What's your score on Simon memory game?

Hey folks…I decided to train my short-term memory with the Simon memory game…is it good for memory? has anyone tries? google wrotes about this game… Memory Game
Increases IQ 12%
Visual sequence memory games like this one were studied with school children who practiced them daily. The results were shown to increase the children’s IQs up to 12% and their working memories up to 150% according to the Japanese scientists conducting the research.
Ijust for kids?
What’s your average and highest score on the Simon memory game? and what`s your IQ? https://freesimon.org/ Share your scores and IQ…Do you know any other game to train short-term memory?thankz…

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Hi, I tried out the simon game and seemed to average 18 with a highest of 21. I have an IQ of 131 (I took mensa IQ test). Some other memory games I enjoy is the ‘grid of squares’ or ‘tiles’ game, where you memorise the black tiles and then have to flip the correct ones from memory and then the classic matching pairs game, where you flip and match 2 of the same picture or number on a tile/card.

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never played this game before. and I have no clue what my IQ is :joy:
just started trying 25 min something before.

In the beginning I started thinking what logic I can apply here, then I converted that 4 pieces into binary then didn’t worked.

after that I tried to convert into letters like North, east, west, south. (and it becomes little more verbatim.)

and then I converted that four pieces into spade, club, diamond and heart and the used my 2 card system.
Fun part after 2.30 minutes later I realised that digits are repeating and that was the turning point.
and I thought forgot everything let’s try numbers. and it worked very very well.

got 50 score, and I am not out or quit yet. and I guess 1000+ score is easily manageable. so I don’t think that will put me in higher IQ here.
I just changed the page and come here, if it’s less I guess I can atleast hit century (100) but literally it’s super boring.

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Careful with that simulator as it uses the wrong color scheme. The good ones follow the original color scheme that look like this…

…might seem like a minor issue to some, but imagine you were handed a Rubik’s cube that had yellow next to white just before the competition started.

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@bjoern.gumboldt
ah good info.
I have no idea about the Simon game. So it’s good to know about the colours scheme.

@yesman1
This is how I did it
Although I used the position like clock, so whatever the colour It doesn’t matter. even if they rotate the circle and then give, no problem.

like top right => 1
bottom right => 2
bottom left => 3
top left => 4

the digits I got is like this,
222 - 412 - 322 - 441
142 - 213 - 313 - 134
243 - 312 - 141 - 334
221 - 321 - 133 - 441
211… (you can even make prememorised images for it if you have no 3 digit system)

well after like 7, 8 digits later the speed increase very faster, if anyone tried to catch up with it. then I guess most of here are done.
So I just memorize it, whenever the new digits showed up. no need to follow the digits, just look at the last colour then focus on what digits we got at last. memorize it and so on…

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There are only 64 three-digit combinations to pre-build:

{1,1,1} {1,1,2} {1,1,3} {1,1,4} {1,2,1} {1,2,2} {1,2,3} {1,2,4} {1,3,1} {1,3,2} {1,3,3} {1,3,4} {1,4,1} {1,4,2} {1,4,3} {1,4,4} {2,1,1} {2,1,2} {2,1,3} {2,1,4} {2,2,1} {2,2,2} {2,2,3} {2,2,4} {2,3,1} {2,3,2} {2,3,3} {2,3,4} {2,4,1} {2,4,2} {2,4,3} {2,4,4} {3,1,1} {3,1,2} {3,1,3} {3,1,4} {3,2,1} {3,2,2} {3,2,3} {3,2,4} {3,3,1} {3,3,2} {3,3,3} {3,3,4} {3,4,1} {3,4,2} {3,4,3} {3,4,4} {4,1,1} {4,1,2} {4,1,3} {4,1,4} {4,2,1} {4,2,2} {4,2,3} {4,2,4} {4,3,1} {4,3,2} {4,3,3} {4,3,4} {4,4,1} {4,4,2} {4,4,3} {4,4,4}

I like the idea of building out these combos as you go. Just hold the first two digits of the set as digits or sounds in working memory and then when the third light of a set hits, complete the word and link it to the previous one. Even without a memory palace, linking the 10 or 11 images in sequence to finish a game should be fairly easy especially since you get to repeat and reinforce the entire list every time.

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Am I correct in assuming that you have 64 Peg Words for your various sequences of 3 colours that “Simon” gives you? Would you use your Traditional Major System to generate the peg words required? I guess you would be 'linking one image say 341 to another 424 if that was the sequence of the first 6 colours Simon gives you? Why would you not use a PAO system I wonder? or is using 3 digit numbers the safer route to follow?

Long post, apologies in advance.

I would say no, but I have to nuance that answer a bit.

Practicing soccer will improve your running, playing high-paced video games will improve your response time, and doing chess matches will improve your critical thinking. However, practicing soccer will not directly help you run a marathon. Playing video games will not directly make you a better driver. Doing chess matches will not directly make you a better tactician. Just like those examples, I don’t think the game directly helps you gain a better memory.

It is why we practice different disciplines, so we can touch various aspects of our declarative memory. My episodic or procedural memories might improve a bit, but since it is not being trained it will not improve as much. Same counts for our STM and working memories.

I will also need to add that we not only achieve mnemonic feats by training our memory, but also by utilizing its own systems to improve retention of abstracts. View it as a conversation. You can do a whole lot of conversing even if you and your friend speak different languages, but if you speak the same language it goes way smoother. The art of memory is mainly us speaking to our memory in a language it understands. This alone will improve your retention a lot.

12% is a lot. Like, insane lot. I am not a huge fan of IQ, but actual experimental tests that I did read about IQ improvement mention increases of around 5 points. To someone with an IQ of 100, that is 5%. In order for 5 points to be 12%, you have to start at around an IQ of 42.

That aside, IQ is a concept that is hardly solid. I already often see it being split up into Verbal IQ (VIQ) and Performance IQ (PIQ), and personally I am a fan of the idea behind Howard Gardner’s Theory of Multiple Intelligences. It has no empirical support for as far as I am aware, but just the fact that we look beyond a single or total intelligence (IQ/TIQ) feels better to me.

I would love to read the research mentioned, as I do suspect different things at play here. I can easily sum three possible explanations for what you mention, and there are probably way more.

Playing the piano will make you better at playing the piano, even without you becoming more musically skilled. Similarly, playing the game will make you better at playing the game. Assuming a base average of 8, a 12% increase in your performance will put you at a score of 9. Even assuming that the 150% is the absolute increase, that puts us at a score of 20, which is not that crazy. We are made to recorgnize patterns, so just numbering the colors and memorizing sets like 12321 will help you perform better. I don’t have to memorize the order of 20 colors, I only have to memorize 4 of those sets.

If you play a game for longer, you will perform better without actually getting better. Your mind is primed, it knows the task at hand and will have an easier time to perform the task.

Thirdly there is the fact that multiple senses are triggered. Multisensory learning is suspected to improve memory retention. Once the mind has the links between colors and sounds created, it would not be unlikely to assume this improves performance. It becomes similar to playing a 4-key piano.

Not using mnemonics, around 12-15 average with 18 being my highest. Using mnemonics (number system) I stopped when I reached 40 as I got bored.

-63. Yes, that is a negative sign. Negative 63. Trust me, I had it tested.
https://forum.artofmemory.com/t/i-have-an-iq-lower-than-the-temperatures-on-the-antarctic/43996?u=mayarra

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That test maker has low IQ :laughing::laughing::laughing:

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Continued after my first post to go into my own method, as I think this might lead to different talking points.

I second this. 1000+ would not be unreasonable. As for the IQ bit, I would like to add that we are using methods that skew the results. That would be like putting Michael Phelps against me (will drown in 1 foot of water) to conclude that men are better swimmers. That being said, once you have the techniques down, the Simon game is not that difficult.

This is basically what did as well, and I think is a very intuitive method if you are used to memorize numbers. Reading your other methods was very interesting as my initial method was to use 1234 and work from there.

I didn’t pre-build, but I went with a sort of fluid PAO adaptation. The first digit for example would represent a man, woman, animal or deity. My thought for this system was based around the idea that if going on long enough, every digit would appear in every place 25% of the time, so PAO would lead to a lot of repetition. The second digit was an active, passive, creative, or magical action and the third was clothing, a toy, sports equipment of historic artifact.

123 123 could therefor be Brad Pitt sitting on a baseball bat followed by Ryan Gosling sleeping in a basket ball hoop.

Maybe not perfect, but it worked for me :slight_smile:

I would say it is not required, but it can help.

Memory palaces, story method and peg lists can all do this for you :slight_smile:

I don’t think one is safer per se, it might be personal preference. PAO was my first thought.

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Using a 2-digit system you’d really quickly run into the problem of sameness, I’d think. Only 16 combinations makes for a lot of repetetive imagery.

If you’re fluent in 3-digits, linking them is easy. You can anthropomorphise any object and use whatever action you want to animate the interactions and theres enough variety that you likely wouldnt hit repeats too often.

If one has a fancy millennium PAO, that would definitely be ideal! :wink:

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yes exactly.
I put 12 digits per loci and used total of 4 loci and then stopped.

I guess putting 15 digits per loci is doable if the digits keep repeating from the beginning…

Hey the problem with 1000+ is rather that you have to tap 500500 times correctly :smiley: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5jOpCm7OaAc

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Average: 32 / Highest: 32… and for completeness sake, my IQ is less than 10 standard deviations from the mean. Asking for a high score like this by the way is like asking “how many cards of a deck can you remember” instead of “what’s your time for a full deck?”

There’s a nice and brief overview (including its history since the 1970s) here: Simon Through The Years: a review by dickclarkfan1 | Simon but the main thing to highlight as far as the gameplay is concerned…

There are four skill levels on Simon. Skill 1 will play a sequence up to 8 lights. Skill 2 will play a sequence up to 16 lights, skill 3 is up to 24 lights, and skill 4 will play a full 32 light game. Simon will also speed up the flashing after 5, 9, and 13 lights have been played in the sequence.

…hence my average and high score of 32 above.

…so, I take it the color scheme wasn’t the only issue with this knockoff online version, since scores higher than 32 aren’t even possible. Similar to hour cards where you are judged on how many decks, with Simon you are judged by how many complete sequences you got before making a mistake.

Well, the world record is 84 complete sequences of 32, so 84 x 32 = 2,688

Exactly… and, not get bored in the process.

@Hannes

just finished your video… 102… that takes some dedication looking at the same sequence-plus-one over and over and over again. I think the folks at the Guinness Book should really put a footnote with that record, which I assume you’re referring to this one.

Most sequences completed in a game of Simon | Guinness World Records.

The most sequences completed in a game of Simon is 84 and was achieved in Caesarea, Canada, on 28 November 2020.

As mentioned above, a sequence is 32 lights flashing at level 4 (the highest level)… and of those, it was 84. So what you really need to do, is stop the simulator after 32 and begin a new sequence and do that 85 times to beat the world record. Why this simulator just continues on, I have no idea.

Would have been also obvious if they had stated that the previous record was only 15 sequences. Looking at the game modes, that would mean that nobody had ever beaten level 2 since 1978, if “number of sequences” meant the “number of lights flashing.” Or alternatively, web developers could actually understand the game they’re cloning and not assume that people won’t make it past 20-some lights flashing before getting bored anyway.

Either way, major respect for sticking with that really awful online simulator for 102 rounds, but that was not an unofficial world record. However, I do think that a footnote is required, because 84 is of course a number that could be understood this way. For the old 15 sequence record, you could at least find people correcting other people online when they were saying “what? 15 only??? I’ll call Guinness tomorrow, I’m constantly 20+” and the reply was “Dude, it’s 15 sequences of 32 lights flashing… you’re beating the game 15 times in a row without making a mistake, not 15 lights flashing.”

that’s true. And it would be a hell lot of boring.

although the Guinness record holder didn’t clicked 500500 times to achieve 84 sequences either.

as now we got a new rule, that only 32 colours need to look, then the series will start from the beginning.
that makes it => 528 clicks (each set)

528 × 84 => 44352 clicks (well if we are getting like a very big prize, I might even forgot the boredom but still it’s super boring to click only 40k+ too :rofl:)

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You could link the attempt to a charity drive, raise money for a good cause like Alzheimer’s or Early Onset Dementia research. Have people pledge an amount per correct full sequence in a row? Get local media involved to promote the fundraising effort. Mundanity with a purpose can become impactful and meaningful!

I’m not sure why we are so bothered by the number of clicks. Have a look a 6:57 in the video where it took Hannes 11 minutes to get up to 32 again.

Let’s say that because of his year long experience in memory sports, he’s a pretty consistent performer and we can consider this time his average to complete a level 4 sequence of 32 lights flashing to beat the game… that’d be only 5 games he can beat in one hour (remaining 5 minutes go to breaks of various sorts between sequences).

That means it’ll take him 17 hours to get to 85 in order to beat the world record. So basically, starting at 6am and finishing at midnight if you split an extra hour into 20 mins for breakfast, lunch, and dinner each. And, all of that, without making a single mistake.

@TheHumanTim sounds like a fun day for you and the spectators. Like I said, the previous record was “only” 15 sequences, so that would have just been 3 hours out of your day. Maybe you can get people to sit through that, provided enough pizza or a bbq going on at the same time… but 17 hours???

Haha yeah, it’d probably work best as a live streamed thing that people could check in on at will versus an in-person thing. Almost like the “extra life” charity fundraiser for marathon video or board game sessions via twitch streams.