What are your thoughts on Dual N Back?

General Memory Chat
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52

I think there’s a difference between “scientific validity” and personal usefulness. If I honestly and truly believe that a crystal is going to help my memory improve, the placebo effect may actually improve my memory - even if the crystal does nothing. Maybe I’ll concentrate harder if I’m holding the crystal, without even realizing it. Maybe my brain will subconsciously do something else to improve memory just because I believe in the crystal.

A lot of scientists dismiss the placebo effect, which is fine for “scientific validity”, but not really helpful for an average Joe who wants results, regardless of how those results are achieved.

The effect that Dual N-Back is supposed to produce is all in your head anyway. If you believe it works and you experience changes in your mind after doing it, does it matter that it’s not supposed to work?

In any event, I’m not too impressed with the study design on most of the Dual N-Back studies. The intervention is nowhere near intense enough to get any sort of result. If you do 10 minutes of exercise twice a week, you’ll “prove” exercise has no effect, too.

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53

the placebo effect is scientific validity lol…

I know absolutely no scientific who would dismiss the Placebo effect, which was discovered by scientists (and is accounted for in all studies)

54

I’m interested in neurofeedback but I’d like to use OpenBCI.
Thoughts?

55

Well, and there you go - even if the individual anecdotal evidence is pure placebo effect, that doesn’t mean it is not working. It just means that it works by means of the placebo effect.

From my personal experience, Dual N-Back appears to be something like focused meditation. It’s practicing paying attention and sustaining attention, with immediate feedback when you lose focus. There are plenty of scientific studies showing the benefits of focused meditation and showing that the benefits transfer to other activities.

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56

nobody said the placebo effect is not working. But let me put it this way. If you are sick, do you prefer the doctor to give you sugar pills (knowing the placebo effect might make you feel a bit better) or do you want him to give you actual medicine (placebo effect + real chemical effect) ?

Anything you do will have some kind of effect, the question is do you want to choose the best strategy or tool to achieve your goals in the most efficient way ?

When I pick a method or training regimen, I am thinking about the most efficient or the proven ones. I think this is a natural way to look at things but of course you have freedom of choice.

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57

If I’m sick, I want the doctor to give me something that will make me feel better. How it achieves its effect is immaterial as long as I feel better at the end of it. Whatever makes me feel better the fastest is what I want. And given that, I would want the placebo effect included in the intervention, because it will make me feel better faster.

And considering that what we are talking about here is brain function improvement, there’s no way to separate placebo from “reality” (whatever that is) anyway. There’s no “sugar pill” equivalent to a brain-training intervention - you can’t do a brain exercise without knowing you’re doing it. I’d be very curious about a study design that actually completely excluded the placebo effect and still produced meaningful data.

When I pick a training regimen, whether for physical exercise or mental exercise, I pick what works for me personally. Part of the definition of “works” is whether or not I believe it works.

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58

I don’t think you understand what the placebo effect is.

You cannot take something without the placebo effect because taking anything includes the placebo effect (wether it is a placebo or not). You can have a nocebo effect or a pure placebo. But basically there is always a placebo effect when you give people something.

And no you are wrong. A doctor should not give you anything just because it makes you “feel” better. That could cause you any harm or actually prevent you from getting the good treatment for your illness. When people think they should decide what the doctor gives them is when things start getting ugly. Why not just self medicate yourself then ?

I agree with you on this point: there is no way to separate (or take away) the placebo effect from any brain training. But you surely would want to use the most efficient one ? Otherwise I will give you a brain training, just look at a dot on the wall and count backwards in your head while holding a bowl of water. See how that works out for you.

Also the placebo effect does not care about wether you know what you are taking or doing is a pure placebo or not. Do some reading on the placebo effect, I think it’s a very misunderstood principle.

Again personal experience is not relevant. You could find people eating only fruits and telling you they “feel” wonderful, people boosting their chakras and using crystals to optimize their cognitive functions and others using homeopathy to cure cancer. All their personal experiences do not hold against scientific method.

A piece of advice: choose what works for you among the scientifically proven methods. :slight_smile:

Have a nice one and take good care.

Good luck with your training.

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Thing is, there’s so much bad data in the brain-training realm (or physical training, for that matter), that the actual scientific data on “efficiency” is highly unreliable.

Here’s what we know from that one Dual N-Back study: that a 10-minute session with a particular type of Dual N-Back, repeated several times a week over a period of a few weeks, does not produce a change in performance on a particular type of IQ test. Do we know if there is a change in other variables, such as attention? Do we have a brain scan to show what exactly is happening in the brain? Do we know if a longer-duration training session would produce an effect? Do we know if the IQ test they used is even valid? (I speak as someone who took two different IQ tests on the same day and got results that were 40 points apart).

At this point, I am not sure there is a scientifically proven method of the validity of focused, long-term N-back training. Given this absence, one does fall back on personal experience. An N=1 experiment on yourself is better than nothing.

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60

2022 anyone?

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61

This is the newest piece of research. Tends to agree with what we’ve seen before - if the dual n back causes a mental improvement, it slightly improves verbal working memory, but the effects aren’t overly transferable to different tasks. The paper also talks about NeuroTracker, which seems to have similar results.

The answer comes back to purpose. If you want to improve your verbal working memory, the dual n back is a decent option. If you want to improve your attentiveness, meditation and exercise are probably your best options. However, if there is any specific task that you want to get better at, it is always best to train yourself to do that task.

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63

How exactly do you find this to improve your verbal abilities? Your ability to recall words that you already know? Or your ability to pick up new words?

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What is your email I would love to check out your program

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This is just my experience. Many years ago I owned several companies and used to speak on stage in front of a lot of people. I was very ADD at the time (this has since mostly healed out of my brain through a lot of cognitive development) and the dual-n-back helped me remember long complex strings of stories that I was opening and closing. So I used to tell stories in a 1,2,3 content 3,2,1 open/close loop pattern (i.e. story one would open early and close last) and the dual-n-back training helped me keep track of way more information and story/structure complexity than I could do before I did the training. Also my natural memory improved from it.

Is this far transfer? I don’t know. I think the task of remembering what you are talking about and where you are in a sentence is very similar to the task of remembering what sound happened x spaces back. However, what I think it is good for is improving your ability to simply focus on one thing, as you have to really focus to keep track of where you are in the game (it is NOT an easy game and also, not very fun). I remember once I was in the airport and saw my passport number and instantly memorized it when I was playing dual-n-back - this may not be very impressive as you all have trained memories, but I was using no tricks at the time and at this point in my life I could not do things like that normally.

So again, I don’t know specifically if there was far transfer, but it definitely had noticable benefits in the areas of planning and carrying out tasks, keeping track of complex processes, story telling in front of large audiences with no mnemonics strategies, and several other areas. I am doing dual-n-back again and am currently floating around 6 back (I go up to 7 and am pretty much always over 5, 6 is kind of the norm level) which is higher than I used to score, but I am not doing the kind of work I used to do so I cannot say what differences there are, except in general I think I am better at keeping track of ideas and using more of my knowledge at once.

Really, I think this is all somewhat placebo - i.e. if you believe your IQ will increase, it is more likely to increase. While everyone is focused on ‘far transfer’ you could just workout every cognitive area and not worry about whether it is having far transfer or not. Your brain can obviously get better at whatever you do, for example - I wake up and try to memorize 600 numbers every day in the morning. I was pretty bad at first, getting around 5% right. Now I am getting about 69% right and increasing my accuracy every month. Still not a pro, but I am improving. I would not have been able to imagine getting 69% right on that many numbers when I started, it is mind blowing. But, my brain figured it out.

So for example, if someone learned speed mathematics, mnemonics, played dual-n-back, memorized a bunch of knowledge, listened to tons of lectures on history, etc - obviously they would score better on IQ tests, because they have worked all the areas of knowledge. Who cares if there is far transfer. However with dual-n-back, there does seem to be a sort of generalized improvement in the mind. I’m not certain how long it lasts, but at least with the dual-n-back task the improvements stay. Why? Well the last time I did dual-n-back was maybe 4 years ago or something. When I started again I was right back at my old level and then went beyond it pretty quick.

Overall, I’ve found about nothing harder to do with the mind consistently than dual-n-back and memory training, so I think that just pushing yourself every day in some way is good for you, like lifting weights. Believe you are getting benefits from it and let yourself create a positively oriented placebo of success. Hope that helps.

-Dave

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67

I’ve heard many anecdotes of people saying they feel like they can better access specific vocabulary during conversations, so this seems to be totally true!

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68

I agree with you my friend

I tested dual-n-back for 2 moths, and I see that 3 moths ago I was very stypid and ignorant

Dual-N-Back changed my life, and I will continue do it for 1/2 year or maybe all my life

(I speak french, sorry for my bad english)

Where dual-N-Back changed my life ?

First, we must ton say what is intelligence ?

The is 7 forms of intelligence :
- Linguistic
- Logical-Mathématical
- Spatial
- Bodily-kinesthetic
- Musical
- Interpersonal
- Intrapersonal

Dual-N-Back train working memory, and we need working memory for all what we do

For example ?

  • When we speak with our friend, we use working-memory, because if we don’t, we forget what he has sayd 2 minutes ago

  • When we solve a problem of our lives (for example : what career should decide ?), we use working memory

Because, when you think at these question, you must think at several variables at the same time (ex: I am 20 years old, I love play with math, but I don’t like medecine, I love America, but I what study in England, etc…)

When you are stupid, you make your choice only by emotions (ex: “I’m hungry, Mc Donalds is 1 kilometer near my house, GO !”)

So, dual-N-Back work

Stop these stupid people who try the game 2 times (10 minutes) in one months, and after say that it doesn’y work

It’s worked for me, and I have done these only 2 months :slight_smile:
- I’m more conscionscouss
- I don’t do like before choices only by emotions
- I read 1 book a week (easily)
- I am more productive than ever in my life
- I remember exactly what I have to do in my days
- I’m better in all the sports that I play (Soccer, basket, etc…)

All this to say :
STOP IGNORANCE AND DO SERIOUSLY DUAL-BACK

You have 2 CHOICES :

 - #1 Don't do dual-N-Back, and be average and struggle supidely to read a book a moths for the rest of your miserable life
 - Or #2 Do dual-N-Back seriously, be more intelligent, be more productive, and have more succes

  • Do dual-N-back 5 times a week (not more and not less)

  • 30 minutes per day (20 parties per day)

  • Do the 20 parties and 30 minutes in one time (no 5 minute morning, 15 minutes afternoon…)

  • For at least 2 months

  • Don’t cheat when you play (remember all the letters separately)

  • Sleep good for better results

  • Meditate for bette results

  • Read book to see better results

Average IQ of millionaires is 120, so if you want be rich, DO DUAL-N-BACK

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69

sounds almost like spamming.

Anything which makes your brain work, makes your brain work. It could be crosswords, dual n back or meditation.

All this to say: STOP BS AND USE YOUR BRAIN, THERE IS NO MAGIC PILL

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@mindmaster1

Are you doing the Dual-N-Back training? I am curious about the results you have gotten so far from the training!

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@guillaumepetitjean

Yes. I totally agree with your saying that any stimulation for the brain results in the enhancement of the brain. However, the point is that for the specific brain function some training methods may be more effective than other methods.

It sounds like you are denying the necessity of various types of exercise such as sit up, push up, and squats. Would you say ‘what is the point of all the elaborately designed exercises? Just use your muscle and it will enhance the muscle’?

72

some methods are definitely more effective than others. This is why we use the scientific consensus to make sound decisions.

I am not denying the necessity of specific exercices for reaching specific goals. On the contrary, I believe some very specific methods bring much better performance than others. I am only questioning your sources and your way of determining which methods are best.

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73

I have not started yet. But I do think about it occassionally. Waiting to see what others’ experiences are before taking the plunge!