For the next month, I’ll be guest-blogging at the New York Times, on Olivia Judson’s site, The Wild Side. Olivia’s off working on her latest book, leaving the writing in various hands – including those of me and my co-author, Sandra Aamodt.
This week we write about intelligence, and how it can be affected by environmental factors. We focus on working memory, which when exercised can improve fluid, problem-solving intelligence. Practice on such a task can raise your IQ by at least four points, on average. Check it out…
Dear Professor Wang
I was interested in your article in the NYT today, as someone who once did some published statistical work on IQ but also as a political researcher. I’ve been into Buddhist type meditation for some time and I recently came across brainwave entrainment. I have a commercial package NQ2 which claims to induce alpha, theta and other brain waves through entrainment (induces a beat at the prescribed rate). They claim to have audio tracks that raise IQ.
The theory seems to be that we learn faster if we are in alpha or theta for instance.
I have tried meditation while in alpha and it seems to work to the extent that extraneous thoughts are less likely to intrude on focus on breath.
Do you have an opinion on b.w. entrainment as a means of raising IQ?
Michael Petty PhD – formerly faculty of educatiom, University of NSW, Australia
Thanks for the tip. I smell an interesting iPhone application…
Re: iPhone: Already exists.
See my link for the iPhone application ($5). I was thinking of making a free one though…