Neuro-Sculpting! Training Studio

Improving Your Working Memory Through Brain Fitness Training Can Boost Your I.Q., Researchers Say!

Your Intelligence Quotient – a measurement of various aspects of your brainpower – has long been considered an inflexibly fixed factor by neuroscientists; that is, until more recent studies emerged that have sunk that assumption, inspired a paradigm shift in the scientific community, and prompted a mad dash by researchers to investigate just which brain fitness approaches are sufficient to raise your I.Q.

Your I.Q. is broken down into measurements of two forms of intelligence; one, “crystallized”, which relies on accessing and using your long-term memory and existing skills; the other, “fluid”, requiring you to use short term or “working” memory, holding information temporarily in mind long enough to work with it, accessing attention, creativity, and intuition, all without leaning on previous experience in order to solve unfamiliar problems.

A Swiss National Science Foundation-funded Bern University study gathered together four groups of volunteer participants who then received a strategic brain fitness training method that targeted both their visual and auditory working memory cognitive functions. The training, which was done once a day, consisted of half an hour sessions of a complex working memory technique, while each subject was measured for any increases in fluid intelligence. Depending on their group, subjects were trained for between eight and nineteen days.

The results demonstrated that people trained in working memory have higher cognitive performance scores in the area of fluid intelligence than those without. Also, those with longer training time frames perform better than those with shorter training periods. Dr. Susanne M. Jaeggi, who led the research team, stated, “Our findings clearly show that training on certain memory tasks transfer to fluid intelligence…We also find that individuals with lower fluid intelligence scores at pre-test could profit from the training."

While the data does not indicate how long the effect lasts, the assumption is that, at minimum, the trend of improving mental performance would likely continue as long as training is consistent over the long term. Higher fluid intelligence scores open the door for higher I.Q. test scores. A person of a particular level of crystallized knowledge can therefore score higher on an I.Q. test after improving his or her working memory through strategic brain fitness training.