Improving Fluid Intelligence by Training Working Memory

通过训练工作记忆提高流体智力主要研究人员：约翰·乔尼兹密歇根大学流体智力(通常被称为“智商”的一个重要组成部分)是独立于先前获得的知识推理和解决新问题的能力，因此它被认为是学习中最重要的因素之一。此外，流动智力与职业和教育方面的成功密切相关。有相当大的共识认为，流动智力是高度可遗传的，但这并不意味着它不能受到教育和社会化的影响。最近，密歇根大学约翰·乔尼德斯博士的研究小组发表了一篇广受好评的文章，他们在文章中报告了从高要求的工作记忆任务的训练转移到液体智力测量的证据。工作记忆是负责短期存储信息的系统，这些信息将用于更高水平的认知处理。受试者接受了一项工作记忆任务的训练，这项任务需要同时记住空间和语言信息，这些信息必须随着任务的继续而不断更新。这种工作记忆训练效应是一个令人惊讶的发现，这既是因为之前训练智商的努力到目前为止还没有成功，也因为从任何训练任务到另一项任务的迁移效应在内容上与训练任务不同的情况太少了。尽管受训的任务与智力测试本身完全不同，但有问题的转移是结果。此外，研究结果还表明，智商的提高与训练量密切相关：训练量越多，液态智力的改善就越大。目前由美国国家科学基金会资助的项目旨在研究这种训练效果的大脑基础。它的理论基础是，必须成功地从工作记忆转移到智力测量，因为两者之间有共同的大脑机制。该项目包括测试参与者的液体智力，对他们进行为期5周的工作记忆任务的培训，这项任务已被证明会影响液体智力，然后在训练后测试他们的液体智力。至关重要的是，参与者将在接受智力测试时使用功能磁共振成像(FMRI)进行扫描，在培训的早期和后期对工作记忆进行扫描，然后在培训后进行智力测试时再次扫描。这些数据应该会产生关于工作记忆和流体智力背后的大脑区域的重要见解，以及这些区域是否如预期的那样在两组任务之间重叠。这项研究项目在几个方面具有重要意义。首先，了解工作记忆和流体智力之间的关系有助于制定提高流体智力的训练方案。毫无疑问，促进个人智力只会在社会生产力和解决社会问题的智力方法方面为社会带来好处。其次，了解工作记忆和智力之间共有的大脑机制，可以预测在某些大脑创伤后，哪些认知技能会丧失，哪些补救措施可能有效。第三，从事该项目的本科生、研究生和博士后研究人员将学习在功能磁共振成像环境中扫描的基础知识和实验技能，从而加强他们的科学培训。

Improving Fluid Intelligence by Training Working MemoryPrincipal Investigator: John JonidesUniversity of MichiganFluid intelligence (an important component of what is usually termed "IQ") is the ability to reason and to solve new problems independently of previously acquired knowledge, and so it is considered one of the most important factors in learning. Moreover, fluid intelligence is closely related to professional and educational success. There is considerable agreement that fluid intelligence is highly heritable, but this does not mean that it cannot be influenced by education and socialization. Recently, the research group of Dr. John Jonides at the University of Michigan published a widely acclaimed article in which they report evidence of transfer from training on a demanding working memory task to measures of fluid intelligence. Working memory is the system that is responsible for the short-term storage of information to be used in the service of higher-level cognitive processing. Individuals were trained on a working memory task that required simultaneously holding in mind spatial and verbal information that constantly had to be updated as the task continued. This working memory training effect is a surprising finding both because previous efforts to train IQ have thus far not been successful, and because it is all too rare to find transfer effects from any training task to another task that differs from the trained task in content. The transfer in question resulted even though the trained task was entirely different from the intelligence test itself. Furthermore, the results indicated that the amount of gain in IQ critically depended on the amount of training: the more training, the more improvement in fluid intelligence. The present NSF-funded project seeks to examine the brain basis of this training effect. It is based on the rationale that successful transfer from working memory to measures of intelligence must come about because there are brain mechanisms in common between the two. The project involves testing participants' fluid intelligence, training them for 5 weeks on a working memory task that has been shown to influence fluid intelligence, and then testing their fluid intelligence after training. Crucially, participants will be scanned using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) while they take intelligence tests, early and late in training on working memory, and then again when they take intelligence tests after training. The data should yield important insights about the brain regions that underlie working memory and fluid intelligence and whether these regions overlap between the two sets of tasks as expected. This research project is significant in several ways. First, understanding the relationship between working memory and fluid intelligence leads the way to developing training schemes to improve fluid intelligence. There can be little doubt that facilitating the intelligence of individuals can only yield benefits for society in its productivity and its intellectual approach to society's problems. Second, understanding the brain mechanisms that are shared in common between working memory and intelligence permits prediction about what cognitive skills will be lost after certain brain traumas and what remediations may be effective. Third, undergraduates, graduate students, and postdoctoral researchers who are engaged in the project will learn the fundamentals of scanning in the functional magnetic resonance imaging environment as well as experimental skills, thereby strengthening their scientific training.