Are My "Brain-Boosting" Experiments Paying Off?
July 12, 2009

July 12th Update:
    I've now been on brain-boosting supplements for more than a week, and have been chipping away at the dual n-back training program that's supposed to raise your IQ. How much? the original study cut off after 19 half-hour training sessions, and as of that end-point, there didn't seem to be any leveling off of the rates of rise of the trainees scores. I've looked, but haven't found anything yet that points toward follow-on studies.
    Here's a testimonial for Mind Sparke Brain Fitness Pro™: Brain Fitness Pro Increased My IQ Score 12 Points In 19 Days ...  The before-and-after IQ tests that the subject used were free online IQ tests rather than official, formally validated IQ tests. Here are comments from "Shaun Luttin") who has worked seriously at mastering the dual n-back training program. This also includes a report concerning "Lloyd" in Florida who, after being rejected by Mensa (Iq >= 130), registered 151 on the WAIS-III after three months of Brain Fitness training. (This is remarkable if it's really representative of what can happen. The WAIS-III, unlike the Raven Progressive Matrices or the BOMAT, tests crystallized intelligence as well as fluid intelligence.) Of course, extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof.
    Here's another interesting dual n-back thread. And here's a report from yesterday, July 11th: Working-Memory Training Report - martin - Session 175.,  and this: Improvements in n-back scores. 
    Getting back to brain-boosting supplements, it's hard to detect an escalation in IQ when you're reading "Hansel and Gretel" to your toddler, or blowing the debris off the driveway, but I'm cognizant of a high level of verbal fluency that may be have been appreciably improved. (It's hard to tell because I haven't been involved over this past week in any writing that has given rein to verbal proficiency.) 

July 5th Update:
It seems to me that my brain-boosting experiment really is producing a ponderable effect. My verbal fluency is quite high, and I'm remembering names and trivia that seem to be beyond what I might otherwise expect. I'll be upping my dose of Advanced Orthomolecular Research' Ortho Mind 1.0. AOR states that their product exhibits a U-shaped response curve, and recommends increasing one's dosage gradually to assess one's optimum dosage.
July 4^th:
    I don't really know. Without before-and-after testing, how can you tell? Any claims that "a mental fog will lift and you'll feel more alive" is, at least in my experience so far, pure hype. And it's not as though most of us don't know what its like to find ourselves in a mental fog. It happens on "blah" morning when we just can't seem to get started, like, maybe, the first day back to work after we've been on vacation, or the day after we've engaged in unaccustomed physical exercise. Drinking a strong cup or two of coffee may banish the "blahs", at least temporarily. But it's my fantasy that if you woke up tomorrow and found that your IQ were 30 points higher than it is today, you wouldn't immediately notice the difference. I suspect that having a higher IQ doesn't cause us to experience the world more vividly. I suspect that sensitivity to one's environment has to do with one's age, and with the novelty of experiences. I could imagine that your additional 30 points of IQ might manifest itself only when you tackled a new problem, or began to speak or write, and found alternative words and phrases rolling trippingly off your tongue or keyboard.
    My personal notion is that alertness and photographic recall is part of the armamentarium of a young mammal, particularly in the absence of speech. The young mammal must learn at a very rapid rate, and must retain what it learns. This need to record experiences in non-verbal terms would seem to me to call for alertness and eidetic recall in children, and would explain why a photographic memory tends to fade away when a person reaches adulthood.
    Anyway, these are my speculations.
    That having been said, it seems as though my thinking, my verbal fluency, and my memory have improved somewhat, but the changes are subtle, and highly subjective. I could be experiencing a placebo effect. Also, it's possible that nootropic effects could require more time to come to full fruition.