Many of the changes in IQ are correlated to changes in schooling. One way that school increases IQ is to teach children to "taxonimize," or group things systematically instead of thematically.
This kind of thinking is rewarded on many IQ tests. There's also a number of studies showing that the brain changes after several kinds of regimen. London Taxi drivers whose brains are scanned before and after they start driving, and learning to navigate London's maze of streets, show changes in the brain as they use more navigational skills.
Even young adults who take a juggling course show brain changes. If you put it all together, and the evidence is quite compelling, that life experiences and school-related experiences change both the brain and IQ. This is true of adults and children.
Alan S. Kaufman, clinical professor of psychology at the Yale University School of Medicine:. There's no such thing as "an" IQ. You have an IQ at a given point in time. That IQ has built-in error.
It's not like stepping on a scale to determine how much you weigh. The reasonable error around any reliable IQ is going to be plus or minus 5 or 6 points, to give you a 95 percent confidence interval. So, for example, if a person scores , then you can say with 95 percent confidence that the person's true IQ is somewhere between and ; within our science we don't get any more accurate than that. Memory activities can help to improve not only memory, but also reasoning and language skills.
In fact, memory games have been used in research studies to explore how memory relates to language and object knowledge. Reasoning and language are both used as intelligence measures, meaning that memory activities can continue to develop intelligence. Executive control is the ability to control complex cognitive activities. Research suggests that executive function is strongly tied to fluid reasoning, one aspect of human intelligence.
In one study , researchers found that improving visuospatial reasoning led to an increase in IQ test scores. Relational Frame Theory relates to the development of human cognition and language through relational associations.
Research from has shown that using Relational Frame Theory as an intervention can significantly improve IQ scores in children. A more recent study using this intervention also found improvements in IQ, verbal reasoning, and numeric reasoning.
One study found that musicians have better working memory than non-musicians. It should come as no surprise that learning multiple languages is beneficial to the human brain — and the earlier, the better. A recent study investigated the relationship between early language learning and IQ. The results indicated that language learning through talk and interaction from 18 to 24 months was most beneficial for cognitive outcomes later in life.
In fact, the benefits on development are even more pronounced when books become part of parental bonding activities. In one recent study , researchers discovered that when parents read aloud to their children, the child had greater language and cognitive development skills. In a review of studies on IQ and education, over , participants were studied to determine the effect of education on IQ levels.
The researchers found that for every additional year of formal education, participants experienced a boost of one to five IQ points. So we need to think of how to simulate the same types of heavy-duty brain thrashing—using multimodal methods—that can be applied to your normal life, while still maintaining the maximum benefits, in order to get the cognitive growth.
So—taking all of this into account, I have come up with five primary elements involved in increasing your fluid intelligence, or cognitive ability. Like I said, it would be impractical to constantly practice the dual n-back task or variations thereof every day for the rest of your life to reap cognitive benefits. These can be implemented every day, to get you the benefits of intense entire-brain training, and should transfer to gains in overall cognitive functioning as well.
Any one of these things by itself is great, but if you really want to function at your absolute cognitive best, you should do all five, and as often as possible. In fact, I live my life by these five principles.
If you adopt these as fundamental guidelines, I guarantee you will be performing at your peak ability, surpassing even what you believe you are capable of— all without artificial enhancement. Best part: Science supports these principles by way of data! It is no coincidence that geniuses like Einstein were skilled in multiple areas, or polymaths, as we like to refer to them.
Geniuses are constantly seeking out novel activities, learning a new domain. People who rate high on Openness are constantly seeking new information, new activities to engage in, new things to learn—new experiences in general [2].
When you seek novelty, several things are going on. First of all, you are creating new synaptic connections with every new activity you engage in.
These connections build on each other, increasing your neural activity, creating more connections to build on other connections—learning is taking place. An area of interest in recent research [pdf] is neural plasticity as a factor in individual differences in intelligence. Plasticity is referring to the number of connections made between neurons, how that affects subsequent connections, and how long-lasting those connections are.
Basically, it means how much new information you are able to take in, and if you are able to retain it, making lasting changes to your brain. Constantly exposing yourself to new things helps puts your brain in a primed state for learning. Novelty also triggers dopamine I have mentioned this before in other posts , which not only kicks motivation into high gear, but it stimulates neurogenesis—the creation of new neurons—and prepares your brain for learning.
All you need to do is feed the hunger. This particular dopamine receptor, the D1 type, is associated with neural growth and development, among other things. This increase in plasticity , allowing greater binding of this receptor, is a very good thing for maximizing cognitive functioning. Take home point: Be an "Einstein". Always look to new activities to engage your mind—expand your cognitive horizons. Learn an instrument. Take an art class.
Go to a museum. Read about a new area of science. Be a knowledge junkie. There are absolutely oodles of terrible things written and promoted on how to "train your brain" to "get smarter".
I'm going to shatter some of that stuff you've previously heard about brain training games. Here goes: They don't work. Individual brain training games don't make you smarter —they make you more proficient at the brain training games.
Now, they do serve a purpose, but it is short-lived. The key to getting something out of those types of cognitive activities sort of relates to the first principle of seeking novelty. Once you master one of those cognitive activities in the brain-training game, you need to move on to the next challenging activity.
Figure out how to play Sudoku? Now move along to the next type of challenging game. There is research that supports this logic. A few years ago, scientist Richard Haier wanted to see if you could increase your cognitive ability by intensely training on novel mental activities for a period of several weeks. They used the video game Tetris as the novel activity, and used people who had never played the game before as subjects I know—can you believe they exist?!
What they found, was that after training for several weeks on the game Tetris, the subjects experienced an increase in cortical thickness, as well as an increase in cortical activity, as evidenced by the increase in how much glucose was used in that area of the brain.
Basically, the brain used more energy during those training times, and bulked up in thickness—which means more neural connections, or new learned expertise—after this intense training. And they became experts at Tetris. Cool, right? However, they remained just as good at Tetris; their skill did not decrease.
The brain scans showed less brain activity during the game-playing, instead of more, as in the previous days. Why the drop? Their brains got more efficient.
Once their brain figured out how to play Tetris, and got really good at it, it got lazy. Efficiency is not your friend when it comes to cognitive growth. In order to keep your brain making new connections and keeping them active, you need to keep moving on to another challenging activity as soon as you reach the point of mastery in the one you are engaging in.
You want to be in a constant state of slight discomfort, struggling to barely achieve whatever it is you are trying to do, as Einstein alluded to in his quote. This keeps your brain on its toes, so to speak. When I say thinking creatively will help you achieve neural growth, I am not talking about painting a picture, or doing something artsy, like we discussed in the first principle, Seeking Novelty.
When I speak of creative thinking, I am talking about creative cognition itself, and what that means as far as the process going on in your brain. Contrary to popular belief, creative thinking does not equal "thinking with the right side of your brain". We and our partners process data to: Actively scan device characteristics for identification. I Accept Show Purposes.
So while there may be some benefits to brain training, don't expect miraculous results. Was this page helpful? Thanks for your feedback! Sign Up. What are your concerns? Verywell Mind uses only high-quality sources, including peer-reviewed studies, to support the facts within our articles. Read our editorial process to learn more about how we fact-check and keep our content accurate, reliable, and trustworthy. Berkman, E.
The Journal of Neuroscience, 34, Harrison, T. Psychological Science, 24 12 , Scientific American. Nicholson, C. Related Articles.
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