain Imaging

— By Chris Dud­ley, Matt Gasperetti, Mikey Nar­vaez, and Sarah Walorski

Do you remem­ber the anti-drug pub­lic ser­vice announce­ment from the 1980s that showed an egg fry­ing in a hot pan which rep­re­sented your brain on drugs?

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We recently pre­pared a Direc­tory of Web Sites as part of our Resources sec­tion. You will find some gems here, in a vari­ety of areas:

» The Dana Foun­da­tion offers sev­eral excel­lent online resources:

- Brainy Kids Online offers chil­dren, teens, par­ents and teach­ers links to games, labs, edu­ca­tion resources and les­son plans.

- Brain­Web: gen­eral infor­ma­tion about the brain and cur­rent brain research, as well as links to val­i­dated sites related to more than 25 brain disorders.

- Brain Resources for Seniors pro­vides older adults and their care­tak­ers with links to sites related to brain health, edu­ca­tion and gen­eral information.

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(Hat tip: Boing Boing)

The CIA has posted the full text of one of its guide­books, “Psy­chol­ogy of Intel­li­gence Analy­sis”, pub­lished in 1999 by the CIA’s Cen­ter for the Study of Intelligence.

Haven’t had time to play with it yet, but these quotes sound fascinating:

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Today I had a great con­ver­sa­tion with Mar­tin Buschkuehl, one of the U Michi­gan researchers involved in the cog­ni­tive train­ing study that has received much media atten­tion since early last week, when the study was pub­lished at the Pro­ceed­ings of the National Acad­emy of Sci­ences.

I will pub­lish the inter­view notes next week. For the moment, let me para­phrase his answer to the ques­tion: “Why are com­put­er­ized pro­grams like the one you used fun­da­men­tally dif­fer­ent from, say, sim­ply doing many cross­word puzzles?”.

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