Category: Intelligence

One simple belief could improve your performance dramatically.

People who believe intelligence can be improved perform better on tests, research finds.

First graders who believed their intelligence could be developed got better grades.

The gap continued to widen over two years between those who had a ‘growth mindset’ and those who believed their intelligence was fixed.

The conclusions come from two studies of 464 students.

Both studies showed the power of a growth mindset.

In the first study, students’ beliefs were merely measured.

In the second study, one group was given a course encouraging them to believe that their intelligence could be improved.

Once again, the growth mindset led to higher grades and a widening gap compared to those who thought their intelligence was fixed.

The researchers put the improved performance of the ‘growth mindset’ students down to more effort and a more positive reaction to setbacks.

Professor Carol Dweck, study co-author, said:

“These findings highlight the importance of students’ beliefs for their academic progress.

They also show how these beliefs can be changed to maximize students’ motivation and achievement.”

The study was published in the journal Child Development (Blackwell et al., 2007).

It lead to higher scores on measures of IQ, self-control and grit.

Taking a midday nap is linked to higher IQ scores, new research finds.

Naps have even been linked to similar cognitive boosts as those provided by a full night’s sleep.

Children in the study who took a nap were happier and scored higher on measures of verbal IQ, self-control and grit.

Around 20 percent of children are drowsy during the school day, which a nap helps alleviate.

Poor sleep has negative effects on the cognitions, emotions and physiology.

Professor Adrian Raine, study co-author, said:

“Children who napped three or more times per week benefit from a 7.6% increase in academic performance in Grade 6.

How many kids at school would not want their scores to go up by 7.6 points out of 100?”

The conclusions come from a study of 2,928 children in China, where napping is more commonplace — even in adulthood.

The children were followed from when they were toddlers through to adolescence, with various tests given periodically.

The results showed that longer naps were linked to better performance in tests of verbal IQ.

Dr Sara Mednick, study co-author, said:

“Many lab studies across all ages have demonstrated that naps can show the same magnitude of improvement as a full night of sleep on discrete cognitive tasks.

Here, we had the chance to ask real-world, adolescent schoolchildren questions across a wide range of behavioral, academic, social, and physiological measures.

The more students sleep during the day, the greater the benefit of naps on many of these measures.”

Students who napped were also more likely to be better behaved.

Dr Jianghong Liu, the study’s first author, said:

“The midday nap is easily implemented, and it costs nothing.

Not only will this help the kids, but it also takes away time for screen use, which is related to a lot of mixed outcomes.”

The study was published in the journal Sleep (Liu et al., 2019).

Eat it once a week for the full effect.

Eating fish once a week is linked to higher IQs and better sleep, research finds.

This study is one of the first to provide more concrete links between omega-3 fatty acids and improved intelligence and sleep.

Dr Jianghong Liu, the study’s first author, said:

“This area of research is not well-developed.

It’s emerging.

Here we look at omega-3s coming from our food instead of from supplements.”

For the study, the researchers followed 541 children aged 9-11 in China.

Children who reported eating fish once a week had almost 5 IQ points more than those who ate little or none.

More fish was also linked to fewer sleep disturbances.

Professor Adrian Raine, study co-author, said:

“Lack of sleep is associated with antisocial behavior; poor cognition is associated with antisocial behavior.

We have found that omega-3 supplements reduce antisocial behavior, so it’s not too surprising that fish is behind this.”

Professor Jennifer Pinto-Martin, study co-author, said:

“It adds to the growing body of evidence showing that fish consumption has really positive health benefits and should be something more heavily advertised and promoted.

Children should be introduced to it early on.

Introducing the taste early makes it more palatable.

It really has to be a concerted effort, especially in a culture where fish is not as commonly served or smelled.

Children are sensitive to smell.

If they’re not used to it, they may shy away from it.”

Small increases in the amount of fish consumed could be beneficial to families.

Professor Raine said:

“Doing that could be a lot easier than nudging children about going to bed.

If the fish improves sleep, great. If it also improves cognitive performance — like we’ve seen here — even better. It’s a double hit.”

The study was published in the journal Scientific Reports (Liu et al., 2017).

The dietary supplement creatine can improve both your memory and intelligence.

Creatine — a popular dietary supplement — boosts IQ and working memory, research finds.

Creatine is generally known as a supplement used by athletes for gaining muscle mass.

But that is not its only effect.

For the research vegetarians and vegans were given creatine supplementation.

Dr Caroline Rae, who led the study, explained the choice:

“Vegetarians or vegans were chosen for the study as carnivores and omnivores obtain a variable level of creatine depending on the amount and type of meat they eat – although to reach the level of supplementation in this experiment would involve eating around 2 kg of meat a day!”

Dr Rae said that creatine was a natural choice to test:

“We know that creatine plays a pivotal role in maintaining energy levels in the brain.

So it was a reasonable hypothesis that supplementing a diet with creatine could assist brain function.”

The creatine supplementation was tested over six weeks with participants taking 5g each day.

Dr Rae explained the results of the cognitive tests:

“Both of these tests require fast brain power and the Raven’s task was conducted under time pressure.

The results were clear with both our experimental groups and in both test scenarios: creatine supplementation gave a significant measurable boost to brain power.

For example in the digit span test subjects ability to remember long numbers, like telephone numbers, improved from a number length of about 7 to an average of 8.5 digits.

These findings underline a dynamic and significant role of brain energy capacity in influencing brain performance.

Increasing the energy available for computation increases the power of the brain and this is reflected directly in improved general ability.”

Olfactory disadvantage

Be aware, though, that long-term creatine supplementation has not been fully tested.

There are also certain olfactory disadvantages:

“To be frank taking the supplement can make you a considerably less ‘fragrant’ person.

However creatine supplementation may be of use to those requiring boosted mental performance in the short term – for example university students.”

The study was published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society: Biological Sciences (Rae et al., 2013).

IQ is about more than just solving puzzles or making good decisions.

Flexibility is at the heart of intelligence.

How the brain is wired along with how this wiring reacts to shifts in intellectual demands is what makes someone intelligent, argues Professor Aron Barbey, author of a recent study.

Intelligence is all about being able to ‘flexibly transition’ between different ‘network states’.

He said:

“When we say that someone is smart, we understand intuitively what that means.

Usually, we’re referring to how good they are at making decisions and solving particular types of problems.

But recently in neuroscience, there’s been a focus on understanding in biological terms how general intelligence arises.”

The brain has a variety of different modules — crudely put, memory, vision, language and so on — and each has a specific function.

Professor Barbey said:

“For example, brain regions within the occipital lobe at the back of the brain are known to processes visual information.

To identify an object, we also must classify it.

That doesn’t depend only on vision.

It also requires conceptual knowledge and other aspects of information processing, which are supported by other brain regions.

And as the number of modules increases, the type of information represented in the brain becomes increasingly abstract and general.”

But it is how all these modules work together that really creates human intelligence, Professor Barbey said:

“The prefrontal cortex, a structure at the front of the brain, for example, has expanded dramatically over the course of human evolution.

But really, the entire brain – its global architecture and the interactions among lower- and higher-level mechanisms – is required for general intelligence.”

Professor Barbey said:

“General intelligence requires both the ability to flexibly reach nearby, easy-to-access states – to support crystallized intelligence – but also the ability to adapt and reach difficult-to-access states – to support fluid intelligence.

What my colleagues and I have come to realize is that general intelligence does not originate from a single brain region or network.

Emerging neuroscience evidence instead suggests that intelligence reflects the ability to flexibly transition between network states.”

The study was published in the journal Trends in Cognitive Sciences (Barbey, 2017).