I stared a dual n back a few times now and read the associated research and follow up research, claims that dual n back practice increases working memory and as a side effect is when a strategy of rehearsal is used to enforce focus on visual-spatial and verbal memory concurrently.
Versus counter claims that practicing dual n back develops skill in doing dual n back that is merely task specific and has no transference.
Neurons are binary and specific but neural networks can come up with surprisingly useful information in ways that are tough show an algorithm for.
That is to say I don’t really care whether dual n back improves “intelligence” but I wonder whether as an additional practice alongside mental calculation it might increase the width of calculation without chucking (memory aids) and/or increase the speed, learning over the same amount of purely mental calculation, or help generalize the skill by developing a broader range of tasks that short term memory is being, exercised with. Or is simply an essentially useless skill…
The obvious answer is that it is unlikely to have a negative impact seems like Pascal’s wager. Does anyone here doing mental calculation have an opinion based on having been there, and done that?
Thanks
Robert