Brain Training And Intelligence

You may have come across a number of websites that offer brain training. All of them may be claiming that the tools or games of their training programs are the best. Before you choose a program and enroll or sign up on it, you should know if brain training can really get you the results you want to have. You may also want to know if your cognitive abilities or Intelligence Quotient will improve with the training.

Brain Training Does Not Improve The Reasoning And Abstract-Thinking Abilities Of Students

Researchers have conducted several studies about the efficacy of brain training. Among them, the findings of the recent studies are note-worthy. One of the main findings is that brain-training tools may certainly help in sharpening the abilities of students in retaining information but these tools may not contribute in any manner towards increasing the intelligence of these young people. So, there may not be any significant improvement in the reasoning and abstract-thinking abilities of these youngsters.

Impact Of Test Preparations On Intelligence

Some of the researches focus on the preparations done by students for their tests to determine if these preparations have an impact on their intelligence. These researches are perhaps necessary because students nowadays take different types of standardized tests, ranging from assessment tests, those conducted during their elementary school studies and also those tests that are conducted to evaluate their capabilities before their college admission. These studies reveal that preparations for such tests increase the factual knowledge of the students. One of the studies also reveals that these preparations do not improve the overall IQ of these students.

Which Is Better? Crystallized Intelligence Or Fluid Intelligence

These researchers have categorized intelligence as "crystallized intelligence" and "fluid intelligence". "Crystallized intelligence" is nothing but knowledge of facts, details and information and "fluid intelligence" is the ability of the students to think through concepts, problems, etc. logically and abstractly.

The details of one of the studies were published in a journal called "Psychological Science" and in this journal, researchers have elaborated how they took the test scores as well as the IQ scores of about 1,400 eighth-grade students for their study. The researchers added that schoolwork did help the students in improving their test scores. But there was no marked impact on their fluid intelligence. These authors opine that fluid intelligence can be the right indicator for knowing the abilities of these students in areas like problem-solving, abstract thinking, memory capacity, processing speed, etc.

Benefits Of Crystallized Intelligence

At the same time, they add that test preparations do provide students with some value and that according to their researches, students who get high scores in standardized tests may be able to shine well in some of the important tests like SAT, ACT and Advanced-Placement tests.

In addition to this, students derive a few other benefits also due to crystallized knowledge. Apart from using their crystallized knowledge in their studies of subjects like maths, they can use their factual knowledge in their workplace also.

Does Brain Training Improve The Overall Intelligence Of Students?

In yet another study the findings of which have been published in the "Neuroscience" journal, researchers have found that some of the tools of brain training do help in enhancing the performances of students in certain specific tasks but these tools may not help in improving their overall intelligence.

Is Brain-Training Worth Pursuing?

The findings of these researches lead us to the question if brain training is worth taking up. It is true that these training games may not improve the IQ of students but they can help by increasing their knowledge and improving their abilities in certain specific areas.

So, as a student, you can enroll or sign up on an appropriate brain-training website. There are a number of brain-boosting apps you can download also. The only point is that you must not fall a prey to false promises or claims. You should not also forget that brain training can help only in temporary enhancement of your performance in certain specific tasks.